Over ripe bananas call for banana muffins!

Nice and fluffy banana muffins...the perfect snack!

For some reason we always seem to have really dark bananas lying around. I guess I should stop buying them but I think the problem is inconsistency. Sometimes I will buy 5 bananas and they will be gone in 2 days. Other time I will buy 5 and 4 of them will go black. The other day I decided to make some banana muffins. I know everyone has their favorite recipe for them but this one is really easy and there are no special or fancy ingredients to over take the banana flavor. Just good ol' banana muffins!!!

I have used this recipe over and over and it has never let me down.

Banana Muffins (adapted from the Better Homes and Garden New Cook Book)

Ingredients:

1-3/4 cups AP Flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/3 cup butter
2 Tbsp milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  
• Combine all ingredients but the nuts in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on low until all ingredients are blended. Change speed to high and beat for 2 minutes.
• Stir in the nuts.
• Pour the batter into a muffin pan lined with muffin cups. Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and a tester comes out clean.
• Allow to cool for about 10 minutes in pan and then remove from pan and continue to cool.

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Why I LOVE Foodbuzz...

Our menu for the evening at Todd English's Blue Zoo

They bought me dinner! And I don't mean just any dinner. They bought me and about 20 of my nearest and dearest Florida food bloggers a really, really nice dinner with cocktails and wine as well!!!

This happened on Saturday night. The planning for this has been a long time coming. I think it was around the middle of June when Jenn the Left Over Queen and I first started talking about getting together with a bunch of other bloggers. About this same time Foodbuzz, being the incredible people that they are implemented a program called Dine on Us that is available to all of their featured publishers!!! We jumped right on it and Jenn took the bull by the horns and pulled this thing all together. We were even fortunate enough to have Ryan from Foodbuzz fly all the way from San Francisco to hang out with us!!!

Jenn was able to get us an incredible private room for dinner at Todd English's Blue Zoo in the Swan and Dolphin Hotel in Orlando. Good thing too...we were really loud. Everyone talking about food and then the food came and boy was it incredible!

Amuse - Clam...bacon ragout

Second Course - beet salad...candied walnuts, goat cheese fondue

Third Course - spice route char...curried beluga lentils, zhataar carrot, yogurt spill

Fourth Course - sous vide amish chicken...parmessan polenta, picholine olive, deconstructed tomato sauce

Dessert - warm chocolate cake with liquid ganache center.....maracaibo chocolate cream pudding, peanut ice cream

Bloggers in attendance:

Jenn The Left Over Queen
Lys from Cooking in Stilettos
Christey and Peter from Foto Cuisine
Rachel from My Little Marshmallow
Chris from Pickles and Cake
Susan from Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy
Ingar from Taste Memory
Erin and Chris from The Olive Notes
Bryan from The Tattooed Gourmet

Take a minute and see what they have to say!

This photo here shows the huge difference between the way a photographer sees things and the way the rest of us do. This photo was taken on my camera by Christey from FotoCuisine. The way the light is shining through the wine and causing that incredible shadow on the table. Thanks Christey!!!

What a great night and I really hope we can do it again! You guys are incredible and reaffirmed my theory...food bloggers are some of the best people anywhere!!!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Chili and a product review

Wow...those onions are almost blinding!!!

A couple of weeks ago the people at Amazing Taste contacted me and asked me if I would like to sample some of their products. Of course I said yes. I like FREE things. I have had problems with this before though. I have been sent products with so many items in the ingredients that I couldn't pronounce and others items that I just would never use.

This time it was different though. When I got the seasoning packets (which sell for $.99) I was pleasantly surprised. One of the companies goals is to help people take cheaper (therefore tougher) pieces of meat and help make them better and saving you money at the same time!


Last night was one of those nights where I had been running everywhere and couldn't figure out what I was going to do for dinner so I was looking through the pantry and saw the seasoning packets and pulled out one for Chili. They also have special blends for poultry, pork, burgers, seafood, an all purpose malibu, and steak house seasonings. The best thing about Amazing Taste Seasonings is that they have hardly any ingredients in them. The chili seasoning has, get this, chili pepper and other spices, salt, and dehydrated garlic. Normally I would have made this without the aid of a seasoning packet but to be fair I wanted to try this.

Guess what? It was good. Now of course I change the recipe from the packet all up. I still added a pound of beef, but I also added onions, green peppers, fresh frozen tomatoes and black beans. Would I buy this? I would need to try some more of them before I could say that. Chili seasoning is so easy to do from scratch so maybe not that one but maybe one of the others. I'll let you know!

Used from my freezer:

1 green pepper (29 to go...a little help here guys???)
6 frozen whole tomatoes

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Brownies again...and an award!

Homemade Super Rich Chocolate Brownies w/ Walnuts and Pretzels!

It seems like every time we are due to get any bad weather or anything severe I want Brownies. Maybe these have become my comfort food? This time it was Hurricane Ike.


I know, I know we weren't even suppose to really get anything bad from it but it was out there and it was within 200 miles of us!!! Was I really just looking for an excuse??? Now in my defense we have had a lot of flooding due to heavy rains. Lots of wind with gust up to 40 miles an hour but nothing like having a huge storm pummel you head on...my prayers go out to the people in Ike's path.

Anyway. I made Brownies again. This time I added some walnuts and some pretzels (trying for that salty/sweet thing). I only had pretzel thins though and they got a bit soggy before it cooked up so use the regular size ones if you try this!

And this is how I ate my piece!!!

Homemade Super Rich Chocolate Brownies

Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Cookies.

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for pan
• 6 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

I also stirred in 3/4 cup of chopped walnuts and 1/2 cup of crushed pretzels.

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter an 8″square baking pan. Line pan with parchment paper, leaving 2 inches hanging over the sides. Butter parchment paper.

In a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, stir together butter, chocolate, and cocoa powder. Set aside to cool slightly.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Combine sugar, eggs, and vanilla using an electric mixer with a whisk attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale, about 4 minutes. Add chocolate mixture and mix until combined. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, mixing until combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Spread evenly with spatula. Bake about 35 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out with a few crumbs but is not wet. Let cool in pan about 15 minutes.

Lift brownies out of pan. Cool completely on a wire rack before cutting into squares.

This is a wonderful award that was passed on to me from Meryl's Musing which is a really fun blog filled with a little bit of everything. I am so truly honored every time that someone passes an award on to me. I love the validation that comes with it.

The rules are as follows:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog.

2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you (as shown above).

3) Nominate at least seven other blogs.

4) Add links to those blogs on your blog.

5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

So the ones that I am choosing are the ones that I read all of the time and have actually become "friends" with most of them.

Jenn - the left over queen
Peter at Kalofagas
Danni at On the Way to Critter Farm
Nuria at Spanish Recipes
Dharm at Dad~Baker and chef
Val at More Than Burnt Toast
and last but not least Brittany at Musings of a Barefoot Foodie

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Shrimp Diane

Yesterday was one of those weird days where I could find absolutely nothing that I wanted to make or have for dinner. Usually I have a pretty good idea by the ingredients that I have bought during the week. Am I becoming a little disheartened by my seemingly endless purge of my freezer and pantry? I guess there is a reason all of that food has been in there and not used! So guess what I did? I told T. to figure out dinner??? LOL!

He did a great job too.

This is what we had...

Sorry for the crappy picture but Hurricane Ike took my sunlight!
You get the idea though-shrimp, mushrooms, zucchini in a butter sauce!

Shrimp Diane

Ingredients:

1 lb of medium sized shrimp, cleaned with tails on
1 stick of butter-I never said T. cooks low-fat!!!
6 green onions, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
2 zucchini cut into sticks
1/4 Cup stock, preferably fish or shrimp
1/4 Cup fresh parsley, picked and chopped
1 package of your favorite pasta, cooked

Spice Mix:

1-1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp granulated garlic
pinch of cayenne (less depending on taste)
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp oregano

Directions:

• Mix the spice mix ingredients together and set aside.
• Melt 6 Tbsp of the butter in a large pan. When almost melted add the garlic, zucchini and the spice mix.
• Mix well and add the shrimp and cook for about a minute.
• Add the mushrooms and the stock and simmer until shrimp are almost fully cooked.
• Add the remaining butter and parsley and green onion and cook until the butter is completely melted.
• Serve over your favorite pasta with a generous serving of Parmesan cheese.

This was a really nice dish to come home from Karate to. Thanks so much T. Tonight we want Pizza-okay?

Things used from my freezer:

shrimp
zucchini
shrimp stock

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Stuffed Green Peppers and my never ending freezer purge

Italian stuffed green peppers!

My never ending battle to empty my freezer goes on...

I have a case of green peppers that I froze a couple of months ago that I am now working on. Last week Life is Good left a comment on one of my asking for help posts and it was a recipe for stuffed peppers. I have only ever had them stuffed with rice so this was a great idea.

The base of the recipe was bread crumbs. It was really just a list of ingredients which I was able to throw together and come up with a nice, quick and tasty dinner.

bread crumbs (make your own from some older bread)
fresh basil
fresh oregano
fresh parsley
garlic powder
salt
pepper
1 can of diced tomato with juice
olive oil
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan
1/2 cup cubed fresh mozzarella

I mixed all of this together in a bowl and stuffed them into my peppers. Stuff lightly. It's a lot of bread crumbs. I baked them at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. I served them with some Italian sausage and they made a really good dinner!

5 peppers down about 30 to go...HELP!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

My Dirty Little Secret!

We all have them. You know that dish that you whip together really fast using every single shortcut you can think of...well I did it the other day and EVERYONE LOVED IT!!!!

Believe it or not last week I had 2 funerals to attend. The first one was for my neighbor so I went to the viewing and showed my support but the other one was one of my very close friends husband. Neither of these were unexpected and they had both been in Hospice Care but it doesn't make their passing any easier.

Anyway on with my story...my friend was having an open house after the service and I told her I would bring a dish so that she had one less thing to worry about.

I stood and stared at my pantry for some inspiration. I stood there for a long, long time. I went to the fridge. Same thing. I couldn't even decide if I should do a sweet or a savory dish. I finally went through an old box I had of baking things and that's when it came to me. Fruit pizza!

Years ago at a school auction I had one a basket with a baking theme. You know the baskets that are chock full of everything you need to "bake". Cookie mixes, cake mixes, frosting, pancake mixes etc. Well I've used some of the stuff but lucky for me I had never had the need to use a bag of sugar cookie mix that was in there. I also had a very old tub of cream cheese frosting. I was so lazy on this I didn't even mix the frosting with whipped cream I just spread it on like it was from the tub and topped that bad boy with kiwi, strawberries and blueberries!

Normally I wouldn't even post something like this but it was such a hit. I had all sorts of people wanting to know how to make it, what was in it. Did I lie and tell them it was all from scratch or did I fess up? I'll never tell but this was that one dish at a pot luck that everyone raves over. This was it!!!


Fruit Pizza-Betty Crocker

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted 1 egg 1 cup whipping cream 1/2 cup Betty Crocker® Rich & Creamy cream cheese frosting (from 1-lb container) 3 1/2 cups assorted fresh fruit 1. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly spray 14-inch pizza pan or 15x10-inch baking pan with cooking spray. 2. In medium bowl, stir cookie mix, melted butter and egg until soft dough forms. Press dough in bottom of pan. Bake 10 to 15 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely, about 45 minutes. 3. In chilled medium bowl, beat whipping cream with electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. Gently stir frosting into whipped cream. Spread over cookie pizza. Arrange fruit on top.

Because everyone liked it so much I am going to submit this to Susan at Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy for her Blogiversary Bash! Happy first year Susan!!!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com