Pulled from Pinterest: Banana Oatmeal Bites

This is quickly becoming my go to snack.  I have made it several times in the past two weeks because 1. we always seem to have an overabundance of bananas in the house and 2. I need a good snack that I am not going to regret the next day.

The little guy loves this snack and Maddy is okay as long as it has chocolate chips.

You can find the original blogpost for this recipe here.

Ingredients:

2 large old bananas

1 cup of quick oats

**Optional: handful of chocolate chips, raisins, or walnuts, cinnamon, honestly – anything you would want to eat in an oatmeal cookie

Smash bananas and mix together ingredients.  Place on a greased cookie sheet (I line a tray with foil and then grease it because I don’t like scrubbing pans)

Bake for 15 minutes at 350 or until golden.

These are wonderful right out of the oven and a great treat for breakfast the next day.  They don’t last more than 24 hours in my house.

Happy Eating!

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Pulled from Pinterest: Baked Parmesan Tomatoes

Hi All-

Just wanted to do a quick post on a yummy and easy recipe I tried over the weekend for Baked Parmesan Tomatoes.

This is a great recipe for all of those tomatoes we get from our CSA.  I love tomatoes, but no one else in my household is a fan which means I need to find creative and super easy ways to eat them on my own.

You can find my Pinterest boards here, and you can find the original blog post for this recipe here.

Baked Parmesan Tomatoes

Ingredients:

2 beefsteak tomatoes, sliced into 1/2 inch horizontal slices

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon of oregano

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 450° F. Place tomatoes on a baking sheet. Top with Parmesan, oregano, salt and pepper. Drizzle with oil and bake until the tomatoes are tender, 15-20 minutes.

So I had a few modifications to the original recipe.  I did not have any beefsteak tomatoes so I used roma.  They were not nearly as large.  In fact, they were a perfect bite size.

Another tip that I don’t think the initial recipe suggested, and maybe it was because I was using different tomatoes, was to lightly spray the foil with cooking spray.  I did not; which resulted in my tomatoes sticking and then having to pry them off of the cookie sheet.  They did not look very pretty….hence no photo.  But honestly there was no need for real presentation since I was the one eating them I didn’t care.  They may have looked pitiful, but they tasted wonderful!

If you try this recipe let me know what you think!  Do you have any quick go to tomato recipes?

Happy Eating!

Pulled from Pinterest: Soy Glazed Edamame

Hi All!

Recently I’ve been completely addicted to Pinterest. It can be a great source of inspiration and resource for finding all sorts of things.  You can see my boards here.

…but here’s my beef with Pinterest…I find all of these great ideas and then I don’t do anything with them!

So in an attempt to get rid of my “Pinterest laziness” I’m committing to try a new Pinterest recipe, project, useful tip, etc once a month (maybe more) and blog about it!

We love edamame!  Michael has been asking for some edamame recipes to add to our dinner so I turned to pinterest and found one for soy glazed edamame.  The original blogpost for this recipe can be found here.  I have a few tweaks that I’ve included below.

Soy Glazed Edamame:

Ingredients

• 2 cups edamame in their shell
• 1 teaspoon canola oil
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic, finely minced (about 1 clove)
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, skin removed, finely minced – can omit or use a pinch of dried
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Instructions

Cook the edamame according to package directions.  I purchase edamame from Sam’s Club.  It comes in a package of eight ready steam one cup serving packets that are ready from the microwave in four minutes.  I know that there are people who would argue to use fresh, but the frozen are so convenient!

In a small bowl, mix together the soy sauce, water, rice vinegar, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes.  I let Maddy help me mix this together.

Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Once heated, add the garlic and ginger. Let cook for one to two minutes, stirring to avoid garlic from burning.  I think of the ginger as optional since I’m not a huge ginger fan.  If you do not have fresh ginger you might want to use a pinch of dried.

Add in the soy sauce mixture and raise the heat to medium. Let cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce reduces to a glaze, about 5-7 minutes. Once you reach the desired glaze consistency, add in the cooked edamame and toss well.

Plate edamame; pour any glaze left in the saucepan into a small dipping bowl alongside the edamame. Serve immediately.  I have stored leftovers for the next day and they are still quite tasty!

If you have any variations on this recipe , another go to edamame recipe, or if you try it yourself, please leave a comment!  I’d love to hear from you!

Family Night: Easter Edition

Hi All!

Fridays in the Johnston house are reserved for family night.  I’m looking forward to sharing some of the interesting things that we do.  I am committing to do more creative things as a family.  Pizza and the Magical World of Disney Junior are okay, but not every week.

With Easter approaching I wanted to do something fun and themed for Maddy, so we had an Easter party! We decorated the dining room for our egg coloring festivities.  We did the traditional egg coloring and then to keep the fun going a while longer I purchased paper eggs and a paint set.  She will spend days painting eggs.  Everything fits on a cookie sheet so the mess is contained and transportable from the dining room to our art space.

After the eggs were done, we made “Resurrection Buns.”  I have seen the recipes for resurrection cookies where you mix up dough and bake it overnight, but that just freaks me out because if it doesn’t work you waited all night for nothing.  I found a recipe for a different bun version here and since it was easy, fun, and worked I wanted to share it!

For this project you need:

1 Package of Ready-Bake Biscuits

Marshmallows

Cinnamon & Sugar

Butter

Preheat the oven per the biscuit package instructions.  Take out the biscuits and flatten them out to about five inches across.  Brush or spread the butter on the biscuits and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Place a marshmallow in the middle of each biscuit and fold over the biscuit pinching it tightly.  The marshmallow represents Jesus in the tomb!  Place the biscuit folded side down on the tray (or on its side like a crescent) and spread butter and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top.  Bake according to the instructions and then remove to cool.  Once they are cool you can tear into them and see that the marshmallow has disappeared and the “tomb” is empty!

My one tip to making sure you have an empty tomb is to make sure the biscuits are folded and pinched very tightly.  If they open up the marshmallow expands, but does not fully disappear so you may find yourself in the kitchen secretly scooping out the marshmallows…two worked perfectly and two were not.

Before we let Maddy enjoy hers Michael took some time to read the Easter story to her.  The book we use for family devotions is Jesus Calling.  You can find it here.

Happy Easter!  If you get a chance to try this recipe please leave me a comment!  If you have any fun Easter projects or traditions you use in your family, please feel free to post them here too!

Until next time…