Thursday, May 15, 2008

Banana Cake and Trying New Foods

We took a trip home this weekend (Houston) and visited our parents. We had a nice time with our dad and with our Grandma on Mother's Day, and a great time with our mom as well! It was so nice to relax and enjoy time with our family without being stressed and worried about doing homework! Our favorite part of the trip was going to Arts of Glaze, where we got creative and painted ceramic cereal bowls, while enjoying quality time with our mom, who painted a beautiful cross.

Our mom had quite a few ripe bananas, and we were dying to bake something special, so instead of baking the usual banana bread, we tried Susan's Banana Coffee Cake!






















It turned out wonderful! Lot's of bananas in the center of a soft slightly sweet cake. We actually made 1 1/2 the recipe to use up 3 bananas instead of 2. We used vanilla soy yogurt, much more cinnamon, and only 6 Tb coarse brown sugar instead of the recommended 8-9 Tb. It was plenty sweet even though we reduced the sugar. We used oat flour, which made it soft and fluffy. Definitely a great recipe to make in the future. We might add more cinnamon in the batter and some mashed bananas too.


While visiting home, we went grocery shopping at Kroger, and found some great new finds!

Apple Snapz

- We tried the Apple Banana Apple Snapz and really liked them. We just bought the Apple Strawberry and Cinnamon Apple varieties, but looking at their website they have more flavors, such as Apple Blackcurrent and Apple Orange. They even have Beetroot Snapz, and Carrot with Paprika Snapz!


Panda Licorice Flavored With Herbs

- We've had their original licorice and we really like the subtle flavor. We recently tried the licorice flavored with herbs, intrigued by the combination of herbs, and we were quite impressed! The peppermint made it slightly cooling on the tongue!


Celestial Seasonings Tea Dreams Tropic of Strawberry Ice Cream

- This tropical strawberry rice dream ice cream was pretty good with the addition of fresh strawberry slices. The mouthfeel was very creamy, almost rich, but then slightly shavy rather than smooth (when spooning it out it made shavings). Good flavor, but not the greatest. Our favorite ice cream so far is So Delicious - especially the Fruit sweetened Vanilla.



Pacific Natural Foods Oat Milk

- Yummy! So good with cereal and strawberries or blueberries. Would be good in muffins or pancakes! Silk Vanilla Soy milk, Pearl Original Soy milk, Blue Diamond Original Almond milk, and this oat milk are our top 4 milk alternatives!




WholeSoy & Co Soy Yogurts

- We've mentioned that we love the blueberry and strawberry soy yogurts, and we also like the vanilla and peach. We recently found 3 new flavors that we've never tried before - lemon, cherry, and raspberry. The lemon was ok- slightly rich, but good with bananas like a lemon pudding. We enjoyed the raspberry one with frozen fruit and granola. The cherry one was the best of the 3 - great cherry flavor, and tasty with frozen cherries!


Bob's Red Mill Apple Cinnamon Granola

- One of our favorite granolas now! We've tried Back to Nature granola and we loved the classic granola, but after trying this, this may be our favorite. It wasn't too apple-y in flavor, which we liked. Great with yogurt and blueberries!


Dried Mango Slices

- At Brazos Natural Foods (where L works) we've tried the best dried apricots and recently, the best dried mango! It tasted just like mango, and it had a great bite to it - not dry or tough, but somewhat like a fruit chew. Great plain, but also quite good with some almond butter on it.


Hope you all can try out these great food products! What new food product have you tried recently?

- LK Sisters

1 comment:

Ruby Red said...

You reminded me of oat milk - thanks! I've tried it once before and cannot believe I've forgotten how delicious it was!

Haha, we both made the banana coffee cake! Yum! Can you believe it's the first recipe I've made from FatFree Vegan?! It seems like every other vegan has made at least one of Susan's recipes.