Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Leftover Bananas

I love left over rotting bananas and this is my favorite recipe to use them up!  The yogurt makes the bread so moist and not a lot of extra fat or calories.

I always cut the bread in the middle.  Mostly because that is the piece the girls like the most and it also drives my husband nuts.  I mean it really bothers him and I made a promise to his younger sister that everyday for the rest of his life I would torture him on her behalf.  I think I am really doing a good job too!

Here is the recipe from Penzey's Spices:
Ingredients


2 cups unbleached flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup walnuts (optional) or pecans, coarsely chopped (optional)

3/4 cup mini chocolate chip (optional)

1 1/2 cups bananas, very ripe and well mashed (3 bananas)

1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 325°F Grease a large 9x5 loaf pan and set aside.

2.  Stir the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, nuts and chocolate chips together in a large bowl and set aside.

3.  In a medium bowl, mix the mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter and vanilla together.

4.  Lightly fold the banana mixture into the dry ingredients until just combined and the batter looks thick and chunky.

5.  Spoon the batter into the loaf pan and smooth the surface with a spatula.

6.  Bake at 325°F until the loaf is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 70-75 minutes.

7.  Cool in the pan for about 5 minutes and then turn out and let cool on a wire rack.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Curtains on a budget!

I saw these wonderful curtains online at one of my favorite over priced stores.  You know the one, they have their baby store, their teen store (this is where I saw the curtains) and the home store and everything is really expensive, but so cool.    The curtains were $69, not per set PER panel.  WHAT!  I am not going to spend $276 on curtains for my 4 year olds room.  So, I bought simple white tab top curtains for $14 a PAIR and the ribbon & thread for about $20.  In the end-I made all the curtains for her room for less than the price of just one panel! 

Getting everything organized.  This machine was my mother's from college!


I washed the ribbon and curtains before I began to sew and gave them a quick iron.




I pinned the ribbon in three sections, leaving the bottom ribbon to be sewn on last.


The final product! 

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday Dad- you are missed so much!



Wow- I love my eye liner in this pic! 


Friday, March 5, 2010

Another reason to eat Sun Chips!

Wow!  Way to go Sun Chips.  100% compostable packaging.  They even show you a cool video of it decomposing over time- just 14 weeks.   Well this is the start of our journey- guess I will report back in 14 weeks. 



Waiting to go out the compost bin.


The compost bin. You can get them at your local town dump and surprisingly they really don't smell. I think ours cost $45 or so? It is amazing the amount of stuff you can compost vs. throwing it away in the garbage. It is double worth it when the town you live in charges you $1 a trash bag and you HAVE to use town trash bags to dispose of your trash. 

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Craft project with scrap material!

Another crafty idea from my crafty sister in law.  The girls had a lot of fun doing these.  It worked out best to cut out the pants, shirts etc. first, glue them on and then have the kids draw in the bodies. 

Thanks for the link K  http://www.monkeylobster.com/




Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Animal Tracks

When I went to take our dog, Tia out one morning this week there was a fresh layer of snow and traveling from under our back sunroom into the woods were animal tracks.   What could it be........... skunk, racoon, yeti, giant man eating squirrel???????? 

Here are a few practice tracks to identify then you decide:

The snaggle tooth


My Gun Boats

Pictures of the unidentified prowler. 
I am thinking racoon?? 



What do you think? and what was he/she doing on my back porch?


Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Another piece of Abby's room

Almost finished with Abby's room.  Just need to sew and  hang the curtains and I will be done (I have all the material, ribbon and thread, now to just find the time!).   This great custom art work from my friend at Barefoot by the Sea was another fantastic touch!