St. Patrick's Pistachio Bread

I'm getting in the Irish holiday spirit already!

I really wanted to make a couple of St. Patty's treats this year, so here I am. This post is brought to you by a failed batch of Bailey's Irish Cream Cookies. I'm undecided whether the Bailey's flavor was just too overwhelmingly strong, or my Bailey's had gone bad. Either way, the cookies sucked. I wasn't about to give up. I began to lead towards a minty treat, and maybe I'll still make one. I did, however, stumble on a recipe for Pistachio Bread in my quest that I just couldn't resist.

Although this technically qualifies as a "quick bread", it tastes like cake. And to be fair, it is made with a cake mix. It's moist, fluffy, and studded with pistachios. Unbeknownst to me, the hubby already loves Pistachio Bread. He did mention my bread was a little more green than Pistachio Breads he's had in the past. I'll admit, I did make mine a bit greener for St. Patty's day. Maybe I could call it Shrek Bread...

Our latest snow event is coming to an end. The temperature got up to 40º yesterday, so we are seeing some melting action. I was finally able to make it to the grocery store yesterday, which gave me a minor break from my cabin fever. The local news finally enlightened everyone as to the reason why Kentucky didn't do any road maintenance earlier this week- they are out of salt. They have placed an order for more that's not here yet, so they are in conservation mode. I think these unpredictable winters are going to be the norm in the future, so I can only hope the state is more prepared next year. Wishful thinking, but a girl can hope.

Today is the first day this week I could go to the gym. As luck would have it, both the hubby and I have colds. Our second colds of 2014. We are not off to a good start. This cold seems like a normal head cold, I'm hoping today is the worst of it. Between going out of town last weekend, and then coming down with a cold, I haven't worked out in over a week. I feel like I'm losing muscle already! I don't know if that's possible after only 9 days or so, but I feel like it is. I have decided not to take my cold to the gym to infect other people. I'm sure they will appreciate that :)

Have a great day everyone!

Ingredients:

1 box yellow cake mix
1 package instant pistachio pudding
4 eggs
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tbsp water
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp green food color
1 tsp almond extract
1 cup pistachios, shelled and chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Coat a loaf pan with cooking spray.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine cake mix through almond extract. Stir with a wooden spoon until smooth. Fold in 3/4 cup pistachios. Spread batter into loaf pan, sprinkle remaining pistachios over the top of the bread.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from oven, cool in pan 30 minutes. Remove loaf to a cooling rack, allow to cool completely before storage.

*Baking note- I halved the recipe to see if I would like it, resulting in smaller slices of bread. The full recipe will result in normal-size slices of bread.

Recipe by Better than Burgers

Linked to: Weekend Potluck