Strawberry Bread

I took a sick day today. I woke up to some weird inflammation in my right eye so off to the eye doctor I went. I feel like every couple of years something brings me to the eye doctor - and I have 20/20 vision. Very odd.

Like a typical parent, being home sick still means that I go to the grocery store, go to the bank, pick up the kids, etc... The only reason I wasn't at work (which would have been less exhausting) was that it would have been hard to look at the computer screen all day long.

After picking up the big monkey from school, I decided to make strawberry bread. With all the amazing summer fruit, it's time to take advantage of it. Everything went fine until I realized that we were about to be late for Taekwondo, approximately 40 minutes in to baking the bread (ugh!). So I turned off the oven and left the bread in it while we were gone.

The bread was SUPER EASY and quick to make.

STRAWBERRY BREAD

1 1/2 cups strawberries, sliced
1 c. sugar, divided (used 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of Splenda)
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour (used Whole Wheat White flour)
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. soda
1/4 t. cinnamon
2 eggs
1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 cup butter melted

Preheat oven 350. Grease and flour a loaf pan.
Sprinkle strawberrries with 1/2 of the sugar and set aside.


Combine dry ingredients including sugar.


Beat eggs until froathy. Add vanilla and melted butter.
Combine with dry ingredients. Put in strawberries and stir until mixed in.



Bake 60 to 70 minutes until a toothpick comes clean.

The bread finished cooking but wasn't as light and fluffy as it would have probably been had I baked it the whole time.

That's why I don't have a picture of the finished product.

However, it is quite tasty.

Breakfast

This morning the monkeys decided they wanted pancakes. Not the beautiful waffles that come out perfectly out of the All Clad waffle maker, but pancakes. The free-form ugly ones that don't come out perfectly. The kind I haven't had to make since getting the waffle maker.

But what the monkeys want, they usually get.

I opened up one of my favorite cookbooks, Cooking Light Complete, and turned to pancakes.
These are so easy, and very tasty. They taste wonderfully light and airy, but not low fat at all. To make the kids happy (and me), I did add about a 1/4 cup total of chocolate and peanut butter chips.

I also chopped up some apples, squeezed some lemon on them, and put them out to eat with the pancakes. The hard, tart apples were a a nice complement to the warm, soft, sweet pancakes.

The older monkey ate a piece of apple with EVERY piece of pancake. Did I mention she ate 4 pancakes and the younger monkey ate 2 pancakes???

Warning: These are some ugly pancakes.

Buttermilk Pancakes
Cooking Light Complete Cookbook

1 cup all-purpose flour ( I used whole wheat flour)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup low-fat buttermilk (I used kefir - which is pretty much the same thing)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten (for some reason you can't see the egg in the picture)
Cooking spray



1. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 4 ingredients (flour through salt) in a large bowl, and make a well in center of mixture. Combine buttermilk, oil, and egg; add to flour mixture, stirring until smooth.
2. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter for each pancake onto a hot nonstick griddle or nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray. Turn pancakes when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked. Yield: 9 (4-inch)




Sorry that these picture blow, but my camera had no charge so I used my cell phone camera.

Sunday mornings

During the week we are always busy. The kids eat a European supper (main big meal at 3:30pm or 4:00pm) and then a light meal (usually cereal and milk)at about 7:30pm (before bed). Which means that we don't eat dinner together as a family.

On Sundays, we try our hardest to eat breakfast/brunch together as a family. Recently, I received an AMAZING All Clad waffle iron (a Williams Sonoma exclusive) as a present. We had had the Disney Mickey waffle maker, and the Disney princess waffle maker, but neither of those turned out "REAL" waffles.





With this waffle maker I've been able to turn out wonderful (and pretty) waffles. Normally, I'm an omelet person, but I'm good with eating these waffles - because they are SO TASTY!

Lately I've been using a Mark Bittman recipe for waffles but my brain was so scattered this morning that I didn't remember which cookbook his recipe was in. So...Cooking Light to the rescue. I used the recipe from The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook (the one published in 2000, not the latest one).

Blueberry Waffles
Yield
8 (4-inch) waffles (serving size: 1 waffle)

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
Dash of salt
1 2/3 cups skim milk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 egg whites, lightly beaten
1 egg, lightly beaten
Cooking spray
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (I used mini chocolate chips and PB chips instead)

Preparation


Combine first 3 ingredients in a medium bowl; stir well. Combine milk, oil, egg whites, and egg in a small bowl; stir well. Add to flour mixture, stirring until well-blended.

Coat a waffle iron with cooking spray, and preheat. Spoon about 1/3 cup of batter per waffle onto hot waffle iron, spreading batter to edges. Spoon 2 tablespoons blueberries (I had the kids sprinkle on the chocolate and peanut butter chip) per waffle evenly over batter. Cook 6 to 7 minutes or until steaming stops; repeat procedure with remaining batter and blueberries. Serve with syrup.




Note: If you are using frozen blueberries, do not thaw them before adding to batter. (This did not apply to me).

Nutritional Information
Calories:152 (30% from fat)
Fat:5g (sat 1.0g,mono 1.4g,poly 2.1g)
Protein:4.9g
Carbohydrate:22g
Fiber:.9g
Cholesterol:22mg
Iron:1.1mg
Sodium:149mg
Calcium:110mg

These are really good, and don't taste "light" at all. The big monkey LOVES to cover hers with the Greek FAGE yogurt (very thick, almost sour cream like), syrup and strawberry slices. The little monkey LOVES to DRENCH hers with syrup.

I actually made a double batch of these so that the big monkey can take some to school for lunch - which is my daily battle to try and find something she WANTS to take for lunch instead of buying lunch at school (which I sometimes give up on and let her do anyways).