Banana Bread

1/2 cup margarine

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup mashed bananas

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon lemon juice

2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Cream margarine and sugar. Add eggs and beat. Add bananas, milk, and lemon juice. Sift dry ingredients and add. Add nuts. Bake in well-greased 8x4x3-inch loaf pan for 1 hour at 350 degrees, makes 1 loaf.

From the Lion House cookbook

I would double this because 1 loaf will not be enough to satisfy!

Popovers.

Popovers are delicious. Enough said.

Ingredients:

4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Heat oven to 425 degrees. beat together eggs, flour and salt. Put thumb size dabs of butter {yum} in each cup of a muffin pan. Heat the pan in the oven until the butter is bubbly. Beat in milk to the flour mixture {i just blend it all the ingredients my blender, so easy}. Remove pan from oven. Pour batter into cups, filling 2/3 full. bake 20 minutes, turn oven off and leave in oven 5 more minutes to prevent immediate collapse of popovers. Makes 12 popovers.

We love these with raspberry jam. When I make them for me and the hubs I halve the recipe, it's perfect.

Breadsticks

Yummy Breadsticks

Breadsticks

2 cups warm water

1 Tbsp. yeast

1 Tbsp. sugar

1 teas. salt

4+ cups flour

Combine water, yeast and sugar first and let sit for 2 min. Add salt and flour. Mix well. Preheat oven to 375. Let dough stand for 10-15 min. Roll out to size of large cookie sheet. Melt ¼ c. butter in cookie sheet in preheating oven. Lay down prepared dough onto cookie sheet. Spread ¼ c. melted butter on top and sprinkle generously with parmesan cheese and garlic salt. Cut dough into breadsticks with pizza cutter.

Bake on 375 for 15-20 min. until golden edges.

Banana Bread Muffins

I ate these muffins for two weeks straight on a roadtrip I took last month. Usually I get sick of food after a few times and can't eat it again for awhile. I don't do well with repetition in anything. When we finally ran out of muffins, I wished there were more. I don't know if its because the muffins are way good, or because I was super sick of the boys I was with trying to get me to eat McDonald's or PB and J's for most meals, but I was sad when they ran out.

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup pastry wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs beaten

2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp nutmeg

Combine the wet and dry ingredients separately, then mix them together.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. You can either cook this as banana bread in a bread pan for about an hour and fifteen minutes, or if you are like me and don't like waiting that long, then use muffin tins. I like the personal size of muffin tins much better anyways.

I actually made up the amounts of cinnamon, vanilla, and nutmeg. I always add them to my liking, they aren't meant to be in the recipe, so I've never measured how much I use. I use a lot of cinnamon, and then a regular amount of vanilla and nutmeg.

I always make the batter plain and then make three different options. I fill the muffins 2/3 full with batter. Then make about 1/4 of the muffins plain, 1/4 with walnut's and raisins, then make the last 1/2 with chocolate chips. I mix in the walnut's, raisins, and chocolate chips after the batter is in the tin's because then I can make them specific to each person. If your family or friends are much better than mine are at agreeing then I would try to choose one option and mix them before.

If you aren't a fan of wheat flour because it thickens the muffins then use all white flour or lower the amount of wheat flour used. If you want to make them a little bit healthier substitute some of the butter for applesauce. If I'm making them for other people I don't do this, but if they are for me and my family then I sometimes use 1/4 cup butter 1/4 cup applesauce.

Also make it as a banana bread loaf!