Delicious Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Today's delicious baked good was whipped up on a whim. When I came up with the idea I was in the middle of a delightfully lazy rainy Sunday evening. I had spent half the day in my pajamas after a very busy morning.

Eric and I stayed up late Saturday night so we could welcome my best friend and her husband into our apartments after they went to the Alabama football game (she's a brave soul, because she married a Bama fan and because she was an Auburn fan in Bama territory). They got in at about 2:30 AM, long past my poor fiancé's usual 10:30 bedtime. We let the guys crash at Eric's and my friend and I headed back to my place, and - because we're of the female gender and stayed up talking- didn't get to sleep until about 4 AM.

Sunday morning rolled around faster than I would have liked and we rose early to get breakfast before church. The sermon this morning was excellent. The part of the sermon I was really 100% focusing during at least. I felt as though I was back in my 7 AM business class senior year, as much as I tried I could not keep my eyelids open. Don't worry, I never fell asleep. I bet there were some fellow members of the congregation that thought I was in deep prayer though.

This is all great, Maddie. But I thought this post was about banana bread...

Yes! Back to my point. After church I had the luxury of taking a 2 hour nap and basically got to hang around watching shows on Netflix while the rain steadily poured all afternoon. Eric, however, has to use every free minute he has (when he isn't spending them with me) to do online classwork and grad school applications. I wanted to make him a special treat because he had stayed up so late so our friends could stay with us (not that it was a huge problem, they're some of our favorite people). My problem was, I didn't exactly have cookie batter ingredients or frankly anything resembling a treat.

All I could find in my kitchen was a couple boxes of gluten free mixes (from my gluten-free diet a few months ago), eggs, butter, some packets of Sweet'n low, and a couple of brown bananas.

Bingo

The bananas made me remember a recipe I had discovered when I was on a gluten-free kick a few months back that involved gluten-free yellow cake mix. Lucky for me, I had some cake mix and two perfectly brown bananas (if you didn't know, the best bananas to use when making banana bread are overly ripe ones - and since I only eat green/yellow bananas I found this the perfect way to rid myself of a couple brown ones). I added chocolate chips because growing up my mom always put chocolate chips in her banana bread, and let's face it, chocolate makes everything better.

So here's the recipe! Eric and I absolutely loved it. Eat it fresh out of the oven so the warm and gooey chocolate chips melt in your mouth!


Chocolate Chip Banana Bread (Gluten-free)

Ingredients:

1 box of Betty Crocker Gluten Free yellow cake mix

2 very ripe bananas, mashed

3 eggs

1 stick of butter softened (1/2 cup)

1 cup of chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Grease your 8x5 or 9x4 loaf pan

Beat together your cake mix, bananas, butter and eggs with an electric mixer on low-medium for 2 minutes

Slowly add chocolate chips while mixing

Pour into loaf pan, cover pan with aluminum foil to prevent the top from burning and bake for 50-55 minutes in 9" pan or 55-60 in an 8" pan

Let cool for 20 minutes before slicing!

Enjoy!

Note: I apologize for the photos, my only current means of photography is my phone. I'll get some better images once I have a real camera again!

Chicken Anatomy 101

I’m going to call today Battle of the Chicken.

I started off this morning in a cheerful, ambitious mood. I had decided that today I was going to roast my first chicken! While I have never roasted one before, I have made Cornish hens on several occasions and have even helped with the T-day Turkey once or twice. I went into today thinking I was going to stuff some lemons in a chicken, pop it in the oven, and have dinner on the table for Eric when he came over for dinner. Not so, oh naïve one.

Just thawin' away... I have little patience by the way...

I started out by thawing my chicken; I know enough to not put a frozen bird in the oven. I noticed, however, that the neck was stuffed in the…well, rear… cavity of the bird. Hmm, that’s odd.

I began to wash the chicken and took hold of the neck to pull it out (anyone in my family reading this will be surprised to know that while I faint at the thought of human anatomy, chicken appendages don’t really freak me out). The darn neck would not budge. I pulled and pulled and pulled. It got to the point where there was only one thing I could do. My last resort. My white flag.

I called mom.

After sending several picture texts (that probably resemble CSI forensic photos) and discussing my predicament with my mom, dad, and my mom’s IVIG nurse, I was told to just run hot water on the chicken until the neck thawed inside the bird enough to be pulled out. 

I’ve never been so happy to see a neck depart from a chicken. My next skirmish resulted when I could not locate a giblet bag. I’ve seen turkey giblet bags, and they’re pretty obvious. If there were giblets in this chicken the bag was well hidden indeed. I used my phone flashlight and scanned the inner cavity the best I could (don’t worry, I washed my hands, phone, counters, sink, ceiling, TV, back porch light, etc. 5 times or so, I don’t do salmonella). No giblet bag to be found.

Another call to my parents, a glance at the package (may include giblets, that’s helpful), and a leap of faith later, I plopped the frustrating bird in the roasting pan to start dressing.

All the ingredients I stuffed into the rebellious poultry

This recipe was, well, adapted from Eat Live Run’s Classic Roast Chicken recipe. I had to adapt a lot. For one, my chicken was 2 lbs larger that the recommendation so I upped the time and a few of the ingredients. I also didn’t mince my herbs but rather stuffed them in the cavity with the lemons like my mama does with her famous T-day turkey. 

After a long day of wrestling with this gutless (literally, I never found the giblet bag) chicken, I finally popped him in the over for about 95 minutes at 425 degrees. By the time Eric got off work, there was luckily only 20 or so minutes to go and I was praying that chicken tasted alright. 

I was tired of dissecting at this point so Eric took over

The skin, which I had placed pads of unsalted butter underneath, tasted marvelous. Nice and crisp. I wish I had remembered the old trick I use with cornish hens - bake them breast side down to ensure a juicier white meat - because the meat was a little dry. All in all though, I think I won The Battle of the Chicken. Prepping and roasting my first large poultry in my teeny apartment kitchen is accomplishment enough for me! 

If you'd like the recipe I adapted this from, follow the link above. If you'd like my recipe, hold onto your hats.

Lemon Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:

5 lb roasting hen (the smallest I could find!)

5 tbsp unsalted butter

fresh thyme sprigs

fresh rosemary sprigs

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 large lemon

2 1/2 tsp minced garlic

Directions:

Be sure you have thawed your chicken! Completely!

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Wash the chicken thoroughly and remove giblets (if there are any) as well as necks...

Cut your lemon in half and stick in the bird along with washed sprigs of thyme and rosemary. Add the minced garlic to the cavity as well.

Lift up the skin (easier to lift near the openings) and place pads of butter in between the meat and the skin. Be sure to spread your butters pieces out evenly. 

Salt the whole chicken. 

Put in the oven in a roasting pan (I recommend breast side down) for 95 minutes or until 165 degrees internal temperature. 

Voila, roast chicken for dinner!

My September Resolution

Welcome all to my new blog! If you already know me, feel free to skip this little intro paragraph and get to the real blog post below. For those who don’t, hello! My name is Madison Taylor, and I’m the author of this little blog. For you to better understand my everyday musings and ideas, let me give you a little backstory. Although I was born in Atlanta nearly 23 years ago, I essentially grew up in the Northern United States. I was raised playing in fields near Amish farms in Pennsylvania, skating on frozen lakes in Minnesota, and learning to drive in the bustling suburbs of Chicago. So when my parents announced we’d be moving back to Atlanta, I was excited but essentially unprepared for such a Southern culture shock. Now it’s six years later and I’ve grown to love sweet tea, Sunday lunch, and SEC football. So that’s my past, and I’m looking forward to how it will shape my future! While I may be a born again Southern belle, I did manage to find a wonderful Midwestern boy to keep me grounded. He’ll be all mine in May 2013! Who knows where our life will take us, but as long as we have each other and God, we’ll always have stories to tell. So here goes nothing.

My fiance, Eric, and I after graduating from Samford University

It’s September. What do you think of when you think about September? The beginning of Fall? (and cooler weather, thank Heavens) The start of football season? (War Eagle) Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte? (best.coffee.ever.)

The start of the school year???

If you are still in school or you have kids in school, you understand what I’m talking about when I say I think of years in terms of academic calendars, not January to December. When September rolls around I start rousing my motivation to complete another semester, so its almost as if I make my New Year’s resolutions in the ninth month of the year rather than the first.

This year is different though. I feel the same itch, the one that says “hey, time to get off the lazy couch of summer and get to work”, it’s just this year I don’t have anything to get working on. Hence this blog.

So I’m making a September resolution, if you will. A resolution to invest in my journalistic career by publishing this blog. Maybe you’re in the same boat. You need something to work towards to fulfill a desire to be productive. Or maybe you just like to keep busy. Whatever it is, find something you love and do it. Make a September resolution to do something worthwhile! If you need an idea, stay tuned. I plan to post some great recipes and hobby ideas in the next few days to get everyone excited for this wonderful season!

Until then, happy fall y’all!