Category: Recipes

I am not a baker. I’ve historically made delicious cupcakes, always with the help of my good friend, Betty Crocker. As my daughter got older she wanted to help in the kitchen and this included showing an interest in baking. At first, I just bought mixes and we would add water, maybe an egg and/or apple sauce. But I realized I was going to need to move beyond mixes, when one day my daughter was helping with dinner and commented that I likely just needed to add water to make it be delicious.
My newness to baking, and a fear of undercooking food recently lead to a slightly dry banana bread. If you know me well, you’d know that I don’t always know when to fold ’em, walk away or run. Although it was far from amazing, I knew in my heart that I would likely end up eating the majority of the banana bread out of some stubborn loyalty to the effort my daughter and I put into baking. So there I was, me and the less than amazing in yum factor but high on effort and love banana bread.
It was then I realized, that I could double down. So I did what any home cook, who sometimes pretends to be on Chopped, would do. Using some other ingredients including a soon to be stale bread. I decided to make a French Toast Banana Bread Casserole. In the end, the results were AMAZING! That’s right, my sad banana bread went from should be trash to a treasure. As a bonus, my daughter helped to make the casserole and loved being such a great helper. She also loved eating it.
Truth is it was so good, we ended up devouring it before snapping a pic. So in the end, with a bit of creativity I was able to take the bad cards I’d dealt myself, and turn them into aces.

(The photo that I do have was taken prior to being cooked and also prior to me adding brown sugar, maple syrup, butter toping which is really the key to this dish – what wouldn’t go well with that on top).

My 3 year old daughter said, “Yum”, my husband took a second bowl, my 7 month old enjoyed having this mixed with barley cereal and I was pretty happy.

I’ve decided to post a measuring stick for food made/posted and so far have come up with the square above. This soup hit nearly all four quadrants it’s only half filled for the fast section as the prep took only 5/10 minutes but it does need to simmer. (I used a dutch oven so I could put it in the oven and not think about it until the timer went). Alternatively, it could be made in a slow cooker. That said, a total win for me is fridge to table ready in 20 min or less. Also, I’m not one who usually eats soup and calls it a meal, but we were having leftovers so I made this to boost our veggie intake.

I should add that I seem to have purchased a bunch of carrots as everybody in my house loves them, at one point I purchased a 3lb bag for $1.50 and wanted to use them. Also clementines are in season and always in the house. The other items are all staples here. So overall, the soup was only a few dollars. It isn’t that my quest is to make food for as little money as possible, but I can appreciate a meal/recipe that is cost effective.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp oil (I used coconut oil)
• 5-6 carrots
• 1 onion (chopped)
• 1 tsp garlic minced/chopped
• 1 tbsp minced/chopped ginger
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• Juice from 1 clementine (I don’t have a juicer so I just cut it in half and squeezed)
• zest from one clementine (optional if you don’t have the required tool)
• 5 cups of water / chicken soup stock
• Salt and pepper to taste

Steps

1. Peel and chop onion and carrots (1 inch of so pieces)
2. Heat up pot add oil, carrots and onion in the pot and saute for 5-10 minutes (I put everything in together)
3. I used jarred minced garlic and ginger but if using fresh you will need to mince. Add garlic and ginger saute for 1-2 min more
4. Add 5 cups or water/chicken stock. (I used half and half as that’s what I had in the fridge)
5. Add parsley and salt
6. Simmer for 40 min or so until carrots are soft, turn down heat
7. Add zest and juice from a clementine
8. Blend (I used a hand blender)
9. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Notes / Common Sense is not common to all / Lessons I learned the hard way…

After eating a few seeds the other day I held my clementine to the light to check for the all clear

After spraying my kitchen a little bit I realized if I tilted my bowl the hand blender would be more submerged and not spray.

Hope you enjoy. Would love to hear any comments, changes etc.