Banana Bread Babies

Well the weather here in small town Tennessee can't make up it's mind! 
Is is still Summer or is it Fall?! Ugh! 
In my heart it is Fall & I am ready for the weather to follow suit! 
I think some cooler temps are moving in tonight & that makes me happy! So, with my heart beating to the rhythm of Fall & the upcoming holiday seasons, comfort food has totally been on my mind lately! One of my favorite Fall comfort foods is Banana Nut Bread! I love to make the mini loaves & give them away as gifts & I love having it around at the holidays! So, I knew coming up with a good healthy recipe for it was something I needed to be working on! And what do you know?...... not to brag, but - I got it perfect the first time! I love it when that happens! Cause when baking clean & healthy, that is a challenge! Even the people in your house who may not be into healthy eating are going to love these! I had one as soon as they came out of the oven & it was seriously an act of willpower not to eat the whole darn pan! Seriously, this recipe gets 5 stars! I am very proud of it! Can you tell by all the pictures I took of it? lol..... I couldn't help it! It's so pretty & crumbly! They look like baby banana bread loaves!

How cute is that?!

Also I got to playing around with some different filters on my camera & they made for some more interesting pictures instead of the plain "oh, here's a picture of my food"  pictures i usually post! lol......I couldn't decide which picture I liked best so I posted them all. I think I like the first one best! Which one do you like?? I want your opinion on which picture is your favorite & also what you think of these Banana Bread Babies! You can leave your feedback in the comment section below! I would really appreciate it! :)

Serve warm with a glass of cold cinnamon almond milk while seated & relaxed so you can totally savor each delicious bite!! 

BANANA-YUM! 

Banana Bread Babies

1 C Oats (ground into flour)

2 large kinda ripe bananas (approx 7 oz each) - mashed & set aside

1/4 Unsweetened Almond Milk

1/4 C PB2

1 scoop vanilla protein powder (I use Dymatize ISO 100 Gourmet Vanilla)

1 egg white

1 tsp Brown Sugar Splenda

1/8 C Stevia & 1 Tbsp (seperated)

1/4 Pecans (chopped)

1/2 tsp baking soda & 1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

*Preheat your oven to 350. Have chopped pecans set aside in a small bowl. In another small bowl, mix Brown Sugar Splenda & 1 Tbsp Stevia & set aside. These will be used for the topping!

Grind oats into flour then add remaining dry ingredients & blend well. Add banana & blend some more before adding the remaining wet ingredients. Pour into a 8 x 8 pan sprayed with nonstick cooking spray & then sprinkle pecans on top. Then sprinkle on the Stevia/ Brown Sugar mix & bake until edges start looking brown & a toothpick comes out clean! Remember not to over bake! You want them to be moist & not dried out!

I cut mine into 10 bars but you could also cut into 16 squares if you like! Adjust nutrition accordingly! :)

This is the nutritional content for the way that I made mine.

 I added a scoop of protein powder to it but you can leave that out if you want. You could also make this with almond flour & I know it would be amazing! It would cut the carb content down as well! Also you could make with natural peanut butter or almond butter! Just adjust the nutritional content if you make any changes! I use My Fitness Pal to figure up the nutritional content of all my recipes! It's easy peas-y! I use it to track my noshes too! If you aren't using it yet, you ought to! It is so great for staying on track & a total lifesaver

 for recipe saving &  calculating! )

A Yummy Bedtime Snack!

It's hump day! 

I hope y'all are having a great week! I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday. Yesterday I was having a throw in the towel day..... I have been working hard around my house & I am mid-way into the Body Earned program so physically, my body is feeling it! I am so used to pushing myself though & not resting when I need to that I really can't tell I am over trained until I start noticing myself getting really ill & cranky! Another thing that has contributed to my "illness" is this feeling of deprivation I have been experiencing & I know this is due to the eliminating of fruits from my diet since I started this program. So, yesterday I started incorporating them back in & it automatically resulted in me having a better day nutrition wise! I felt better last night & I feel better today! My mood is so much better & I physically feel better which speaks volumes to me about how much fruit really does my body GOOD!!! I LOVE fruit & I know my body NEEDS it! 

Anyway........... on to the bedtime snack! While preparing my foods for this week I wanted to make a go to snack that I could reach for in the evening when I wanted something different than a protein yogurt or a shake. So I came up with these Bedtime Bars! I used PB2 in mine because I didn't have any natural peanut butter & I was looking to make something low  but I fully intend on making them with the real deal in the very near future cause they were amazing with PB2-so,  I can only imagine they would be extra amazing with my natural peanut butter! YUM!

Bedtime Bars

1/4 c almond meal

1/4 c PB2

1 scoop Vanilla Whey (I use Dymatize Gourmet Vanilla) 

1/4 c H2O

1/4 c unsweetened Almond Milk

3 Tbsp unsweetened coconut flakes

1/4 Stevia. 

Bake for just a smidge (not long!) in a 8x8 pan at 350! Made 9 bars cause I didn't cut evenly & the last 2 were skinny so they equaled 1 bar! Lol
*Nutritional content- *50 cals, 2.5 grams of fat, 2.5 carbs & 4.8 grams of protein!! 
These are good size bars too so the nutritional numbers really impressed me!! If you want to make these for a daytime treat you could use oat flour. Since these were an evening snack for me I used Almond Flour since it counts as a healthy fat (not a carb like oat flour would)  & healthy fats are good to consume in the evening. You can also use natural peanut butter too like I mentioned earlier. If you decide to change anything , just adjust the nutritional content accordingly! They were heavenly made just like the recipe above but I am sure they would be great made with oat flour as well & definitely with natural peanut butter! I mean, is it possible to go wrong with natural peanut butter?!

I ate mine hot with a glass of cold almond milk! Next time I will try em cold with a glass of warm cinnamon Almond Milk-my fave!

 Mmmmm.....

Bana - Nutty Almond Protein Waffles

So, ok.......I have been wanting to try baking with almond flour for a long 

time but the stuff ain't cheap! 

Thanks to my friend Kim, I finally got some & I just made my first recipe with it this week! She brought me some fresh ground almond meal & it is sooooo flippin' GOOD!!! I mean it! It was so totally worth the wait! So, naturally I wanted to make something that would be worthy of it's total awesome-ness! What could be more worthy that pancakes or waffles?! To me, since they are both my weakness - I have to respond with, "Is that even a question?!"  I love that it was fresh ground because it's a little chunky! Not too chunk or big chunky.....just right chunky! And not all of it is chunky, but there are tiny chunks of almonds all in it & I LOVE that! Just like I love crunchy natural peanut butter!  

YUM!

Anywho, since I have started this Body Earned program, I am really concentrating on making sure m body stays properly fueled & nourished & that includes keeping my body properly fueled while I sleep too. Did you know that an important part of staying healthy & maintaining muscle is eating before bed? This is something I learned only in the last year. Prior to that, even though I had been training for a long time, I always played it safe & refrained from eating before bed out of fear that it would make me gain weight. Now I know that exactly the opposite is true & that our body needs fuel while it is at rest too! But not just ANY kind of fuel..... the RIGHT fuel! It's not a free pass to go eat a bowl of ice cream or a plate of french fries (in a world of my own maybe..... ) but it is important to put something HEALTHY, such as- healthy fats like nut butters or nuts (watch portions of course!), low fat cottage cheese, egg whites or a protein shake are just a few good pre - bed time food choices! To me, what I eat before I go to bed is the most important meal of the day because you want to make sure you eat something that is going to HELP your progress, not UNDO & HURT all the hard work you have just done that day through your training & healthy eating! Now, I ate mine as my side for dinner since I had breakfast for dinner the night I made them. (Not that I don't have breakfast for dinner most every night....) I had 4 egg whites, 2 turkey sausage patties & 2 waffles..... yes, I was hungry! So, I topped my waffles with 1Tbps of PB2 (whoever invented that is a genious!) & 1 Tbsp Sugar Free, low sugar alcohol & carb content syrup. Mix those 2 together & it's nothing short of DIVINE!!
*For more info on why you shouldn't go to bed hungry, smart  & yummy ideas for pre - bedtime foods to eat & WHY (most importantly) you should eat them, check out this great article from BodyBuilding.com! READ ME!

 

Bana - nutty Almond Protein Waffles

1/2 C Almond Flour

1/4 C Unsweetened Almond Milk

1 scoop Vanilla Whey Protein Powder

2 Egg Whites

1Tbsp Natural Applesauce

1 tsp Banana Extract

1/2 Tbsp Vanilla

1 Tbsp Stevia

1/4 tsp Salt

1tsp Baking Powder

*I blend all my stuff together in my Ninja normally but this time I didn't want to lose the nutty-ness of my Almond Flour so I just whisked it altogether in a big bowl! Pour into waffle iron & let it cook! Makes 4 waffles.

My waffle iron needs replacing obviously.... see how my waffles are pretty & golden on one side but the other side is kinda pale? 

It's still cooked, but not evenly. 

Hmmmm, 

I think that justifies a trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond in my near future 

for a new waffle iron! 

Ooooh, I have coupons too! ;) 

*Nutritional content (per waffle): 114 calories, 7.5 grams of fat (healthy fat), 2 carbs, 7.5 grams of sugar & 7.5 grams of protein!