What's for dinner.....Tomato Soup w/Grilled Cheese Croutons

At the end of this month my favorite cookbook author, Ina Garten, is releasing her new cookbook and I'm super excited.  To celebrate, I decided to cook one of her soon to be released recipes.  Sunday was cold, dark, and rainy...so the perfect weather for tomato soup!

This recipe is definitely a keeper. Nothing makes me happier then when I make something that Jon and Blake love, and they both gobbled this one down!  The soup is thickened w/orzo so it was great for Blake, and the Gruyere cheese in the croutons took it to the next level.  If this recipe is any indication, her new book is going to be fantastic!

What's for breakfast....Caramelized Banana Bread

Keeping my fingers crossed that things are finally going to calm down enough in my life to get back to the things I love to do, including baking.  This Sunday I decided to try out one of the new banana bread recipes that I stumbled across recently.  I love having something baked around the house during the week to snack on for breakfast or after dinner.

This banana bread was a little different than my regular recipe in that I caramelized the bananas in brown sugar before adding them to the bread and then topped it with a browned butter glaze.  Next time I would probably make the glaze a little less thick, but the bread itself turned out great for the whole family.