Glide Zen

Have you ever tried banana bread in cookie form with a thick fluffy layer of frosting sandwiched between two of them? With these cookies now is your chance. They taste just like banana bread with an added bonus, a luscious layer of vanilla bean frosting. Lightly said, these cookies are amazing! I saw the Banana Whoopie Pies over at Martha Stewart and new I just had to try them. Lucky for me I keep a stock of overripe bananas in the freezer for emergencies such as this, where I need an overripe banana in it's prime but don't want to wait 7 more days for it to hit its peak ripeness. I used to question whether or not freezing bananas was a good idea until I tried if for myself a few months ago. It actually works great. You simply just leave them unpeeled and pop them into the freezer when they are nice and spotty. Then when you are ready to use them, thaw the frozen banana out (to room temperature, sometimes I cheat and even thaw them in the microwave) then peel and prepar...

What do you get when you combine banana bread with cinnamon rolls? These incredible Banana Bread Cinnamon Rolls! A cinnamon roll and banana bread in one, how could these not be good? Then when they are slathered generously with cream cheese frosting and finished off with toasted nuts, all I can say is wow yum! This is breakfast done right. Enjoy and be sure to eat them warm.  Banana Bread Cinnamon Rolls Yields 1 dozen Ingredients: 3 medium overripe bananas 1 tsp lemon juice 2/3 cup milk (I used whole) 3 Tbsp butter, diced 2 Tbsp vegetable oil 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast 1/4 cup granulated sugar 1/2 tsp salt 1 large egg yolk 3 3/4 cups bread flour, divided  1 Tbsp cornstarch 3/4 tsp baking powder 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/8 tsp nutmeg 6 Tbsp butter, melted 1 recipe Cream Cheese Frosting, recipe follows toasted walnuts or pecans, chopped (optional) Directions: Puree bananas in a food processor along with 1...

A healthy breakfast smoothie that tastes like dessert, I will take one of each flavor please. I'm a firm believer that healthy foods don't need to taste like cardboard, indeed they can be just as delicious as their unhealthy competitors. I don't know if I've mentioned before but I always like to have a healthy, low calorie breakfast and lunch, then at dinner I splurge a little and always have dessert. I exercise 6 days a week because I think it's a good balance for me. I watch Food Network while I run on the treadmill, it always keeps me going =). For breakfast I try to keep it around 300-400 calories 6 days a week (every Sunday I make a big brunch and splurge), so I like to have banana oatmeal, whole grain cream of wheat, whole grain cereal with almond milk or these smoothies with almond milk. Yes, I've made the change over to almond milk. I didn't believe it when I heard some random fact of how many people prefer the taste of almond milk to milk until ...