Banana & Chocolate Ice Cream Treats

Playing off of the Breakfast Ice Cream I just posted about I wanted some other fun ways and combinations to eat this healthy treat. Banana and chocolate? Absolutely. I was going to actually mix the chocolate and some peanut butter, but I didn't have any peanut butter so that nummy combination will have to wait for another day.


Ingredients:

4 very ripe bananas (make sure they have brown spots covering the peel, this is when they are at their sweetest!)
2-4 Tablespoons yogurt (I used honey greek yogurt, but use any yogurt of your choice)
Nutella

Directions:

Cover muffin tins with liners (about 20 small or 10 regular), it would probably work fine with no liners but I haven't tried. You could also use those cute silicone ice cube trays in fun shapes!

Mix bananas and yogurt in a blender

Pour banana mixture into each muffin cup (fill them all the way)

Cover and freeze overnight.

Unwrap frozen tarts and put on a serving plate. Top each with some Nutella. As you can see I need to work on my topping technique so it doesn't look like someone pooed on my tart....

You can put them either way on the plate, I tried both and I'm not sure which way looks better, what do you think? Muffin or upside down muffin?




Enjoy!

Some ways I will experiment with this recipe:

Add some peanut butter into the banana mixture before freezing and then top with Nutella.

Mix peanut butter in with the nutella.

Use different fruits and corresponding toppings:

Strawberry (or any berry) with a little whipped cream on top?
Apple with a caramel or peanut butter topping?
Mango and.....

Ice Cream for Breakfast

Okay, technically more like frozen yogurt, but who doesn't love the sound of ice cream for breakfast? This has more protein & fiber with less sugar than most breakfast cereals! And to save 50 calories and 3 grams of sugar eat it in a bowl instead. Or to go the other direction, throw some colorful sugar sprinkles on top and watch those little faces light up! Perfect for breakfast, as a snack or dessert.

I'll get a picture up soon....

This came about because I had a pack of sugar cones to use up. I bought them to make the Cub Scout Camping Cake. We rarely have ice cream cones at home, it's really something we go out and do. The last thing I need in the house is a carton of ice cream, it wouldn't even make it into the cone before meeting it's fate.

If I have too much fruit that is really ripe and I know we can't eat it before it turns, I chop it up and freeze it for smoothies.... or this recipe :)

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped frozen fruit of your choice
2 Tablespoons honey greek yogurt
1 sugar cone

Directions:

Put fruit and yogurt in your blender and blend until smooth. Hold on, it's rough going at the start :)

You can scoop it into your cone with a spoon or put it into a plastic bag, cut the corner and squezze it into your cone all pretty like.

The nutrition facts are using one cone with apple as the fruit, but use whatever fruit you have or love! Mango, banana, berries, pear, orange......

	Nutrition Facts User Entered Recipe 1 Serving Amount Per Serving Calories 118.2 Total Fat 0.7 g Saturated Fat 0.1 g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.2 g Monounsaturated Fat 0.1 g Cholesterol 0.0 mg Sodium 25.7 mg Potassium 204.3 mg Total Carbohydrate 23.9 g Dietary Fiber 3.1 g Sugars 3.9 g Protein 5.5 g Vitamin A 1.2 % Vitamin B-12 3.3 % Vitamin B-6 3.4 % Vitamin C 10.5 % Vitamin D 0.0 % Vitamin E 2.1 % Calcium 7.5 % Copper 2.7 % Folate 2.6 % Iron 1.9 % Magnesium 3.0 % Manganese 3.6 % Niacin 1.3 % Pantothenic Acid 2.9 % Phosphorus 7.8 % Riboflavin 8.4 % Selenium 0.7 % Thiamin 3.2 % Zinc 0.5 % *Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

The Real Quarter Pounder (Cookie)

I'm all for eating healthy, fruits and vegetables, whole grains and limited sugar. But old habits die hard and lets face it, sugar... chocolate to be more precise is GOOD. Can you imagine the boys' faces when they were served a cookie, no... TWO cookies, filled with an insane amount of frosting, the size of their head? Instead of the bouncing off the walls I think we really overdid it and just went straight to sugar comatose. We're such cool parents.

Chocolate Brownie Cookies

We found this wonderful recipe on Apple Pies, Patis & Pate. A cookie, a brownie... everything wonderful about the two. We doubled the recipe below for about 12 giant sandwich cookies.

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 1/2 large eggs
1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 F

Prepare a cookie sheet by lining with parchment paper

Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Combine well.

In a double boiler melt chocolate and butter. Let it cool.

While the chocolate is cooling, whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla to the ribbon stage. The eggs will be foamy and increase in volume considerably. <-- This step is a major pain. Mike and I were taking turns and both should have huge arm muscles now. Once the chocolate is barely warm to the touch add it to the whipped eggs and mix gently until well incorporated. Add the dry ingredients. Fold with a spatula until smooth. Spoon onto parchment lined baking sheet. You could make "normal" size cookies, about silver dollar sized..... but that's just boring :) Leave uncovered at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Bake at 375 F for 12-15 minutes, our giant cookies took about 16 minutes. The cookies should be slightly underbaked in the middle, like any good cookie should. Cream Cheese Frosting This recipe we got from All Recipes

Ingredients:

2 8oz. packages of cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups sifted powdered sugar

Directions:

Blend cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in vanilla and then slowly add powdered sugar.

To assemble your masterpiece simply put an insane amount of frosting between two cooled cookie and enjoy :)

Cub Scout Camping Cake

Every year the local Cub Scout Pack has a cake auction to raise money. Parents and their scouts make a cake and bring it to the pack meeting where they boys bid on the cakes, the top three cakes with the highest bids are announced, money goes to the pack and cakes go home with the highest bidders.

This was our first year with Thomas in Cub Scouts, so our first year participating. Like a kid in a candy store (which I was later on in this story) I searched the Internet for a creative cake. Some suggestions I got from my wonderful FB friends were mud pies, dirt cups, kitty litter cake, swimming pool cake and treasure chest cake. Mud pies would be great for Cub Scouts, but I wanted something that would show a little more creativity. I made dirt cups for one of the Den meetings so those were out for now, but I'll have to post the recipe because they are tons of fun! I actually saw a lot of kitty litter cakes on sites showing pictures for entries into these Cub Scout cake auctions, but I just couldn't get past the.... well.... I have cats and.... gross. I decided on the Treasure Chest cake for awhile, but eventually got distracted with the swimming pool cake idea. After going to the store and finding nothing I needed for the swimming pool cake I threw a temper tantrum and chose a camping theme instead, so there. Of course when I went to the REAL candy store for the camping cake I found everything I needed for the swimming pool, but I was pretty excited about the camping cake idea.

First I Googled "camping cake" and looked at a bunch of them taking down ideas I liked from each one. Then I drew what I wanted the cake to look like on a piece of paper and had Thomas help decide what should be included and where it would go. Come to find out later I drew everything the size I wanted it to be to fit my idea, not the actual size... oops.

Then we made a list of what we would need from the store.

vanilla cake mix
chocolate frosting
eggs
oil
water
sugar cones (used 3)
kit kat bars (used 6)
small gummy fish (used 3)
brown jelly beans (used under 20)
candy rocks (used under 20)
airheads (used 2)
teddy grahams (used under 10)
gummy lifesaver (used 1)
red hots (used under 20)
heath bits (used about 1/2 cup)
green frosting (used 3 tubes... yeah.)
pretzel sticks (used under 10)
licorice whips (used about a foot worth?)
blue jello
4 packs knox unflavored gelatin
gummy frogs (used 3)
gum balls (used 2)
chocolate bar (used one large)
tootsie roll candies (for the long ones about 3)
1 tube blue frosting
1 tube yellow frosting

What I bought and what I actually used..... I have a lot of leftover candy. So I suggest going to a candy store like Sweet Factory where you pay by the pound and can pick out 1 gummy life saver instead of buying the whole pack. I did go to that candy store, but realized the cake was ginormous in my head and there wasn't nearly enough room for my plans.

To make the cake *This is how I made this one, I will post things I'll do differently at the end:

Bake the box mix cake in a disposable cake pan and let it cool completely.

While the cake was baking I dressed my Cub Scout bears. I used the blue frosting for the uniform shirt and slacks and then the yellow frosting for the bandanna. I also made the canoe out of an airhead and put one bear in the canoe and one in the gummy saver.

Cut out your lake, don't cut all the way to the pan. Frost cake with chocolate frosting. Mom says freeze it before you frost it for easier frosting, thanks Mom. Love you :)

Use the recipe on the back of the know for knox blocks (a childhood favorite by the way) but instead of juice use water and add the blue jello mix to the hot water before you add the knox. Put it in a pan to set up in the fridge. When it's slightly set, enough solid not to seep into your cake, scoop some out to fill your lake. Add gummy fish in the water, boat and swimming scout. Let it finish setting.

Next was the trees. Okay so I was impatient and made the trees while the jello was setting up. A brilliant idea I saw while browsing the Internet. Turn a sugar cone upside down and push into the cake so it's stable. You can break part of the cone off for a shorter tree. Use the star looking tip on the green frosting and cover the trees. It took one tube of frosting to cover one full tree and the shorter one or one full tree and a bush.

The bushes are gumballs covered in green frosting like the trees with red hots added for berries.

We placed candy rocks around the edge of the lake and gummy frogs in various places.

For the campfire we cut the candy rocks in half and made a fire circle. Red hots for the coals, pretzel sticks for the.... sticks and licorice rope for the flames. Sure the fire is huge compared to the teddy bear scouts, but oh well. For a birthday cake I would use a candle in the fire :) We placed the tootsie roll candies (small pieces) as logs around the fire and put a teddy scout at every other one.

We outlined a path from where the cabin would be to the lake and around the fire pit with brown jelly beans. Using Heath toffee bits for rocks or sand we filled in the path.

The cabin was the most difficult part.... so I made Mike do it :) Using kit kat bars and melting the other chocolate bar for glue he pieced it together. He put a couple pieces together and then let it chill for a few minutes to harden.

While he was making the cabin I ate candy..... I mean.... I surrounded two teddy scouts with airhead sleeping bags to put inside the cabin.

Because the cake was not flat we used caramels to prop up the back and make it more level. We covered those up with "grass" made of more green frosting.

Next time:

I'll make a bigger and flatter cake.
I'll make the rocks around the lake smaller.
I'll figure out how to make a fishing pole.
I'll make the fire smaller.
I'll crush the Heath bits for a finer sand.
I know I had more ideas, but I'm sleepy.

Out of 19 cakes we tied second place and our cake raised $21 for the Pack.

Slow Cooker Applesauce

Time for some dessert don't you think? Although I wouldn't serve it after the Roast with the Apple Ginger Gravy because that's a little redundant....

Mmmmm Mmmmmm applesauce. And fresh, warm applesauce? It's doesn't get much better than that. Of course my slow cooker does it again with this tasty dish that can be used as a healthy snack, side dish or dessert! This is great on top of the Protein Packed Pancakes.

Ingredients:

6-8 apples (any apple works fine, but use more sweetener for tart apples and less for naturally sweet apples)

Juice from 1/2 lemon

2 Tablespoons agave nectar (what we use for sweetener) *adjust depending on the apples you used

2 Tablespoons cinnamon... or more because cinnamon is tasty and good for you :)

3/4 cup water

Directions:

Wash, core and slice apples. You can peel if you want (especially if you want to leave it chunky), but the skins are packed with nutrients. Mix the other ingredients and pour over the apples. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Stir and enjoy as is for chunky applesauce or put it through a blender or food processor for smooth applesauce.

Check out how techie I am (NOT) with my neat video below :)