“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou
Happy Birthday Grama!
Cinnamon Ripple Banana Bread
The other day, I was looking through my enormous recipe notebook–you know, the notebook full of “things to try.” The idea was to find something that just screamed Easter. Well, I found plenty and the only real trouble I ended up with was picking which adorable Eastery thing to make.
Then, without realizing what I was actually doing– I found myself completely and utterly fixated on this particular recipe. I don’t personally believe there is anything about Cinnamon Ripple Banana Bread that even whispers Easter…nevermind screaming it. But there it was in the mixer and I continued on like a woman possessed.
I intended to take some charming photos of the loaf out of the pan, intact and cooling on a pretty little rack, maybe with a few carefully placed cinnamon sticks. Alas, once it was out of the oven– the bread knife had a mind of it’s own as well. Then, somebody started nibbling and before I knew it…there were only a couple of slices left.
Not. My. Fault.
Cinnamon Ripple Banana Bread
Ingredients:
3 very ripe bananas–thoroughly mashed
1/3 cup softened butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1-1/2 cups flour
For the Ripple:
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a large loaf pan evenly. Shake about a tablespoon of the cinnamon sugar mixture into the buttered pan…
and tip the pan around until all the sides and the bottom are well coated.
Pour the excess back in with the mixture set aside for the ripple.
Mix bananas, butter , sugar, egg, vanilla, soda, cinnamon and salt together. Pour about one half of mixture in loaf pan. Sprinkle most of the cinnamon/sugar mixture over the top.
Add the rest of the bread batter over the cinnamon layer. Sprinkle the rest of the mixture on the top. Bake for about 60 minutes or until a knife poked in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before cutting.
Serve with cream cheese or by itself. Either way is fine by me. It’s wonderful, and if you can force yourself to save a piece till tomorrow, it is even somehow miraculously…
better. Yeah, didn’t see that coming either. Oh, and as for the Easter recipe…
there’s always next week.
Cinnamon Ripple Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 3 very ripe bananas--thoroughly mashed
- ⅓ cup softened butter
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1-1/2 cups flour
- For the Ripple:
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 Tbsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Butter a large loaf pan evenly.
- Shake about a tablespoon of the cinnamon sugar mixture into the buttered pan and tip the pan around until all the sides and the bottom are well coated. Pour the excess back in with the mixture set aside for the ripple.
- Mix bananas, butter , sugar, egg, vanilla, soda, cinnamon and salt together.
- Pour about one half of mixture in loaf pan.
- Sprinkle most of the cinnamon/sugar mixture over the top.
- Add the rest of the bread batter over the cinnamon layer.
- Sprinkle the rest of the mixture on the top.
- Bake for about 60 minutes or until a knife poked in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool completely.
- Serve with cream cheese or by itself.
Hunger Games Prize Bag
WINNERS!!
Shelly
Nat
Dot
Congratulations you guys!! You’ve won a prize bag from our Hunger Games Movie Premier. Next best thing to being there. :}
Thanks for entering everyone!
Soap Chip Sack
Yeah…say that 3 times fast. Heh, heh.
Remember a few months back, when I shared the pattern for a sweet little soap sack–you know, to keep the soap from sitting in water and getting all…ummm…disgusting?
Since then, this little do-dad has really been earning it’s keep and is, as we speak, hanging out in the shower window keeping a very lovely hand made bar of spice soap safe from all known evils.
Well, I’d like to introduce you to Soap Bag’s baby brother…Chip.
You know all those soap ends that are too small to do anything but be aggravating and yet, for some goofy reason still feel wrong and wasteful to throw out?
Well, here’s the answer! Just pile all those little pieces into this new bag–with a tighter mesh, and smaller holes, cinch the top and TA-DA…
you have a whole new soft, scrubbie with never ending suds! Ok, well, maybe not the never ending part, but you get what I’m saying. It’s like having a whole new bar of soap come from out of nowhere. And how green is that?
I’ll be putting a ton of these in my Gracious Rain Shop in the next few days, but if you’d rather make a couple yourself–I’d be happy to post the pattern.
Let me know. I’m glad to oblige–especially for such a noble cause. Because you know~being resourceful feels soooo good.
:}
Mini Cookie Fest
Our girl, April brought the kids over and just happened to bring a few Easter cookies to decorate. A few, being enough for everybody to have…one. It was perfect.
A lovely adventure, with just enough frosting to go around nicely. No, I did not tell Mr. Beck to lick the knife like that–he came up with the idea on his own. Spooky.
Next, of course, it was time to add the sprinkles. Luckily, the shaker tops have teeny, tiny holes so that little hands can’t get too carried away.
But I guess it is possible to get quite a pile if you just shake long enough, which he apparently…did.
Sweet Miss Lily had a different idea.
All she wanted was the crystal sugar–in pink and purple. And everyone knows that you can never have enough pink and purple–even on a cookie. Or anywhere else for that matter.
It’s a color preference that this wise girl shares with her Grammy. Good form my dear. You’ll go far.
At last, Miss Chompy had her turn with the sparkles–and she didn’t want any help. Some things are best done alone you know. Just a girl, her thoughts and a cookie.
After all, it’s a special moment when you can help a lowly cookie reinvent itself into a work of art…a masterpiece, even.
Just before…
you wolf it down.
We gotta make more of these. One each just doesn’t cut it.
And I hear it’s not polite to wrestle goodies from the grasp of a 4 year old.
Well, how would I know that?
Sheesh.
:}
Hunger Games: What’s In The Bag?
Whenever we have one of our Movie Premier Parties, I get emails from people who weren’t able to come, asking what is in the prize bags that each ticket holder gets. So I’ll show you. First of all the Hunger Games bags had a district tag on them so it was kind of fun to see which district you were divided into.
The contents of these prize bags were a bit more detailed this time. Usually we have a couple of cute show souvenirs and a snack or two. But this time we wanted to focus more on the characters in the show and what they might give, if they could, to each guest.
From Katniss, we have an arrow necklace.
From Gale, a hearty little beef stick–so we don’t starve.
Breadsticks from Peeta Melark…the boy with the bread.
Madge gave everyone a Mockingjay button pin, to keep our spirits up.
The Baker gave everyone two cookies…maybe because he felt sorry for us, I don’t know.
Onion soup mix from Greasy Sae…ewww-wah.
Snarky old Haymitch sent along an emergency blanket.
Sweet Rue gave some fruit jelly from her orchards back home.
We even tucked in a random finger puppet from our friends at WeeKnit with this quote about the Capitol. It seemed to fit…hahaha!
Cinna gave a pine fire starter and a box of matches.
And lastly, ridiculous Effie Trinket donated a sparkly necklace and a Ring Pop so that we could pretend to be from the completely-over-the-top Capitol set.
So, what do you think? Aren’t the prize bags so much fun? Turns out, we have a couple of them left over from the party that we’d like to giveaway. So, if you’d like to win one of the bags from our premiere and get the feel for being there–just leave a comment on the post today and I’ll choose a winner or two on Friday at 10am. How’s that?
May the odds be ever in your favor.
heh, heh.
