• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Scratch Advantage

cookie and kate

Banana Bread Recipe Comparison

October 26, 2019 by Kristen Henninger Leave a Comment

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!!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: banana, banana bread, bravetart, cookie and kate, recipe roundup, recipes, serious eats, Stella parks

Weekly Meal Plan #02: April 27 – May 03

April 28, 2019 by Kristen Henninger Leave a Comment

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!

Filed Under: Weekly Meal Plans Tagged With: beef, black beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, collard greens, cookie and kate, fried rice, meal plan, meal planning, recipes, rice, staples, swiss chard, tacos, weekly meal plan

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Banana Bread Recipe Comparison
  • Recipe Roundup #01
  • hello summer: May and June recap
  • Weekly Meal Plan #02: April 27 – May 03
  • Weekly Meal Plan #01: April 20 – April 26

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • October 2019
    • July 2019
    • April 2019

    Categories

    • Recipe Roundups
    • Uncategorized
    • updates
    • Weekly Meal Plans

    Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org

    Copyright © 2021 The Scratch Advantage on the Foodie Pro Theme