A quick post for a quick recipe. This Triple Berry Banana Bread is so satisfying and so pretty to look at. Aside from the taste I think the parts of the loaf where the berries burst out are my favorite thing about this loaf. What can I say? I have a thing for jewel tones.

It also has no added fat (greek yogurt instead) and is fairly low on added sugar (the bananas act as the main sweetener)-if you’re into that sort of thing.

I hope you try it. (With a pat or two of butter on it.)

What?! The bread has no added fat! and it’s lowish in the sugar department! You can totally have some butter.

Or a lot of butter. I won’t tell.

Triple Berry Banana Bread

Wet Ingredients
3 very ripe bananas
1 egg
1 egg white
1/3 cup nonfat plain greek yogurt
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Dry Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 cups frozen mixed berries (use fresh if you have them)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a loaf pan.

In a large mixing bowl mash the bananas until smooth. Then, whisk together with the remaining wet ingredients. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Do not overmix.

In the dry ingredients bowl, add the berries and additional flour. Mix together. Add the berry mixture to the muffin batter and mix briefly to combine.

Pour the muffin mixture into the prepared pan and smooth out the top. Bake for 1 hour.

Just a quick post today because these Coconut Macaroon cookies made my day.

I’m not a very good baker.

At all.

I love baked goods, but I tend to get way too, eh, creative in measuring and I like making substitutions to recipes which usually means they turn out terribly.

So I usually leave it to the pros.

But these Coconut Macaroons are fool proof to make, because the person who wrote the recipe is a pro.  Even if you’ve never cooked anything in your life, you can make this Coconut Macaroon recipe.

The recipe comes from my absolute favorite famous chef, Mark Bittman.  He writes a fabulous column for the New York Times.  Even better than his articles and recipes are his adorable cooking videos he has on the New York Times website.  He also writes a great blog and offers great links on Twitter.  If you’re interested in where your food comes from, eating great and healthy dishes, cooking meals without a lot of fuss, look him up.

Back to the macaroons.

I love coconut.  Whenever I go into a bakery the first things that catch my eyes are things filled with or topped with toasted coconut.  These cookies are perfect to satisfy my craving for coconut, because there aren’t any other flavors in them to compete with the coconut.

The only ingredients are coconut, sugar, egg whites, vanilla extract, and salt.  They come together in less than a couple of minutes, and only take 15 minutes to bake.  They freeze really well.  You really need to make a batch of these.  And send me some.

The recipe is here for The Ultimate Minimalist Macaroon.

I don’t really have much to say about this, except that the recipe is from Veganomicon, it’s suppper easy to make, it’s delicious and I make it quite often.

It’s also low-fat, if that tickles your fancy at all.  I kinda dig that if you replace some of the oil in a recipe with apple sauce, you can also usually decrease the amount of sugar without noticing a difference.  I don’t like things to be super sweet, so that makes me happy.

Also, this recipe doesn’t use any unusual ingredients, which I like.  Some vegan baked goods require a specific egg replacer or something that you might not already have on hand.  But the great thing about banana bread is that the bananas themselves bind the recipe.  Also, you can sub out the molasses for another tbsp or so of apple sauce if you don’t have it on hand.  It comes out a bit lighter in color, but it still tastes great.

Ok so I guess I did have a few things to say about this banana bread.

You’ve read Mama Pea’s blog, haven’t you?  She’s hilarious.  She’s vegan.  She’s an [ex] lawyer.  And it seems like she’s a fantastic mom.  I mean, those kids are eating pretty darn well, I’d say.

Last weekend I was in San Francisco, CA for the Foodbuzz Festival.  It was an awesome conference of sorts for food bloggers.  It involved lots of networking, mingling, more wine than I’d care to admit, and, of course, lots of food.

But the one thing everyone at the festival seemed to go (not Lady) ga-ga for were the Annie the Baker cookie dough balls.  If you read any other bloggers recap from the fest, you’ll probably hear raves about them (along with the fan-freaking-tastic wild mushroom soup, which we’ll discuss later).

For some reason, I never even saw the Annie the Baker booth!  I was so distraught that I nearly ordered the cookies online for $14 for 6 cookies. Crazy. Have I mentioned that I’m unemployed? But I had heard that they were just that good and I needed to see for myself.

But then Mama Pea came to my rescue.  With a vegan version, no less! Behold:

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls

Needless to say, these cookies lived up to my expectations.

They are extremely delicious even before baking.  And you can eat raw vegan cookie dough without any health concerns since it’s egg free!

Once baked, they retain their shape and stay super soft.  I don’t like crispy cookies, so these are perfect in my opinion.  One of my roommates called them The Ultimate.  I agree.

You can get the recipe (and read Mama Pea’s blog post) here.

I might have eaten that dough ball.

Just a note on the recipe: When you combine the wet and dry ingredients, the “dough” will be quite crumbly.

Before Baking

It should stick together when you pinch it together though.  After refrigerating my dough, it was just a tiny bit too dry, so I added 1 teaspoon of almond milk, and it came together perfectly.

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls by Mama Pea.

Autumn is by far my favorite month.  The leaves, the apples, the squash, the cooler jeans and sweater weather is the best.  Upstate New York sometimes gets a bad rap for the harsh winters and clouds, but for me, autumn makes up for all of that.  My favorite fall activities are those that combine the outdoors and food (duh!) so apple picking is right up my alley!

Beak &  Skiff is a great place for apple picking, and I’ve gone several times in the 3 years I’ve lived in Syracuse.  The apples aren’t organic, but they are local and it’s fun, so I happily wash off the skin and it doesn’t bother me.  The cheap price makes that easier, too.

I have used my apples to make these muffins, which I are also posted on Fresh Cracked Pepper.  I’ve also eaten them in my morning oatmeal, sliced thin on sandwiches, and just munched on them as a snack.