Banana bars and Turkey burgers...

I made banana bars yesterday. Seriously good and sooo sooo easy! I found it on a food blog and realized I had all the ingredients for it so I thought I'd give it a try.

This is the link if you want to go to the site. She has some good stuff on there.

Anyway, It was super easy to make and I thought I'd share the recipe!

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 very ripe banana, mashed
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I left the nuts out!)

FROSTING
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 ripe banana
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 tsp lemon juice

(For the frosting I actually used about 2 oz of cream cheese (softened) instead of butter. I had to add a little more sugar, but I thought it made it richer. I also added a tsp of cinnamon...it just seemed like the right thing to do!!)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13" pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until smooth. Stir in the milk and vanilla. combing flour, baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt, stir into sugar mixture. Mix in 1 banana, 1tsp lemon juice and walnuts. Spread evenly into pan.
3. Bake for 25 minutes in preheated oven. Let bars cool in the pan on a wire rack.
4. Frosting: mix together the melted butter (or cream cheese), 1 tsp vanilla, confect. sugar, 1/2 banana, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp lemon juice, and 1 tsp cinnamon (optional) using and electric mixer. beat until smooth and spread over cooled bars. Then cut into squares (or just eat them out of the pan!!)
   

I also made some turkey burgers for dinner last night. It was raining and the only idea I had was burgers, so I seriously busted out the good ol' George Forman grill!! It's been sooo long since I've used that thing. I think the last time was when Jason and I were living in our apartment the first few years of marriage and I didn't want to cook because I was so bogged down with school. Who knew that years later I would be even busier and yet it would seem like normal life! I was so naive!!

Turkey Burgers:
1 lb ground turkey
1 pkg. mesquite seasoning (I only used 3/4 the pkg, but the recipe calls for the whole thing)
1 jalapeno chopped (I used the canned jalapeno slices and just diced up about 5 slices really fine)

Mix all together and make into patties. I actually had 1.25 lb of turkey burger and made 4 patties. If you have 1 lb I would recommend only 3 patties. Anyway, they were spicy and delicious. Much healthier than your basic burger but they had sooo much flavor and were so easy to make.

So, I ate almost half the pan of banana bars in one day (it's ok, I worked out that day!!) and I pigged out on turkey burgers and oven fries. I love finding recipes online, and I'll share them as I find them. I really wish I had all the time in the world to cook. I find it very satisfying! When I'm stressed and have a lot to do, I cook...which doesn't help me get things done, but it makes life so much more enjoyable!!

Have a great day and enjoy the cooler weather! I am actually wearing jeans today...can you believe it!?!
~V~