Total(tm) Cereal Banana Bread (a recipe redo)

This past sat, I was shopping with my bonnie bride and saw the back of a Total Cereal coupon, with a recipe for Banana bread on it. It incorporated the Total cereal into the recipe. Intruiged, I decided to make the bread. It is Good.....

Let's get our ingredients together:



Mixed and ready for the oven:



Done, cooled, and eaten:



YUM.

1/16th of the loaf, about a 1/2" slice, equates to about 125 calories. As made via the recipe, it would work out to about 180(?). MasterCook equated 93 cals/slice for this recipe, with my substitutions, but my paper calculations yielded 125. Regardless, it's some tasty bread.

Here's my recipe:

1 1/4 cups Splenda
2 tablespoons Smart Balance
3 egg whites
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas, about 3 to 4 medium
2/3 cup plain fat-free yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 A.P. flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups Total® cereal, slightly crushed

Preheat oven to 350'F.

In large bowl, mix sugar and margarine.
Stir in eggs whites until well blended.
Add bananas, yogurt and vanilla; beat until smooth.
Stir in remaining ingredients except cereal just until moistened.
Stir in cereal.
Pour into 2 greased 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch pans, or 1 greased 9x5x3 inch pan.

Bake for about 1 hr if using 8" pans, or 1 hr, 15 min if using 9" pan. Remove when toothpick inserted into middle of loaf comes out clean.

Cool for 5 min then turn out onto cooling rack; let cool for another hour. (If you can wait that long.

Variant: Substitute 1 cup of blueberries and 1 cup of bananas for the 1 1/2cups of bananas!

Variant 2: Add 1 jar (3 1/2 ounces) of chopped and toasted macadamia nuts, and 1/2 cup flaked coconut. Sub 1/2 cup buttermilk instead of the yogurt (or not), and sub 2 eggs instead of 3 egg whites (or not).

Variant: Substitute 1 cup of blueberries and 1 cup of bananas for the 1 1/2cups of bananas!

Variant 2: Add 1 jar (3 1/2 ounces) of chopped and toasted macadamia nuts, and 1/2 cup flaked coconut. Sub 1/2 cup buttermilk instead of the yogurt (or not), and sub 2 eggs instead of 3 egg whites (or not).

Emeril's Sourdough 101

Oh, Yeah, babe. Emeril's Sourdough 101 inspired me to try my hand at creating a starter, making a basic sourdough loaf, and making some sourdough blueberry pancakes. Everything was great, except I forgot to allow the loaf to bench proof the 2nd time. D'oh!

A decent loaf of bread:



Some really good blueberry pancakes:



Oh, and as a side note, it's pronounced "MOO-Fah-Leh-Ta", not "moofah-lahta".... argh. And, I'd make Giada's before I tried another... although Dang this Muffuletta Calzone sure sounds good!

Let's smoke some pork butt....

I've been wanting to smoke some pork butt in the home made cooker from the Good Eats episode "Q" for some time now, but I haven't been able to assemble all the parts for the smoker. Anndddd, research shows that buying everything will cost about the same as buying one off the shelf. Although it's not nearly as cool... Anyway, on to the recipe:

Kalua Pig
From John Fischer,Your Guide to Hawaii / South Pacific for Visitors.

INGREDIENTS:

* 4-5 pound pork butt
* 2½ tablespoons Hawaiian salt (substitute kosher salt)
* 2 tablespoons liquid smoke
* 1 banana leaf (substitute 4-5 whole, unpeeled bananas)
* 4-6 ti leaves (substitute aluminum foil)

PREPARATION:

Trim any excess fat from the roast. Make several shallow long cuts along the roast or pierce liberally with a fork. (This allows the salt and liquid smoke to penetrate the meat.) Rub with salt and liquid smoke. Wrap the roast with banana leaf or in the absence of same, place whole bananas on top of meat .

Cut the ribs from the ti leaves and wrap over the banana leaf. Substitute aluminum foil, if ti leaves are not available. (Ti leaves can often be obtained from a local florist). Tie securely with twine.

Roast in a 325-350º oven for about 45 minutes per pound. When meat is done, remove ti leaves, banana leaf (or bananas) and shred pork.

I got a 7lb pork butt, rubbed it with salt and liquid smoke, put it in a pan, and covered it with some unripe bananas:



Wrap it, throw it in the oven, and wait. Then, after several hours:



Which yields 3 lbs of pulled pork:



Which is great with a dash of barbeque sauce, spicy banana ketchup, or just plain. Tonight.... we're making enchiladas.

Even Lower Calorie Cinnamon Rolls

The Latest Cook's Country had a "recipe makeover" for Cinnamon Rolls, taking them from 430 cals down to 280 cals. Yum! But I brought them down even lower, to 178 cals! And, I've found out that they make a "Brown Sugar Splenda", and with a couple of more ideas, I can take them down even further. Try them, you'll like them!






Dough -
1 1/2 c warm soy milk (Instead of skim. hey, it's all I had - T.J.'s Vanilla)
3 TB Maple Syrup
2 TB Smart Balance (instead of unsalted butter), melted
3 1/2 c A.P. Flour, plus extra
1 pk rapid rise yeast
1 tsp salt

Filling -
1/2 c dark brown sugar
1/4 c Splenda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
1 TB Smart Balance, melted

Icing -
1 c confectioner's Splenda (i just ground up my splenda in my Food Proecessor)
4 TB light cream cheese
1 TB soymilk (see above note)
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

Heat oven to 200', then shut it off.

Dough:
Mix milk, syrup and butter in large cup.
Mix flour, yeast, and salt together in mixer bowl. Attach dough hook.
Turn machine on low, and slowly add liquid mixture. When dough comes together, bump speed up a notch and mix until dough is smooth, 4-6 minutes. (dough should be sticky. If it's too wet, and not balling up, add up to 1/4c more flour, and knead 2 min).
Turn out dough onto floured work area, and shape it into a ball, and place it in greased bowl. Cover and proof it in the warm oven for 10 min.

Filling:
Mix the sugar, cinnamon, butter and salt in a bowl until well mixed.

Rolls:

Roll out the dough into a 12"x18" rectangle, on a well floured surface, with the 18" sides to your left & right.
sprinkle the sugar mix onto the dough, leaving 1/2" at the far end. Press the sugar into the dough slightly.
Starting at the near end, roll the dough into a log. Brush the 1/2" border with water, then press dough to seal the log.
Cut the log into 12 pieces. (I cut off the each end, for neatness, then smushed them together for a 13th roll). Place each roll into a greased 9"x13" pan. Cover then with greased plastic wrap. (I used cooking spray).
Place the pan into the warm oven, and allow the rolls to rise until doubled, 30-40 minutes.

remove the pan from the oven, and preheat to 350'.
Remove platic wrap from rolls and bake them until they are deep brown and filling melts, 20-25 minutes. Rotate pan 1/2 way through baking, if needed.

While the rolls are baking, prepare the icing:

whisk together the powdered splenda, creame cheese, milk and vanilla.

When the rolls have cooled for 10 min on a wire rack, smear the icing on the rolls. Eat them warm or heat 'em up piping hot.