NO-SUGAR-ADDED BANANA BREAD

 Some people are turned off a "sweet" if you tell them it is sugar-free. I know before our sons were married and still living at home they wouldn't drink diet drinks. They said they didn't like the after taste.  Baked goods or sweets that are sugar-free, I don't think have an after-taste. If anything they just lack the sugary taste.

If you get used to eating sweets with less sugar or artificial sweetener, then when you eat something with real sugar, it will taste too sweet for you. At least that is the way my husband and I have experienced it. 

When we offer sugar-free or no-sugar-added treats for the Cafe Treats at church on Sunday, some people pass it up because they say they want lots of sugar. (I wanted the Treats to be inclusive when I started them, so I wanted to offer a Treat for diabetics or anyone trying to reduce their sugar intake.) Some of our SF options are very sweet tasting and people rave about them and can't believe they are SF.

Just FYI, any recipe that calls for a sugar-substitute can be made with the same amount of sugar for a sweeter, higher calorie food.

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NO-SUGAR-ADDED BANANA BREAD

1         stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened

1         cup stevia or sucralose

2        large eggs, lightly beaten

1-1/2 cups flour

1        teaspoon baking soda

1        teaspoon salt

1        cup very ripe bananas, mashed

1/2    cup sour cream

1        teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2    cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9 x 5 - inch loaf pan or two mini-loaf pans. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sweetener with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and beat well.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the creamed mixture and beat until combined. Stir in the bananas, sour cream, and vanilla. Stir in the nuts if you are using them.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan(s). 

Bake a large loaf for an hour or until the the bread tests done with a toothpick. For the mini-loaves, check after 40 minutes and bake until done.

Turn onto a wire rack and cool.

For the Cafe Treats we cut the slices in half to have smaller servings to offer. 

LEMON BUTTER COOKIES

  "10. I would give them a number 10!" said one of the visitors to the Cafe Treats yesterday after taking a bite of a Lemon Butter Cookie. Now, did she mean 10 out of 10 or 10 out of 5?

The latter is what I'm thinking. 

As soon as some people heard "lemon", they were reaching for them so I assumed they really like lemon. Wouldn't you?

When you bite into the sugary cookie it is a little crispy tasting, but that only lasts a second. Once it is in your mouth, the cookie just melts. Oh ! So good!

I am thankful I decided I was tired of looking at the chair full of stacked cookbooks where I placed them when I decided to move the rack they were in, and replaced them in the rack after I moved it to a different place in the room. I am thankful after checking out several of the cookbooks, I found this recipe in Pillsbury's The Complete Book of Baking cookbook I got at an estate sale, of course, who knows when.

I was trying to find something different for the treats and I only had to go buy the yellow decorator sugar. I had red and green, but since they were lemon cookies, I decided to splurge on the yellow sugar. 

The recipe went together easily and quickly even with having to chill the dough for an hour before baking them. It had been a full day so it felt good to rest for the hour. The recipe made one cookie short of the 3-1/2 dozen cookies sited in the recipe  that it made. Since I only aske everyone bring three dozen of their treats, if I have a couple of extra ones, I will keep them for us. 

That was a nice treat for us! Hope you will give this recipe a try.

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LEMON BUTTER COOKIES

1/2     cup sugar

1/2     cup powdered sugar

3/4    cup butter or margarine, softened

1/4     cup oil

1         tablespoon grated lemon peel

1         tablespoon lemon juice

1         egg

2-1/2 cups flour

1/2     teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2     teaspoon baking soda

1/4     teaspoon salt

Yellow decorator sugar

In a large mixing bowl, beat the sugars, butter, and oil until light and fluffy. (2 minutes while you measure the dry ingredients.) Scrape the sides of the bowl.

Add the lemon peel, lemon juice, and egg; blending well. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed.

Stir together the dry ingredients - the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

Add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Again scrape the sides of the bowl, as needed.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour for easier handling. 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

Place some of the yellow decorator sugar in a small bowl.

Using a tablespoon scoop, scoop our a level scoopful and

roll in the yellow sugar, covering the dough completely.

Place the coated blobs of dough about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheets and bake for about 10 minutes, or until set.

Cookies will be puffed up.

Remove the baked cookies immediately to a wire rack to cool. Cookies will flatten as they cool.

For High altitudes:

Above 3500 feet: decrease the sugar to 1/3 cup and increase the flour to 2-3/4 cups. Bake as directed.

BRENDA'S DROP SUGAR COOKIES

 What a beautiful week so far! It is so warm (mid 50s to 60) that it didn't take long for the snow to melt everywhere. The car wash places are making a killing this week. I had about 10 cars ahead of me when I got it washed yesterday. I had planned to do it on Sunday but the lines were so long it would have taken me quite a while to finally get up to the building. 

But my car is clean now and I am even out with Friend Janice today. I think this is our first outing this year. There were no estate sales in the Northland so we are heading 21 miles in the Southland to the nearest one.

I also got my new glasses yesterday - the first in three years at least and am dealing with getting them properly adjusted to fit comfortably. Fun to look at a different person in the mirror.

Today I am sharing another recipe from the Cafe Treats that I especially enjoy. It is for a sugar cookie but one that doesn't have to be rolled out. The dough is dropped and then pressed down with a glass, etc. Baker Brenda makes good cookies for us and they are always well received at the "Cafe". She dropped the scoops of dough into a bowl of red sugar to make them festive for the month.

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SUGAR COOKIES

2     sticks of butter or margarine, softened

1      cup white sugar

1      cup powdered sugar

1      cup oil

2     eggs

4     cups + 4 tablespoons flour

1      teaspoon cream of tartar

1      teaspoon baking soda

1      teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line the cookie sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

Cream together the butter, sugars and oil.

Add the eggs, one at a time beating well.

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and then add to the wet mixture, mixing well to blend.

Drop by a tablespoon measure (cookie scoop works well) onto cookie sheet and press down with a sugared glass bottom. (You can roll the scoop in decorative sugar if you like for the occasion first if you like and then place them on the cookie sheet to flatten.)

Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Cool slightly on pan before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

These cookies freeze very nicely.

I'M BACK

 My last post was on January 6. Seems longer actually. Our January and February have been cruel to us and everyone is eagerly looking forward to spring and warmer temperatures. Actually this week is going to feel like spring with temperatures in the mid to high 50s. By the end of the week we might even see 60.

The cold temperatures (try low as low as -10 and the high only 4 or 5 degrees F) is just one of the reasons I have been away from my blog. I needed to take a break with everyone going on in the country, but probably the main reason is my depression and busy-ness with the repercussions of falling for a scam. 

I won't go into details of the scam but just issue a few warnings. When you suspect an email isn't for real, DON'T respond to the email - just delete it and move on. DO NOT OPEN any links. (I think this one is publicized a lot, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need repeating.) DEFINITELY do not call a number that is listed in the email. Always go to the source and find number to call. This is what I did or didn't do. The address he told me to go to brought up a legitimate looking website for the company, of course, which gave me a false sense of security. 

The bottom line is I froze my credit with the credit bureaus and had to get three new credit cards, change my bank accounts, yes accounts with an S, and order new checks. That might not sound like too much, but if you use bill pay with your bank to pay your bills, that has to be dealt with which means some bills might not go through because of changing account numbers. Anyone who direct deposits paychecks, etc, for you has to be notified of new account numbers and sometimes that might take a while to process and don't forget if you use a credit card to pay for bills and you replace the credit card, you have to notify them of your new number.

I guess another biggy I forgot to mention and it's the main reason I haven't been writing any posts...I thought my laptop was not fixable but I took it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy and they wiped the hard drive clean and so I have my laptop back.

 It just make me tired going through it again, but I felt like I had to warn you so maybe you wouldn't make the same mistake I did. I also won't mention to my husband the next time I receive getting a suspicious email and just ignore it like I always (well, almost always) do.

To celebrate my return to My Patchwork Quilt, I'm going to share a really delicious cookie that Cafe Treats Baker Linda brought to church yesterday to share in the Cafe. She said she just searched the internet until she found a recipe that she had the ingredients for. 

Gooey Butter Cookies is what she came up with and they were delicious. Since I always like to share a way to reduce the sugar in recipes, you could make this sugar-free if you used a Zero-Sugar yellow cake mix and Sugar-free powdered sugar. I know the latter sounds like an oxymoron, but you can make powdered sugar in the blender using Splenda or stevia. If you don't want to go to all that trouble, you can buy it already made. How sweet!

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GOOEY BUTTER COOKIES

1      stick (1/2 cup) softened butter

8     ounces cream cheese

1      egg

1/4  teaspoon vanilla extract

1      box yellow cake mix

1      cup powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, cream cheese, egg, and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy.

Stir in the dry cake mix until the dough becomes thick but smooth.

Pour the powdered sugar into a separate bowl.

Using a tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop a flat spoonful of the cookie dough and form into a ball in the palm of your hand. Drop ball into the powdered sugar and roll around until it is fully covered. (If the dough is too soft to deal with, chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before forming dough balls.)

Place cookie balls on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart and bake for 12 minutes.

Cool slightly before removing to a rack to cool completely.

BUTTERMILK WAFFLES FOR TWO

Some people might just think this post is a bunch of fluff. If the result wasn't so delicious and attractive, I might agree with them, but it is both so I don't.

When I bought this darling little personal - sized waffle maker at an estate sale months ago, maybe even a year ago, I never imagined it would produce such a delightful treat for Wayne and me. 

I just thought it would make a smaller waffle that I might cook for my MO grandchildren sometime.  That was more of a dream that I have about my time with my grandkids than reality since I dream more about doing things with them than I actually do.

The other day I saw the little maker when I was looking for something else, of course. Isn't that the way it always is. Anyway, I brought it up to the kitchen and it has sat on my counter for several days waiting for me to inspired.

Yesterday was that day. We woke up to snow on the ground with more coming down...a fine mist of snow. Saturday evening it started sleeting first leaving a thin sheet of ice on everything outside. 

It was supposed to change to snow during the night or at least that was the forecast. I woke up around 3:30 and thought I would check out the window, but there was no snow, just the layer of ice. The next time that I woke up and looked out the window, I saw the snow. (It continued the fine mist of snow the rest of the day as forecasted but I don't think we got the 5 to 12 inches they were calling for. Maybe 5 though. Considering how difficult it is to forecast the weather here in Kansas City, I guess they did pretty good.)

When I got up I decided I wanted something different than my usual Greek yogurt and decided it was time to try out the little personal-sized waffle maker. I was going to use some boxed pancake and waffle mix, but didn't have any. That meant I had to look for a recipe. 

Most of the recipe called for milk, but we haven't started buying milk in a 2 - quart size because it doesn't take up as much room in our refrigerator. (When we replaced our fridge we downsized slightly and so I have less room in it.) I found one that used buttermilk but not quite enough so I just finished the cup with skim milk. It was fine.

When I finished making the little waffles, I remembered  a tradition that our dil Sara brought to the family when she and Jeffrey were married. In our family we have a New Year's Day tradition of eating blacked-eyed-peas to bring us good luck for the year. In Sara's family, they had waffles with cherry pie filling on top. We learned about her tradition one year when we were with them on New Year's Day. Well, I love cherry pie filling so enjoyed my waffle that day. I don't think we have repeated her family tradition again and yesterday wasn't New Year's Day, but since I had some leftover cherry pie filling in the fridge, I topped our little waffles with some on mine and some strawberry pie filling on Wayne's since he loves strawberries, to surprise him.

I cut the recipe in half so if you want more waffles or use a larger waffle maker, just double the recipe. After we finished eating, I went on and made up the rest of the batter and made 5 more waffles. I quick froze them in the freezer. When we want to eat them, we will just pop them in the toaster to heat up. 

PRINT RECIPE.

BUTTERMILK WAFFLES

1      cup flour

1/2  teaspoon salt

1      teaspoon baking powder

1/2  teaspoon baking soda

1      tablespoon sugar

1      large egg.

1      cup buttermilk

1      tablespoon oil

Whisk together the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside.

In another bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, and oil.

Pour the wet mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients.

Stir gently just until combined.

Cover the batter and let it rest for 5 minutes while you preheat the waffle iron.

For my personal sized waffle maker, I measured two level scoops of batter or about 3 tablespoons. If you are using a larger waffle iron, you will use more.

Close the lid and bake until the light on the iron signals the waffle is ready.

Remove and keep warm until you are ready to eat.

I made two for each of us and after buttering them, I spooned some pie filling on each.

So pretty and very delicious!

I cooked the rest of the batter, quick froze them, and

then put them in a freezer bag until we are ready to eat the rest. Will pop them in the toaster to warm up. 

Here is  my cute little waffle iron...

PUMPKIN CRANBERRY BREAD

 2025 is now a couple of days old. Each year seems to go by faster than the previous year, but that seems to be said by even younger people than just "old" people. It does seem like time is on fast speed to me. I hope 2025 will be a healthy year for me and my husband and we can experience some memorial occasions with family and friends.

Friend Phyllis made this Pumpkin Cranberry Bread for her Sunday school class and dropped a plate off at the Cafe at church back in December. It was so delicious so I made sure I got the recipe from her.

This weekend we are forecasted for some cold temperatures and even some snow so I'm not sure the Cafe will be open Sunday for church, but I decided I would make the quick bread because it would freeze easily if we can't make it to church. Local weather forecasters on television that this area is the most difficult to forecast in the country. I believe them. It always depends on what happens to it just west of us. It can turn south and miss us or turn north and miss us. My husband thinks it's because the Missouri and Kansas Rivers come together and cause splits.

The recipe made 5 mini-loaves and I just may keep one for us to enjoy because I was able to eat one slice when Phyllis dropped it off. It is really good.

PRINT RECIPE.

PUMPKIN CRANBERRY BREAD

3         cups flour

2-1/2  teaspoons cinnamon

2-1/2  teaspoons ginger

2         teaspoon baking soda

1-1/2   teaspoon salt

1          can of pumpkin

3         cups sugar

4         eggs

1          cup oil

1/2      cup orange juice

1          cup chopped cranberries

1          cup toasted chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans or five mini-loaf pans. Set aside.

Combine the dry ingredients by sifting them together into a large bowl. Set aside.

Combine the sugar, pumpkin, eggs, oil, and juice in another bowl with a whisk until blended.

Add to the flour mixture and stir until just moistened.

Add the chopped cranberries and nuts if you are using. (I didn't add the nuts.)

Divide between the baking pans.

Bake for 60 to 65 minutes for the large loaves and about 40 minutes for the mini-loaves. Cool in pans for at least 10 minutes before removing.

Remove from the pans and cool completely before slicing.