Monkey Breakfast Cookies

I don't know what these cookies should be called, but being loaded with bananas for my little monkeys made me think they should be called Monkey Cookies. These are seriously some of the easiest cookies to make ever! Only 4 ingredients. These are something I can feel good about giving to my kids for breakfast or any other time of day for that matter. Use up those ugly bananas sitting on your counter to make these cookies from The Sweet Life. These are completely safe to eat raw, too, if you're starving while you're making them!

Monkey Breakfast Cookies
1 cup ripe mashed bananas
1 1/2 cups quick oats
1/3 cup peanut butter (try them with crunchy!)
1/4 cup chocolate chips

Combine the bananas, oats, and peanut butter in a bowl. Once the batter is roughly uniform, fold in the chocolate chips. Preheat oven to 170C/350F. Drop cookies by the tablespoon onto the pan, flattening just slightly to help the centers cook more evenly. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Cool and enjoy!

Note: If you are gluten-free, you should buy oats specifically marked as "gluten free" and not assume that locally packaged oats are. 

What's on Our Plates?

I am not the best at coming up with or writing recipes, but I told Lizzy maybe I would post some meal plans on here, as I do enjoy finding recipes that work well here or can easily be adapted and making a plan for the week.  I put my original plan here and noted a few changes that I ended up making.  Seems that the end of the week usually brings some changes in plans!

Monday
Breakfast--cereal
Lunch--Office
Dinner--Moroccan Chickpea Stew (with leftover chicken pieces, green beans, and carrots added in and no greens)

Tuesday
Breakfast--oatmeal with bananas
Lunch--egg salad and crackers, cucumbers, fruit
Dinner--One Pot Spaghetti, roasted vegetables
peach crumble

Wednesday
Breakfast--cereal
Lunch--Cheesy Beans, fruit
Dinner--leftovers
apple muffins
On Wednesday evenings, we meet up with our team, and we bring a snack to share and pack dinner for the kids and then eat a quick dinner of leftovers when we get home because my husband has to jump into work calls.

Thursday
Breakfast--pancakes
Lunch--office
We had to wait on a plumber and ended up at home with leftovers instead.
Dinner--Spanish Bean and Rice Casserole with a can of corn added in, served with tortilla chips and some leftover roasted veggies.  I cooked a bigger batch of black beans earlier in the week to use for the cheesy beans and for this.

Friday
Breakfast--eggs and toast
Lunch--leftovers
Dinner--miso-glazed tofu with udon noodles and veggies (with different veggies subbed than the original recipe)
Friday got a little strange for us.  Our kitchen wasn't really available at lunch, so we ended up eating cereal!  :)  And, we didn't make it to get the miso paste I had hoped to use, so for dinner, I cobbled together some bacon, veggie, cheese skillet stuff and made some quick biscuits.  If I had the ingredients around, I had been meaning to put together a batch of Lizzy's bisquick mix, which would have made the biscuits even easier, but this biscuit recipe was fairly quick and easy to pull together as well.

Saturday
Breakfast--Cereal
Lunch--out
Dinner--leftovers

Sunday
Breakfast--french toast
Lunch--out
Dinner--macaroni and cheese--the Kraft stuff from a care package! :), salad

Cheesy Beans

Lizzy asked me if I would post this, as it is an easy fix for a meal like lunch, and I really didn't know what I did before, so I made them again today and now have a rather rough "recipe."  I originally saw something like this in my More with Less cookbook, which is a great one for life overseas or just simple and frugal living anywhere.  I actually gave my copy to someone, but I think the recipe in there was called Monterey Beans.
This is one of those foods that really was just a matter of trying to give a little variety to the amount of beans we eat!  So, here is the basic run-down of what I did and a quick photo (clearly, food photography is not my calling) of the cheesy beans over some rice with some leftover veggies and olives for an easy lunch.

Cheesy Beans

You could use canned beans or dried and really any variety of beans.  I like black beans, but kidney beans work well with it as well.  Once the beans are cooked (or if you use canned ones), put them with a little bit of liquid.  I just kept some of the cooking water with mine right in the pressure cooker, but if you like to drain that off (especially if you are a bit prone to gassiness--ha, the things you say freely from life overseas!), just add in a bit of water until you can see liquid among the beans but they are not totally covered.  Kind of a preference thing on how liquidy you want them.  I probably had about 1 1/2 cups of beans and maybe 1/2 to 3/4 cup water today.

I added 1/2 of a bouillon cube and some seasonings.  This is pretty flexible, but I put in a dash of onion powder and garlic powder (though, if you don't have them, I sometimes skip these, and I don't actually like having chunks of onions or garlic in beans this way, but you could put in fresh garlic and onions), and about 1/2 teaspoon of cumin.  If your family has a higher threshold for spiciness than mine, a dash of chili powder or sauce is nice in these.  

I then added...ugh, not loving admitting this...processed cheese!  You could try it with actual cheese, but I think it would get a bit stringy, and what I like about these is the smooth, sort of creamy texture.  So, yeah, I did it.  I tend to use whatever is available.  The slices actually work really well and melt much faster.  Despite one of the only actual advantages of processed cheese being that it melts well, some of it here really takes a long time.  Today I used 3 of the Britannia brand of cheese cubes.  Anything would work (think Velveeta or Amul or whatever you have available).  If you have something that melts faster, though, wait a bit to add it.

I brought the liquid to a boil and then simmered it all together, stirring occasionally because the cheese starts to burn before it actually melts!, for about 10 minutes.

That's it.  My super gourmet dish. :)  It's nice to have as a quick lunch to add a smidge of variety to the parade of beans and lentils that we have, though, so there you have it.

Black Bean and Corn Salad

This is one of my go-to favorite salads when the mercury rises. It's less of a recipe and more of an "add a little of this and a little of that" kind of thing. Make it as spicy as you'd like, use whatever beans you like, and if you have access to some good avocado, please add it for me! Serve it as a salad or a Texas Caviar-type dish with tortilla chips. It's also delicious on top of Spanish Beans and Rice. When you want to keep your salad cold, use frozen corn kernels or beans. They will thaw in about 20 minutes, and you'll have a nicely chilled salad.

Black Bean and Corn Salad
2 cups black beans, cooked, rinsed, and drained
2 cups tomatoes, chopped
2 cups frozen or 1 can sweet corn, drained
1 large onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 to 2 fresh chilies, seeded and chopped finely
1 large handful fresh cilantro/coriander, chopped
2 teaspoons cumin powder
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt
Fresh black pepper, to taste
Juice of 1 to 2 limes

Combine all the salad ingredients in a large bowl, starting with the smaller amount when a range is suggested and adjusting to your liking. Cover and refrigerate to allow the flavors to meld for at least 30 minutes. Serve chilled.

Note: For perfect pressure cooked black beans (in 1st gen. pressure cooker), start with the quick soak method (boil 2 minutes, switch off, and cover for 3-4 hours). I don't have the forethought to do overnight soaking. Rinse and cover beans with water again in the pressure cooker. Clamp down the lid of the pressure cooker and bring to pressure (first whistle), then turn to low and cook for 10 minutes. Switch off and allow pressure to release naturally.

Rolled Biscuits

This will be a quick post because this recipe is so ridiculously easy. In a hurry? Need a bread for the breakfast or dinner table? Biscuits to the rescue! Pull out your homemade baking mix, and get going.

Fancied up with a sausage patty and cheddar cheese!

Rolled Biscuits
2 1/4 cups baking mix
1 cup cold milk

Mix the two ingredients together, pat into a large lump with your hands. Try not to get the mixture too warm with your hands, or you'll get flat biscuits. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until they are about the thickness of the first joint of your pointer finger (3/4 - 1 inch). Using a drinking glass, cut out circles from the dough and place them on a baking sheet. Continue to re-roll the scraps until you get as many biscuits as you can out of the dough. Bake in a 220C/425F oven for 12-15 minutes or until tops are golden. Eat while they're warm!

To make scones, the process is the same, but you might want to apply an egg wash or some milk to the tops to allow for more browning.

Kitchen Staples: Bisquick

I am generally not a fan of boxed mixed for baked goods since I've learned out of necessity how to make many of those from scratch, but this one from Kitchen Simplicity...what a time saver! For our non-American readers, Bisquick is an all purpose baking mix that already has butter, salt, and baking powder mixed in. You can use it to make pancakes, a flaky topping for a pot pie, dumplings for soups, American-style breakfast biscuits (similar to scones), crescent rolls, and more. On a crazy weeknight when I had guests coming over and just needed one extra item, I had hot biscuits in under 20 minutes. I make a large batch of the mix, place it in a ziptop bag, and keep it in my freezer with my favorite recipes written on the bag.

Bisquick Baking Mix
5 cups flour
1/4 cup baking powder
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup/~260g butter, straight from the fridge

Food Processor Method:
Sift all the dry ingredients together and pour into the bowl of the food processor. Cut the butter into smaller pieces and add to the processor. Pulse until you have something that resembles corn meal. Pour into an airtight container and store either in the fridge or freezer.

Hand Method: 
Start by making sure your butter is frozen or you have a hand pastry blender. Sift all the dry ingredients together. Cut the butter into the mixture. If you're using it from the fridge, cut it in using two forks or a pastry blender. If it's from the freezer, you can use a cheese grater to accomplish this quite easily. When it has reached cornmeal consistency, pop into an airtight container and store the same as you would in the food processor method.

To turn these into fluffy pancakes, take 2 cups of mix, add 1 cup of milk and 2 eggs. Mix just until it comes together (lumps are okay!). Cook pancakes on a hot griddle.

For drop biscuits, 1 cup of mix needs about 1/3 cup of milk. Stir until it comes together then drop by spoonfuls onto a pan. Bake in a 230C/450F oven for 10-12 minutes.

For rolled biscuits, see my next post! Get creative. Look up Bisquick online, and you can probably find hundreds of recipes that call for this mix.

Best. Granola. Ever.

Okay, seriously. I've tried different granola recipes over the years for breakfast cereal, but sometimes they're hit or miss. I like mine a bit chunky and crunchy, and sometimes homemade granola comes out more crumbly than the boxed varieties. I started my quest for this recipe when I was packing for an extended family trip to an area where cereal can be quite expensive and was looking for a low sugar variety for me. When this was baking, I knew I had found a winner. The smell was DIVINE--just like banana bread! And the taste...wham bam, thank you, ma'am! No joke. I hope you enjoy my slight twist on this fabulous recipe from Minimalist Baker.

Banana Bread Granola
3 cups oats (GF if you need it)
3/4 cup walnuts
1/2 cup almonds
1 1/2 sachets stevia (or 3 Tbsp raw sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 Tablespoon flax or chia seed
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas (use those black ones!)

In a large mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and stir until they are uniformly combined. In a small sauce pan over low heat, combine the coconut oil, honey, and vanilla just until the coconut oil and honey have melted to a liquid. Turn off the heat and add the mashed bananas. Slowly pour the banana liquid over the dry ingredients, stirring with a wooden spoon until all the dry ingredients look moistened with the banana mixture. If it looks too dry, mix a little more or add a little more oil. Spread the granola over two baking sheets and place in an oven preheated to 170C/350F. Bake for 20 to 28 minutes, stirring once or twice halfway through baking to get even browning. In the last 10 minutes, watch carefully to ensure it doesn't burn. When it's done, allow to cool and then place in an airtight container.

Now seriously, after smelling that divine goodness, you need to sit down and enjoy a bowl or few handfuls at least! With cold milk, warm milk, plain, or on yogurt, this will be a treat any way you enjoy it.