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Hungry Girl’s S’Mores Stuffed Bananas

14 Jun

I bought Hungry Girl’s 1-2-3 cookbook and was tempted by many recipes, but none so much as the “easy oven-baked s’mores-stuffed bananas.” 

Easy? Love it!

Baked? Yes!

S’Mores? YES YES!

Stuffed Bananas? Definitely!

So you split the banana horizontally and then stuff it FULL with crumbled graham crackers and chocolate.

The you top it with marshmallows and wrap it all up in tinfoil.

Then you unwrap a delicious gift.

Just the banana + stuffing is only THREE points!  The dollop of fat free whip added 1 point.  What a great treat!

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RECIPE
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Hungry Girl’s Easy Oven-Baked S’Mores-Stuffed Bananas

Ingredients:

  • 2 Tbl mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 sheet (4 crackers) low-fat honey graham crackers, crushed
  • 4 small bananas, unpeeled, ripe yet slightly firm
  • 1/4 cup mini marshmallows
  • Optional: Fat free reddi-wip

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
  2. Mix chocolate chips with graham cracker crumbs in small bowl. Set aside.
  3. Lay bananas on a flat surface and cut a 3/4-inch-deep slit lengthwise in each from top to bottom.  Cut two small slits width-wise at the top and bottom of each banana, to make opening the fruit easier
  4. One at a time, use a fork to pry open bananas slightly and fill each with 1/4 of the chocolate-crumb mixture.  Evenly distribute marshmallows among the bananas, pressing them into the openings
  5. Thoroughly wrap each banana in foil that has been lightly sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, ensuring there are no openings for filling to escape.  Place bananas on a baking sheet.
  6. Bake in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes, until bananas feel very soft when gently squeezed with an oven mitt
  7. Serve immediately with spoons for scooping the gooey mixture out of the peels or, if you prefer, transfer the mixture from each banana peel into a bowl.  Top with Reddi-wip, if you like, and enjoy!

Makes 4 servings

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Hippie Pie

21 May

I affectionately refer to my dad as a hippie.  He loves to watch birds, attended the march on Washington for Nixon’s inauguration, and knows how to harvest weeds from the woods and eat them.  Need I say more?

This aforementioned pie is actually Japanese Knotweed Pie and I absolutely love it. 

It’s not quite as scary when you grow up with this, but trying to convince others to try a pie made with weeds harvested along a New Jersey highway is not an easy task.

So what exactly is Japanese Knotweed?

Facts about Japanese Knotweed (thank you Wikipedia and odd factoids learned in my childhood):
– It is not only delicious (similar to rhubarb), it is used in Chinese Medicine to produce resveratrol (same thing they extract from red grapes and they say is so good for you in red wine… used in Chinese medicine for anti-aging, may have some effect in lowering blood sugar in humans) and as a nutritional supplement to regulate bowel motility (and who doesn’t need some good ol’ bowel motility?)  
– The flowers are used in beekeeping for making honey
– It helps desensitize from allergies since it contains low doses of local polen

(Note: None of the above facts have been proven by anyone of any note)

Dad made it this season with berries, and I approve! It’s a base of basically whipped cream, condensed milk, and lemonade along with the knotweed in a graham cracker crust.  The recipe will remain a family secret (sorry folks) so you have to be in the right spot at the right time around April to get a bite.

Of course, being handed a pie this delicious a few weeks into Weight Watchers was not easy… but I ate it 2 points at a time (1/16th of the pie… not bad when you figure out that’s about half a normal slice).  Delish!

Can’t wait for next April!

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Homemade Crunchie Bars

12 May

I somehow completely forgot to post this from months ago, so you’ll forgive this pig out fest from pre-Weight Watcher days…

I have been in LOVE with Crunchie Bars (chocolate covered honeycomb made mostly in the UK) ever since I accidentally stumbled upon them in a Bridgett’s Irish Store in my neighborhood Jersey Mall.  Then I saw this poston TheKitchn (where I also learned there is an Australian Version called Violet Crumbles!) and knew I had to try this the next time my mom came to visit (since she also has a special place in her tummy-heart for Crunchies). 

You start with a combination of honey, corn syrup, and sugar. 

Then it heats…

After reading the post on thekitchn.com, I was terrified that the mixture might overflow.  They spoke of a chemical reaction after adding the next ingredient (baking soda) that makes the candy expand exponentially.  I envisioned myself somehow cleaning stick honey candy out of my gas stove and nearly quit right there… but I took out my biggest post and turns out I had little to be scared of…

Well… except killing my candy thermometer…

As I whisked the baking soda into the mixture furiously, it certainly did expand. But it maybe went from about 1 inch on the bottom to about 3 inches.


Then I poured the gelatinous foam mass onto my prepared silpat and thought that there was no way this could possibly make that interesting honeycomby like, sponge looking texture, could it?

It took about 2 hours to harden (I guess it was more humid in my apartment).

And when I cracked it open I was giddy. It was beeauuuuuuutiful!

I quickly coated it in chocolate (if you leave it exposed to the air it turns to goo I hear).

And it turned out perfectly.

Did it taste EXACTLY like a Crunchie bar? No. But it was pretty damn close.  And pretty damn good seeing as though I MADE it! Woo!

The recipe is very good on the originating site, so I’ll let you click on over and show this blog some love if you’d like to make your very own Crunchie bars: http://seattlest.com/2007/02/13/seattlests_answer_to_violet_crumble_.php

I highly suggest it!

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