Cream Cheese Filled Banana Bread

By the time I get to catch up posting again...I will be going back to Cleveland for another visit to check on my sister; who is not improving with her mental and physical health...sad to say! In the meantime, I have not spent any time on my blog for one month. I do have several photos of things I have made that I would love to share with you and this amazing Banana Bread with Cream Cheese filling is one of them!

Now that I have joined Weight Watchers again, for the 'upteenth time'...in my opinion, this time is the best time joining and still losing the desired weight is beyond my 'wild' expectation. It is so easy to track the points and stay within the 'portion control' is so important. The extra point allowance of (49) is used at your own convenience, which I chose for Saturday and Sunday. That's when I can bake and cook to my 'heart's content' and I love it.

We all love a good homemade banana bread and my daughter and I make a loaf every week makes a loaf with the leftover ripe bananas. Actually I just make the special ones every now-and-then when a new recipe catches my eye! Since I'm a Pinterest addict, I save quite a few interesting and new recipes...although this may not be so new, but 'new to me'!

Cream Cheese Filled Banana Bread

 recipe source; lil luna

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 3 mashed ripe bananas
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 4 TB sour cream
• 2 cups flour
• 1 TB Sugar
• ½ tsp. cinnamon

Cream Cheese Mixture :

• 8-10 ounce cream cheese, softened
• ⅓ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 TB flour

Instructions

1. Mix sugar, butter & eggs. Dissolve baking soda in sour cream, add bananas, salt and 2 cups flour. Mix all together.
2. Divide ½ of this mixture into 2 floured loaf pans.
3. Combine cream cheese ingredients and spread over mixture in pans. Spread remaining banana batter on top.
4. Sprinkle top with 1 TB sugar mixed w. ½ teaspoon cinnamon before baking.
5. Bake at 350 for 50 min. Cool and serve. 

Been having much needed rain here in Palm Beach...just wanted to share this beautiful photo with you that I snapped at the 'spare of the moment' with my Smart Phone...also, all the previous photos have been taken with my cell phone since most of the time I'm not prepared to take photos and do not have my camera 'on hand'.
Wishing you all a beautiful Sunday...although in most parts of the globe Sunday has ended, so have a beautiful and pleasant week, to all my friends!

Ziti with fresh Tomatoes, and Zucchini

I still have some photos of my $ 1.00 thrift find bag of mixed vegetable, that I did't get to post about in the last few months. Now, that I'm back and forth to my place from my son's house, I rarely get a chance to do much other than taking care of the pets, (mine, and his)...not much chance for cooking or baking.
Good thing I went to check on my place because I came home to a surprise...a flood of water gushing from my A/C unit ceiling all soaked. Good thing I wasn't sleeping there because I turned the A/C and called the service first thing in the morning.

Really there's no set recipe for this wonderful sauteed mixed zucchini, squash, onions, and blanched chopped fresh tomatoes, served over a pasta of your choice, I used ziti pasta.This is one of my favorite vegetarian pasta dish!

I could easily have at least 3 or 4 vegetarian meals a week...eating something so healthy and delicious like these veggies! When we were kids, growing up in Cleveland in the late fifties and mid sixties, I remember my mom only made a meat dish about once or twice a week on the weekend...everything was prepared in season, and canned for the winter. Homemade breads, rolls, danishes were not an option, it was made regularly, just as homemade noodles. As a nation, we have consumed way too much meats over the decades...time to slow it down a bit and eat what mother nature produces for us!

Last night I did  not feel like doing much, just cleaned out my son's refrigerator, and defrosted one of my pizza crust that I make ahead of time to freeze, thaw out and bake...I  topped it off with caramelized onions, fresh tomato sauce fresh basil leaves and crispy fried and crumbled pancetta...thick sliced chopped bacon is OK to use in place of pancetta. Just because you're spending time alone, does not mean that you cannot treat yourself to something homemade and delicious. If you don't want to make your own dough, you can get fresh bread dough in the bakery section of your supermarket. It's that easy!

Here's the source I used for my pizza dough, since I'm not posting from my home, I didn't have my personal pizza recipe with me. This is an excellent recipe...Epicurious always has the BEST of all the recipes!

Basic Pizza Dough Recipe

Did you ever see such gorgeous clouds in your life?...only in South Florida you get to see the sun going through such a transition...the sun, perching through the clouds in late afternoon that looks like a huge marshmallow, the palm trees swaying in the gentle breeze. (a view from my beach condo apt.) ...as I was leaving to go back across the bridge, just a matter of a 10 min. drive passing through A1A route taking a slow drive, and almost wanting to stop the car to take a few pictures of Rod Stewart's well hidden mansion...but it's just a dream, that I would ever even enter in one of these mansions!