The Scratch Advantage

Banana Bread Recipe Comparison

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Let me tell you about one of my favorite snacks. Growing up, my mom would make all sorts of quick breads: banana, zucchini, pumpkin… All super moist and usually loaded with chocolate chips. Banana bread was the first bread I learned to make in my first out of college job in my tiny New York apartment while comfort baking during long weekends by myself. (Not to make it sound too cool… I was definitely not in New York City, just in a tiny suburb about 1 hour north of Manhattan!)

While I still have yet to try my mom’s recipe (I know! I know! I’ll get to it!), I have several favorites that I’ve made for years and one that I made today and immediately loved.

My Go-To Recipes

  1. The Kitchn: This was the first banana bread recipe that I made repeatedly. I loved it because it was so immediately flexible. Not enough eggs? No problem. No electric mixer? Just whisk it with a fork! It is not the most complex tasting recipe, but it is easy and a great place to start.
  2. Cookie & Kate: Up until today, this has been my go-to for several years. Katherine’s recipe feels healthier than other banana breads. I like that it uses whole wheat flour and natural sweetener. For oil, I use olive instead of coconut because I don’t like to melt the coconut oil in the microwave. I honestly don’t think you can tell a difference. I use maple syrup instead of honey because maple adds a much more complex flavor to such a simple bread. It is also a very easy recipe in that it requires no electric mixer to create. The recipe probably is just as flexible as The Kitchn’s recipe, though I haven’t really tested the limits of it.
  3. Stella Parks (aka Bravetart) on Serious Eats: This is my new favorite, which I made today! I had extra oat flour and 4 ripe bananas, so this morning, this banana bread was meant to be. The recipe provides ingredient weights. I like that I can use my kitchen scale instead of getting out a bunch of measuring cups. The spicing of it is perfect. The cloves and nutmeg seem to bring out a more pronounced banana flavor, more so than other recipes. The banana has definite impact instead of just being what makes the bread so moist. I did not add pecans or chocolate chips because I didn’t have any. Though I may try it next time, I really like the simplicity of plain banana bread. The recipe used coconut oil in its solid form, which I appreciated. The only downside is that you seem to need an electric mixer for this recipe. Plus, if you don’t keep oat flour around, you’d need to invest in the commercial oat flour as an ingredient. The bread also uses all purpose flour and traditional sugar, so it’s definitely not salable as a truly healthy snack!

A side note… I switched to making the banana bread recipes in a muffin tin. Muffins are much more portable than having to slice bread every day. They also bake much quicker than a full loaf!

I hope the above recipes inspire you to use up your leftover bananas this week. Let me know if you make anything!!

Recipe Roundup #01

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I am recapping a bunch of new recipes that I made over the last couple weeks/months for you guys! I will review and let you know what changes we made for each recipe.

New blog author favorite: The Defined Dish

I love following the Alex from The Defined Dish! The recipes are all very approachable, healthy, and delicious. Plus, she lives in Dallas TX, so her seasons are the same as mine… which is helpful when all the other bloggers I am following are posting soups and chilis right now but it’s still 90+ degrees in Texas.

These are the recipes I have tried so far from her website:

  1. Paleo Sweet and Sour Chicken Stir Fry (5/5) — Trey and I love this one and have made it several times since first discovering it! We are not following a paleo diet, so we use regular rice and the “normal” versions of some ingredients. For example, we use soy sauce instead of coconut aminos. The amount of sauce is great for just the chicken, but when you add rice, I think we prefer a bit more sauce so I would 1.5x the sauce recipe if you are similar-minded. (If you are worried it would not be enough sauce, I’d go ahead and 1.5x the recipe.)
  2. Easy Chicken and Vegetable Curry (4/5) — I really like this one, but I feel like I prefer the vegetables in it to the chicken. I think that is a personal preference though because Trey likes the chicken a lot in this meal. I usually have made it with regular potatoes, not sweet potatoes, because that is what I’ve had around to use. We serve this with regular rice as well, not cauliflower rice.
  3. Ginger-Scallion Chicken Fried Cauliflower Rice (3/5) — This one was OK but we didn’t use cauliflower rice, which was probably a mistake! We tried to use regular rice but the volumes of cauliflower rice to regular rice do not equate… so we ended up with a huge volume of rice to chicken. What I would do next time, I would probably just make the ginger-scallion chicken with the sauce and serve it over the rice instead of doing it as a fried rice. I would also add more scallions than it calls for!
  4. Sizzling Shrimp Fajitas (2/5) — We liked the concept of this but found our shrimp to turn out way too watery for some reason. I think it may have been something to do with the brand that we bought, but I’m not 100% certain. We didn’t buy the tail-on shrimp and ours were a lot smaller than hers appear to be in the picture. I would maybe try this again, but I’m not dying to do it again.

Besides Alex’s blog, we have also made the recipes below.

  1. Pesto Mac & Cheese (5/5) — This is such an easy recipe, and the addition of the basil pesto makes this meal feel more elevated than a normal mac & cheese recipe. The only change we made was just using normal sharp cheddar (tillamook brand!) cheese because we didn’t want to splurge on Havarti.
  2. Chocolate Olive Oil Cake (5/5) — I was looking for a good potluck cake, and I didn’t want to head to the store… so this is what I ended up on. It is very delicious and extremely fudgy! Plus, it is very simple. I think you could make this honestly with any sort of oil because the taste does not come through at all.

Hope you all find something you enjoy! Let me know if you try any of these recipes!

Enjoy this photo of our delicious chocolate olive oil cake.

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake
Chocolate Olive Oil Cake from the Smitten Kitchen

hello summer: May and June recap

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Hello there! It has been a very hectic summer couple months. Thanks for sticking with me, if you’re reading this.

May and June sort of went like this…

Cruise, Memorial Day in Dallas, Michigan trip for work, Austin trip for my birthday… and then finally a couple relaxing weekends at home before the trips begin again. I will definitely try to plan some scheduled posts prior to future trips, as I know it is very difficult for me to remember to blog while traveling!

Kristen & Trey on the Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship
Kristen & Trey on the Cruise
Spirit of Detroit statue
Spirit of Detroit
Austin day trip to Gruene Hall
Austin day trip to Gruene Hall

We have made a couple new recipes lately, mostly from Smitten Kitchen’s wonderful website and book — Smitten Kitchen Every Day.

For example… we made this delicious squash and potato torte with some of our summer squash from our CSA box.

Squash and Potato Torte from SK
Squash and Potato Torte from Smitten Kitchen

I also bought this spiralizer from OXO to make noodles from the zucchini and squash we keep receiving! I’ve used it once, and it works pretty well. I combined our squash noodles with a pasta dish, based off of another SK recipe for corn, bacon and parmesan pasta.

Tonight, my husband and I will be making corn fritters and have already made a delicious strawberry cake to celebrate the 4th of July. We are both working tomorrow, unfortunately, but we are excited to have the day off in the middle of the week!

Summer Strawberry Cake
Happy 4th of July with Summer Strawberry Cake
Summer Strawberry Sheet Cake
Summer Strawberry Sheet Cake

Strawberry cake review: definitely 5/5 stars. Trey and I both loved it, and Trey doesn’t even normally like cake. You could probably improve it by serving with whipped cream, but I didn’t have any heavy cream with me to make any. Plus, we thought it was pretty delicious on its own.

Let me know if you try any of the linked recipes!

I’ll be back on here soon to share our latest meal plan and recipe recap.

Weekly Meal Plan #02: April 27 – May 03

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Can you believe it’s almost May? I think every year, April is one of those months that goes by very quickly for me. I am excited for more spring and summer vegetables to use in our meal plans over the next couple weeks!

Recap of last week’s meal plan:

Last week, we made quite a few meals, and I wanted to first give you a quick recap of the recipes we made and what we thought about them.

  1. Spaghetti with Swiss Chard : 4/5 stars!
    • I really enjoy this meal. Last time we made it, it was too spicy, so this time, we reduced the amount of chili flakes we added to about half. It definitely improved the heat level for us. This recipe is one of my favorite ways to use Swiss chard.
  2. White bean & kale quesadillas : 5/5 stars!
    • We loved this meal! The texture of the kale with the white beans was fantastic, and the spicing was perfect for us. I will say that doing them one at a time on a skillet took FOREVER. Next time, we will do them on our griddle so we can do 4-5 at a time and reduce the cook time by 30-40 min.
  3. Braised beef with lots of onions : 5/5 stars!
    • This recipe is one of our favorites, though we always waffle on which sides to make with it. This time around we had it with some bread and leftover beet salad. I do think this is more of a winter dish. However, the flavors are fantastic and made a fun Easter dinner celebration.
  4. Multigrain bread : 2/5 stars
    • I am planning on writing a whole separate post on this bread. In general, I was not able to get a good rise out of this bread during the final prove. It tasted fine but turned out very flat and dense.
  5. New York Chopped Salad : 3/5 stars
    • Surprisingly, we both liked this one. It was a good way to use up the romaine lettuce we had from the farmers’ market, though it was a bit time-consuming with the preparation. I’d make it again, but I may not stick to a specific recipe or do the same dressing.

In general, I won’t repeat reviews unless we changed something about the recipe, as we do repeat recipes (e.g. baked oatmeal) fairly often.

This Week’s Meal Plan:

Now onward to this week’s meal plan…

Weekly meal plan - April 27 to May 03
Weekly meal plan – April 27 to May 03
CSA Vegetables - Carrots, broccoli, Swiss chard, black beans, collard greens, romaine lettuce
Carrots, Broccoli, Swiss Chard, Black Beans, Collard Greens, Romaine Lettuce

We are about to go on vacation next week (HOORAY!) so this week will be a bit busy due to packing, trip planning, etc. Before trips, I try to use up a lot of pantry-items or items that I think may go bad when we are away. We actually did not use any of our cookbook sources this week and are falling back on our staples. These tend to be easy dishes that can be changed up to match the veggies and ingredients you have on hand.

We will try one recipe that’s new — the lemony pasta with collard greens from Cookie and Kate’s website. I’m excited for a new way to use collard greens and will keep you updated on how it goes.

Our staple recipes…

Vegetable fried rice is based on this fantastic recipe from Cookie and Kate’s website. This week, based on what we received in the CSA, we made it with Swiss chard, cabbage, and spring onions from the farmers market. My husband was suspicious about the Swiss chard, but he really enjoyed it in this dish!

Our version of tacos will be basically roasting whatever veggies (broccoli in this case) we have on hand, cooking black beans, and then serving with simple toppings. Our toppings include cheese, salsa, cherry tomatoes and avocado. We will also thaw some of our grass-fed ground beef from Gina’s Acres farm that we bought in the last farmers market in our area.

After Wednesday, you’ll see a lot of TBD — we need to be sure to use up our CSA veggies that will arrive on Wednesday. Thus, I did not set any specific plans as I think we will improvise based on what we receive.

What are you cooking this week? Are you excited to get into summer veggie season? I know I am ready for tomatoes and corn!

Weekly Meal Plan #01: April 20 – April 26

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Hello and welcome! I wanted to start by sharing my weekly meal plan with you, and then over the course of the week, as I make the meals, I will pop in occasionally and review the recipes.

Overview of my meal planning strategy:

I use a meal planning tool from Rifle Paper Co. (pictured below). It’s very simple — just a paper pad with a tear-off grocery list. I typically list all my dry goods on the left of the grocery list and all my produce on the right.

Weekly meal plan for April 20-26
April 20-26 Weekly Meal Plan

I typically make a list of the vegetables that I need to use and try to find good recipes that will use them in the most efficient way possible. I’m still working on this, and I definitely make mistakes where I end up with some food waste. I start with the dinners that we will make for the week and consult my recipe books for recipes that I want to make. Lunches for my husband are typically sandwiches. For me, I either make a large salad in advance or eat leftovers, depending on how much we cook on the weekend, how busy we are, and what the planned dinners are (whether they pack well for lunch). Breakfasts are either smoothies, baked oatmeal, whole-grain muffins, or breakfast cookies. We have been really into baked oatmeal lately and typically make a double batch to last through the week.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

For this week, you may notice that we don’t have a lot of produce on the list. My husband and I are currently trying out a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). What this means is that on Wednesdays, we get a big bag of produce from a local farmer — basically, a share of what they produced that week. We live far outside of Houston, so I was excited when I learned about a local farmer that would actually deliver to us in our area. I will share more details about our CSA experience throughout the week. It’s been really fun but definitely a culinary challenge!

Our vegetables from the CSA that we are using this week are: romaine lettuce, kale, and Swiss chard. We have already used the beets and carrots that came last week on Wednesday. I’m hoping to get more carrots this upcoming week on Wednesday. Otherwise, I’ll have to run back to the store or skip them in our dinner on Wednesday night. I also have a cabbage, but cabbage will stay good for a while in the fridge. I’ll probably use it sparingly over the next couple weeks!

Dinners this week:

  1. White bean & kale quesadillas — Mostly Plants cookbook
  2. Braised beef with lots and lots of onions — Six Seasons cookbook
  3. New York Chopped Salad — Mostly Plants cookbook
  4. Pizza night!
  5. **Bonus: Spaghetti with Swiss Chard, Pine Nuts, and Raisins — Six Seasons cookbook
    • Technically, we’re making this for lunch on Saturday. I find it helpful to make meals that require a bit more effort for lunches on weekends (depending on schedule), as I typically have way more energy than I do in the evenings. That’s why Saturday has a more complicated meal for lunch and a simple meal for dinner!

My lunches this week will be primarily leftovers, as I have a couple events at work where lunch will be provided. Sometimes I still bring my own lunch as a backup, in case I dislike whatever is provided or something falls through! Leftovers make it easy to be flexible with your schedule, as opposed to meal-prepping specific lunches prior to the start of the week.

I’ll also indicate in the Miscellaneous section if I’m making anything special — i.e. snacks, desserts, baked goods, etc. This weekend, I will try to make my husband’s sandwich bread from scratch! I’m going to use a recipe from the Pretty Simple Cooking cookbook for a Multigrain Artisan Loaf. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!

This Week’s Cookbooks:

Meal Planning Cookbooks - Pretty Simple Cooking, mostly plants, Six Seasons - April 20-26
Week 01 – April 20-26 Cookbooks

The Mostly Plants cookbook is new to me, but I have the Pollan Family Cookbook already and am excited to try recipes from their new book! I buy into the flexitarian diet, and I am excited for a book to showcase plant-focused cooking.

Six Seasons is a favorite of mine, as it focuses on vegetables in season and develops the recipes based on in-season produce offerings. The only caveat is that in Texas, our seasons are slightly different than the book, so I often am in a couple seasons at once with my produce!

I love A Couple Cooks blog, and their cookbook (Pretty Simple Cooking) is fantastic! They have recipes organized by time so you know which recipes to pick depending on whether you are cooking on a week day or weekend, etc.

Our weekly based oatmeal recipe is from Sally’s Baking Addiction (1-Bowl Baked Oatmeal). We love it, and it’s super customizable for what you have on hand.

What are you making this week? Are you part of a CSA or do you shop your local farmers’ markets? Leave your comments and recipe suggestions below!

Happy meal planning!