Healthy (relatively) Banana chocolate chip bread

I love banana bread...and I have been on a baking banana bread roll lately!

Since I cannot just have one piece of banana bread, I try to make my banana bread as healthy as possible. It minimizes the guilt and every time I eat a piece, I feel better in knowing that it's healthy.  I switched out the all purpose flour for a combination of wheat flour, all purpose flour and oats.  Instead of sugar, I replaced the sugar with maple syrup and used less syrup than what the original recipe call for.  I figured since I was adding chocolate chips, I could cut back on some of the sugar content.  Instead of oil or butter, I used greek yogurt in its place.  It makes the bread extra moist and adds protein!

So what if it has a few.....ok more than a few chocolate chips, it's all relative right?

Ingredients:

3 ripe mashed bananas
1/2 cup maple syrup (you can use regular sugar or brown sugar)
2 eggs
1/2 cup greek yogurt
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 TBSP milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In medium sized bowl, combine flours, oats, baking soda and powder.

In large bowl, beat together bananas, syrup, eggs, yogurt.  Add dry mixture to banana mixture, along with vanilla and milk.  Stir until just combined and stir in chocolate chips.

Pour in a greased bread pan.  Bake for 50-55 minutes.  I like my banana bread a little under baked so I always take it out around the 50-55 minute mark.  If you don't like it underbaked, leave it in the oven for at least 1 hour.

I couldn't even help myself to sneaking some banana bread while taking a picture!  That is why some of that piece is missing!  And I am the reason why most of the bread is gone already.....

Swiss Chard Spanakopita

Who doesn't love those Greek little spinach pies?   I was looking for something vegetarian and something a little different to make for dinner last night and I came across this spanakopita recipe in Cooking Light.  Since it is casserole style, it is a lot less work....which for a week night meal, that is always a bonus!  

Here is the link to the original recipe below.
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/swiss-chard-spanakopita-casserole-10000000554653/

And here is my version :)

Ingredients:

1 cup diced yellow onion
4-5 large mushrooms, diced
1/2 cup green onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
one bunch rainbow chard (I couldn't find swiss chard so I used rainbow chard)
1 TBSP minced fresh mint
1 cup crumbled feta cheese (I used one 4 oz package)
1/2 freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3 egg whites
1 roll frozen phyllo dough

Preheat oven to 350°.
Heat a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium high heat.  Add onions, saute 7 minutes or until golden.   .

 Add green onions and garlic and saute 1 minute.  Then add chard and saute for 2 minutes or until wilted. 

 Add mushrooms and saute for 2 minutes. Place in large bowl, cool slightly and add egg whites, cheeses, salt, and pepper

 In a greased 8x8 pan, place one sheet of phyllo dough on the bottom, coat with cooking spray and layer another sheet of phyllo dough on top.  Continue to do this until you have layered 10 sheets.  Spread chard mixture evenly over phyllo dough.  Place one sheet of phyllo dough on top of mixture and coat with cooking spray.  Continue same process until you have layered ten sheets of phyllo dough on top.  Bake for 40 minutes.

 The casserole will come out very hot so watch your mouth while you bite into it!  My husband said a few times that he burned his mouth eating this.  I did as well, but it was worth it ;)

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Duck shepherd pie

My parents sent us home with half a roast duck.   I wanted to try something new with all of the duck meat.  I had two sweet potatoes that I had to use up so I thought maybe I could try a duck shepherds pie with sweet potato mash.

There aren't many recipes out there for this so I pretty much decided to wing this one and hope for the best. 

Ingredients

Duck meat, diced.  

Half an onion, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

2 carrots, diced

1/4 cup frozen peas

2 sweet potatoes

1 package sliced mushrooms

1 tsp paprika

1/8 cup red wine

2 TBSP butter

cornstarch

1) I had a little less than half a duck that had bones still in it so I had to debone the duck and diced up the duck meat.  Fill a small pot up halfway with water and boil.  Add sweet potatoes and cook until a fork can pierce the sweet potato easily.

 2) In a deep skillet, with some olive oil, I sautéed all of the veggies (with the exception of the peas and mushrooms)  After a couple mins, I threw in the tsp of paprika.

 Then I added the mushrooms and the wine.  Set the burner to simmer and let the mushrooms and wine cook down.  This will take about five minutes.

 Then I added the peas.  In a small bowl, I mixed about 1 and 1/2 TBSP with about 1/4 cup water.  Stir in the cornstarch mixture.   Cook for a couple minutes and the mixture should thicken.  If not add more cornstarch and water mixture.

 After mixture has thicken, pour into a greased 9x13 inch pan.    Mash up the sweet potatoes with the butter.  Add warm milk if you think the sweet potato mixture is too thick.  I added some milk but I thought mine would have been fine without it.   Add sweet potato mash to the pan and spread.

 Top with cheese and bake about 15-30 minutes until the pie is heated through.