Mostly-real banana bread

We looove banana bread in this house! Actually, we just love bananas, in general. It's rare that bananas sit on our counter long enough to ripen for baking, but when they do, I always make sure to whip up a loaf of our favorite chocolate chip banana bread. I knew I was going to have to come up with some substitutions for our tried and true recipe to better fit into the "real food" criteria.

I admit I cheated a little and added chocolate chips. I couldn't bear to leave them out, it felt like I was profaning the institution of Chocolate Chip Banana Breadery and feared punishment. I decided to take the safe route and not insult the CCBB. I used Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips, which is as real as I could find. It only has five ingredients, all of which I can pronounce - granted, one is sugar and another soy lecithin, as an emulsifier. 

Thanks to fabulous Google, I learned that I can substitute 3/4 cup of maple syrup for every 1 cup of brown sugar. I also learned that using maple syrup requires a lower cooking temperature because it has a much lower melting point (made sense since it does sit in the pantry as a syrup, whereas brown sugar is solid), so I lowered the oven temp by 25*. 

I also replaced all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour. I like to use the King Arthur brand white whole wheat flour. It's made with white spring wheat instead of red wheat, so it has a much lighter texture and breads are less dense. It is still 100% whole wheat and also tastes better to me. Apparently, it also tastes great to the boys because the entire loaf was gone by the following morning. I'd call that a Win!

So those are the changes I made and I'm excited to share our new favorite recipe for "Mostly-Real Chocolate Chip Banana Bread"!

mostly-real banana bread

::ingredients::

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

2/3 cup pure maple syrup

2 eggs

2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

3/4 cup Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips

1:: Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. (I used coconut oil for greasing.)

2:: In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips.

3:: In a separate bowl, cream together butter and maple syrup. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended.

4:: Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

5:: Bake in preheated oven for 60-65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

monday shtuff

hello, monday!

it's always great to wake up on a monday morning. 

i usually wake up startled because i look at the clock and it reads 7:34 {as was the scenario this morning}. we are usually out the door by 7:45, so it's pretty safe to say that 7:34 is late. i jump out of bed thinking it's going to be world war three to get these kids out of bed, fed and dressed. to my surprise, i find isaiah and mikey sitting on the sofa watching a pokemon show, completely dresssed {jackets, shoes, backpacks, lunch bags and all} and ready for school.

{theme to twilight zone playing in the background}

me: umm...you guys are dressed.

isaiah: yep.

me: did you brush?

isaiah: yep.

mikey: wanna see my teeth? {shoots me a big grin.}

me: did you eat breakfast?

isaiah: yeah. i had a blueberry waffle and mikey had cocoa puffs. 

me: umm...uh...umm..ok. {thinking up my speech that i'll recite when i'm awarded my mother of the year trophy} thanks, isaiah.

isaiah: don't worry, mom. you still have time. it's only 7:35.

my seven-year-old son is a better mother than i. 

this said seven-year-old also came home from school on friday and made a batch of his favorite peanut butter cup cookies to share with his brothers. again - a better mother than i.

while my son is taking care of my children, i busy myself with lots of fun crafting. this weekend, i made a bunch of reusable cloth baby wipes. i use cloth diapers for liam and wyatt, but never went all the way with cloth wipes, as well, though i always wanted to make some. i was motivated by my sister-in-law {and BIL}, who is expecting in march. her shower is this weeekend and i was super pleased to find on her gift registry that she is also planning to cloth diaper, and all the way down to the wipes. awesome in my book.

any-shways, when i saw that one of the things on her registry was washable flannel wipes...it was so on. i made a ton of them using the boys' receiving blankets and it costs me $free.99. my favorite price. also so comforting to know that the receiving blankets i've grown so attached to, since i've used them for all four of my boys, will now be wiping to bum of my sister-in-law's babe. anything for our island princess - or maybe anything for the sake of not having to spend any money. i'll stick with the first reason - it sounds better.

i cut the receiving blankets into 8x8 squares. i was able to get nine squares from one blanket.

see that sparkly new rotary cutter? i can't believe i went so long without one. i'm in love...and can only hope that my rotary cutter feels the same way about me. 

then i sewed the edges using the zigzag stich on my machine. 

this took some time. there were a lot of wipes. but since crafting, including sewing, is my therapy, it was no biggie. and i also realized my sewing machine could double as a head massager - i would rest my forehead on the front of the machine when my neck would start to cramp up, and the vibration would give my noggin a nice massage. awesome.

and, voila! stacks and stacks of washable flannel wipes. 

you'd be shocked how much those things cost if you buy them. search on amazon. but make sure you sit down for it, because it's a shocker. 

i also started making some t-shirt flowers to use for headbands and hair clips for my nieces. i really love the method i found on pinterest. i was intimidated with it as first because it uses a sewing machine, but it's really so simple and the flowers come out just how i like them - full and fluffy, but non-uniform. 

i made those flowers using one of isaiah's favorite t-shirts that had a hole in it. i hung onto the t-shirt because i loved its light blue color and knew that i'd be able to make use of it somehow. these flowers were perfect.

i had already chopped off the bottom of the shirt and part of the sleeves when isaiah saw me working with it. he swiped it from the table and, next thing i knew, he was wearing his favorite shirt again. who cares if it was a half top and one sleeve was chopped up? it was his favorite - poor guy. i consoled him by telling him that his baby girl cousins would be wearing his favorite t-shirt on their heads as flowers. and he bought it. 

lastly, i leave you with this colorful sight that sits on upon our kitchen counter.

we had just gone grocery shopping and the colors of the citrus was too pretty to not capture. 

ahh, simple joys. 

they are everywhere every day.

it's been a while, but linking up today with carissa at lowercase letters!

from their garden

i don't have my own garden, though i wish i did. i also wish i could have my own chickens so i don't have to buy eggs again. i dream about one day making our home self-sufficient in as many ways as possible - a garden and trees for produce, chickens for eggs, solar power. i'll do anything besides farming animals for meat because i just don't see myself slaughtering a cow for dinner. one day, friends. one day. 

but, for now, we know plenty of people who have gardens and they are always happy to share their produce. the mister's co-workers always ask him if he wants some lemons, tomatoes, zucchini, etc, and he always says, "yes! my wife will turn it into something." it's true and it goes hand-in-hand with my previous post about ways we save money. i take whatever produce is offered to us and i will make it into something that my family will eat. the following are just a few examples of where i did just that.

tomatoes. we were given tomatoes from multiple gardens - my dad, stepmom and mother-in-law. it was a tomato influx from every which parental direction. 

the first thing i did was make a confit of tomatoes a la david lebovitz. 

i poured enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish, threw in about 1 tablespoon each of chopped garlic, black pepper, salt, herbs de provence, and sugar. i cut the tomatoes in half and placed them open face down into the oil, sprinkled a little more salt and pepper on top, threw in a few bay leaves, then baked it at 325* for about 45 minutes. i store it in a large glass jar in the refrigerator and it lasts for about a week.

i love this recipe because it is extremely versatile. i've found that it's the best way to preserve a ton of tomatoes that would otherwise go bad and still be able to use it in a variety of ways. one way is for bruschetta. who doesn't love bruschetta? give the tomatoes a rough chop and serve with sliced baguette. yum.

another use is to chop the tomatoes and toss them with pasta. the tomatoes are cooked in a tasty oil, so that's all the sauce you need. it makes for a quick and light meal.

we then took what was left of the confit after a few days and turned it into spaghetti sauce, which we canned and will place in the freezer. it keeps forever.

lemons. the mister's co-workers sent him home with this humongous bag of lemons. it had to be at least 25 pounds worth. and these were not ordinary little lemons - they were the size of softballs!

after using 5-6 of them for margaritas over the weekend {if only i had some fresh mint, we would have made some mojitos, too}, i made some lemon bars. these are sooo good and sooo easy. i shared some with a preggo friend of mine and, after eating her first ten pieces, she had to make her husband hide them and ration two pieces for her each day. hysterical.   

zucchini. we also were given zucchini from a few different gardens. and i'm not sure what was up with the zucchini this year, but they were gigantic!!!! here's one pictured with a large steak knife for size reference.  it could double as a baseball bat.

one can only eat so much stir-fried zucchini, so i made a ton of zucchini bread which was a huge hit in this house. wyatt tore this stuff up. i think that boy ate a whole loaf by himself in a day. 

on another note, did you notice my sweet, new button action to the right? the lovely ladies at j&m's eye candy featured my post about ways we save money. they made my week. :) thanks, kristine and britney!

the neiman marcus cookie

where do you keep your recipes? 

i have always just thrown mine into a drawer. now it seems i've accumulated so many that it's become a big mess in there and i can never find what i need. i've been thinking that it's time to do some recipe organizing, but i wasn't sure how i wanted to do it. 

i was able to stroll through michaels the other day, ALONE, which means i was able to rummage through all of the clearance bins. i found this cute recipe binder for $3 and the matching recipe cards for 60 cents a pack. so for $4.20, i will be able to organize my recipes and such into this cute binder, divided and all organized and stuff. don't be jealous of me and this long and tedious awesome and super cool project that i am about to dive into.

as i was going through the gazillion random pieces of paper, i found a recipe for "the neiman marcus cookie". i think i got it at our annual holiday cookie exchange last christmas, but i hadn't tried making them yet. 

little did i know that i would never look at chocolate chip cookies the same again after making a batch of this heavenly treat. i always thought i loved the texture and taste of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, but i think the neiman marcus cookie, with its delicious hint of coffee, has changed my mind and heart forever. i have a new favorite. 

here's the recipe. go and try it. you know you want to. i even made it as an adorable recipe card that you can print as a 4x6. if this doesn't motivate you to get your own recipe binder started, i don't know what will.