baking blitz: the best-and maybe healthiest-banana bread recipe.

I love to try new variations on recipes I've made dozens of times.  This time I tried Oatmeal Banana Nut Bread, a standard recipe with the addition of quick oats.  

Right out of the oven!

 For mine I used butter for the shortening.  They came out quite delicious.  You can't really taste the oats after baking, so its easy to add more whole grain without really changing the flavor too much. It might be worth trying this trick with zucchini bread, too. In the end I really liked how these turned out!  To turn the bread into muffins I reduced the bake time to around 35 minutes, but my oven runs cool so keep checking them after 25 minutes or so.

Want them even healthier?  A review suggests using fat-free yogurt to replace half the butter/shortening.  I didn't have yogurt this time, but I'm going to have to try that next time!

Something for the Summer: Blueberry Lemonade

Summer's not really happening here, but I can still drink like it is!  I'm going to share my recipe for Blueberry Lemonade.  I didn't get any pictures, because it tasted too great and we drank it all right away.

1/2 - 3/4 cup Blueberries (Fresh or Frozen)
4-5 Lemons, depending on size
Sugar
Splenda
Blueberry Vodka (I had Smirnoff, but use your favorite.  Naturally flavored is best.)
Ice
Water

Juice the lemons, and add this to your pitcher.  (I love this one.)  Puree your berries or crush them up, and add them too.  I usually add 1-2 of the squeezed lemon rinds just to add more lemony goodness.  Cover this mixture with blueberry vodka and let it sit.

It should turn pinkish-purple from the berries.  Add sweetner to your taste. Depending on which vodka you use, you might not need to add as much sugar.  Some flavored vodkas have sugar added and some do not. I like to do half and half with Splenda and sugar because I like it really sweet without lots of calories.  Add some, taste it add some more.  You can even leave it out and add it by the glass later.  Fill the rest of the pitcher with as much water and ice as it will hold (or maybe not depending on its size.  Remember mine is 1 1/2 quarts or 1.6 L), and refrigerate.  The lemonade will get more purple and taste more like berries the next day!

Blackberries are next, because obviously Marionberry season is on and Stoli makes a lovely blackberry vodka.

Warning:  You can barely taste the alcohol in this.  Seriously.

Addendum:  Making this for kids?  Try a little Torani Blueberry Syrup instead of Vodka.

Cupcake Update.

Cupcakes up close.

Sugar shapes tutorial.

Happy 4th of July!

70-odd mini cupcakes chilling in my fridge for the Harrison Towers 4th of July celebration tomorrow.  Eggless chocolate "depression" cake batter with standard vanilla buttercream frosting piped onto them.  Sugar star shapes made by hand.

Naturally I had cupcake ingredients in lieu of any sort of dinner tonight.  Tummy not feeling so great.  Probably won't actually have any baked ones tomorrow.  I really wish I could un-eat all that icing.

Not pictured:  Two weiner-y cats who are hiding from fireworks.

QoGS

Lately, I feel like the Queen of Granny Squares.

Living so far away, I really feel disconnected from family and friends.  I also love sending people things in the mail, ever since a special someone sent me cookies at a terrible time in my life last year.  Spreading joy through the US Postal Service is a great way to keep in touch with people I care about back in Pennsylvania.

Back in March during a visit with my Mother's family, my cousin Mark and his wife Heather announced their first baby would be born late this summer.  Having JUST learned how amazingly fun crochet is, I decided to set to work creating a blanket for baby!

The hardest part:  Heather doesn't want to know the gender of her baby.  She is decorating with a theme that would suit either a boy or a girl.  I find this very progressive and interesting, considering we live in a day and age when some women put so much stock in the gender of their child they do crazy things to achieve their coveted boy or girl.  I won't go into it, but I might decide to do the same as Heather if I'm ever (super accidentally) having a baby. On second thought, I'm not very good at waiting for news like that.

So this is what I came up with:

The pattern is:  Carseat Blanket by Mary Ellen Wells.  I used Acrylic yarns because babies are messy.
Caron One pound Makes up the blue border and various colorways of Vanna's Choice make up the centers. All in all, it cost a little more than $50 dollars for the yarn, but I had plently left over, and I'm making a hexagon afghan for myself with them.  I bought an extra shade for mine, a really girlie pink.

Its not even close to done, but here is the pattern: hexagon how-to.  Pics soon, it's going really fast, maybe it'll be done by Zach's birthday?

Ravelry project link.

Doin' America

So where have I been?  The answer isn't simple but I'll try to make it sound that way:  Asleep.  San Fransisco.  Walgreens.

Recently I received a diagnosis.  Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, or chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis.  Not surprising considering my Mom has similar thyroid problems, since she was my age.  I should have guessed.  The symptoms were pretty clear, and if you ever even sort of suspect you might have it, don't sleep for two years.  Go get a blood test. In the end, the worst part is that breakfast is sort of forever ruined for me.  I have to take a pill every morning, and then I can't eat.  For an HOUR after taking it!  And no calcium-rich products for 4 hours.  Goodbye cold cereal.

Actually I just took it now.  So I have an hour before I can eat.   And I'm going to post pictures from my recent trip to Northern California.

First of all, the West Coast has these guys.  They are mad lazy and smell bad.  Like most things in California.

Then there were big trees.  I drove through this one.  And yes, it is still alive.  Childhood dream realized.

The whole tree.  It costs $5 to drive through this piece.  And there's a tacky gift shop that has almost nothing to do with trees.

Our view from dinner.  Crab House, Pier 39, San Fransisco.

Haight-Ashbury.  They have a ton of murals there.  "Don't gain the world and lose your soul. Wisdom is better than silver & gold."

San Fransisco is known for its Chinatown, but I thought Japan town was better.  Less scary.  And exactly like Japan.  They even had an American Version of a Japanese 100 Yen store, except everything was $1.50.  Damn exchange rate.

Wine-tasting at Ravenswood in Sonoma, CA. 

Mt. Shasta on the way back.

Laziness pie.

Yesterday I decided to make a pie.  I think I was in a good mood because it was sunny and Zach and I had a day off together.  Sadly, none of those things were still true today.  And some bad kids gave me a cold.  Oops, I meant "some kids gave me a bad cold".

But at least I still have my pie...I have to say I'm getting great at all butter crusts.  I don't use shortening usually because it's supposed to be terrible for you.  Butter is real, etc.  I just think it tastes better, really.   I find after getting used to an all-butter crust, putting in shortening makes it super bland.  That being said, it's been a long time since my last pie, and I just looked up a random all-butter recipe as a refresher.  After I had made it, I realized it was for only one crust!  Crap.  It was 10:30, I had to get up for work, and I still wanted pie.

Dutch apple pie to the rescue!  Five stars, indeed.  I may never make a regular two-crust pie again.  I did cut way back on the nutmeg, though.  Because ew, nutmeg.  I think I shook the shaker once on top of 5 cups of apples just to say it was in there.  Why is it called Dutch Apple Pie anyway?  I'm guessing it has more to do with Pennsylvania Dutch and less to do with Netherlands Dutch.

I tend to bake pies on top of a cookie sheet in case they leak...

 I'm gonna need ideas for strawberry-rhubarb soon.  Sounds like a great summertime pie.