Happy Friday! I can’t believe another week has passed. It is crazy! Speaking of crazy, these banana pancakes are crazy good! I stole, er borrowed this recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Iowa Girl Eats. I made a few minor changes and added an amazing bananas foster-like sauce and now I call it my own!

Just kidding, check out iowagirleats.com for a sweet post on her brother’s famous banana pancakes and then try this recipe yourself this weekend.

If you don’t want to make the super sweet sauce – the pancakes are light and fluffy and absolutely delish without the sauce. But they are amazing WITH the sauce!

First, moosh the bananas and set aside-

Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl, making a well in the center.

In a separate bowl whisk together eggs, melted butter, milk and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into dry and mix until combined.

Dump in the smashed bananas…

and fold them in.

Brush pre-heated skillet with a bit of melted butter, then pour a 1/3 cup batter to form each pancake. When bubbles appear all over the top of each pancake, flip and cook until golden brown.

Remove to a plate and keep warm while you are finishing up the batter and making the amazing sauce.

For the incredible sauce, melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.

And add the brown sugar. Turn down the heat just a bit – you don’t want this to burn.

Then add the syrup, vanilla and cinnamon and mix well.

Add the bananas and cook until the sauce gets sort of bubbly and the bananas are heated. Don’t overcook this or the bananas will get soggy.

Amazing, right??

Serve over banana pancakes. No need for butter or syrup. Mmmmmm!

Amazing Banana Pancakes

2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 T. sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 T. butter, melted
2 cups milk
2 bananas, smashed
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl, making a well in the center. In a separate bowl whisk together eggs, melted butter, milk and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into dry and mix until combined. Fold in the smashed bananas.

Brush pre-heated skillet with a bit of melted butter, then pour a 1/3 cup batter to form each pancake. When bubbles appear all over the top of each pancake, flip and cook until golden brown. Remove to a plate and keep warm while you are finishing up the batter and making the amazing sauce.

Sauce for Banana Pancakes
This sauce would be great on ice cream too – sort of like bananas foster, but without the booze.

3 bananas, sliced
2 T. butter
1/4 cup brown sugar (I used dark)
1 T. maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

In a skillet over medium heat, melt the butter and brown sugar together. Turn down the heat just a bit – you don’t want this to burn. Then add the syrup, vanilla and cinnamon and mix well. Add the bananas and cook until the sauce gets sort of bubbly and the bananas are heated. Don’t overcook this or the bananas will get soggy.

Serve over banana pancakes. No need for butter or syrup. Mmmmmm!

tags- breakfast, sweet, pancakes, fruit

I love breakfast for dinner! It’s always so simple and yummy. Quiche is one of our favorite breakfast for dinner recipes, not only because it’s so delicious, but also because it is an easy way to use up the abundance of eggs we have thanks to our hens.

Yet another admirable characteristic of quiche is that there are so many variations you can throw together. We normally start with the basic ham and Swiss cheese recipe below, and then add whatever we have on hand. This has included: green chiles, sauteed bell peppers, pepper jack cheese, feta cheese, cheddar cheese and today we added leftover steamed broccoli (gag!). Since I’m the only member of the family who doesn’t enjoy broccoli, sometimes I give in and make it for them. But I still refuse to eat it. I have to admit though, the broccoli did look quite pretty in the quiche (not that I’ll be able to tell you how it tasted or anything).

Here are the ingredients~

And, yes, we do use a store-bought pie crust (**gasp!**). The pie crust provides even more opportunities to add variety to the quiche recipe: you could, of course, use a homemade pie crust or you could go the (lazy) route that we do, using a pre-made crust. We’ve even made it with no crust at all, which turned out well; yet another option, that we have not tried, is to make a potato crust.

The first step is to form the pastry dough into the pie plate, being sure to get the crust all the way up the edge of the dish. Then, using a fork, prick the inside of the pie shell, and bake for 8 minutes. I use a crust protector to make sure that the crust doesn’t get to crispy, but you could also just use foil.

This is after we pulled it out of the oven~

After you have pulled the pie crust out, lower the oven temperature to 325*

Now we come to the filling. The last couple of times that I have made this, I have used chunky, leftover ham, however we have also used sliced lunch meat ham. The original recipe that we (loosely) based this on called for bacon, so that is yet another option.

Next, put the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl…

and mix well.

Pour the egg mixture into the baked pie crust.

Here is the quiche with broccoli~

And here’s the original ham & Swiss cheese~

As you can see, we normally make two, especially if we are eating them for dinner…

Now bake at 325* for 40-50 minutes, depending on how full your pie crusts are. Just keep checking on them until they are no longer goopy.

If you can contain yourself, wait 10 minutes to slice.

Ham & Swiss Cheese Quiche

Makes one 9 inch quiche

• one 9 inch deep dish pie crust
• approximately one cup of chopped ham 
• 3-4 chopped green onions
• 1/2 cup half-and-half
• 1/2 cup milk
• 7 eggs
• 8-9 ounces shredded Swiss cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400*

Using a fork, prick the inside of the pie shell, then bake for 8 minutes. Remove from the oven; lower the temperature to 325*

In a large bowl, mix all the remaining ingredients. Pour the egg mixture into the baked pie shell.

Cover the edges of the crust with either foil or a crust protector. Bake until set, about 40-50 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before slicing.

tags- breakfast, quiche, pie, eggs, ham