Strawberry-Banana Bread Goodness!

As of late I have very little time to cook...or energy. But after a long weekend of catching up on sleep and being lazy ie: letting my mom do all the cooking (thanks Mom) I decided to bake! I found a strawberry banana bread recipe on Pinterest and decided that my black banana's didn't have to go in the trash. 

I modified the recipe a little. I didn't use anything organic and I didn't have plain yogurt so I substituted strawberry and I wasn't about to buy unrefined granulated sugar but, everything turned out great!

Yum!

Ingredients (The Abby Modified Version)

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 1/2 overripe medium-sized bananas, peeled & mashed 
• 2 Tbsp plain yogurt (I used whipped Strawberry)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped and hulled strawberries- *quick fun fact-you can hull a strawberry with a straw after you cut the leaves off!

Directions

Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter, oil, or spray a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a medium bowl using a handheld electric mixer) beat together the sugar and eggs on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

On low speed, slowly drizzle in the oil. Add in the mashed bananas, yogurt, and vanilla extract; mix on low speed just until combined.

Using a rubber spatula, fold in the flour mixture and chopped strawberries just until dry ingredients are fully moistened (no flour streaks should be visible).

Pour batter in the prepared loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hour, or until golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then finish cooling on a wire rack.

Nutritional Information Per Serving (1/12th of the loaf): 222.1 calories

Original recipe, directions and nutritional info from http://www.healthyfoodforliving.com/strawberry-banana-bread/

Adventure

From time to time I like to ask Alex off the wall questions. The other day I asked him why he liked being married to me. I wasn't expecting what he said but, it made me think. He responded, "I can't say that there is any one favorite thing, but I do like the everyday adventure of our marriage."

I don't think that we're the most exciting people on earth. We watch a lot of Hulu and Netflix, we don't go on exotic vacations or dates, we're just normal people with a crazy dog. But, we're very happy with our lives. We spend our weekends either working on our house, spending time with family and friends or finding adventure within our own backyard.

Lately our adventures have included going garage sale-ing, visiting the farmers market, celebrating a lot of birthday's, watching star-trek (not my personal favorite), learning how to grill, and jogging on the trails and paths around our neighborhood and community.

What are your adventures?

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Special thoughts for a Monday...

Happy Memorial Day! I am very thankful for all those who have served and are currently serving. A special thank you to my big brother, Jim. You're the bravest man I know! I'm very proud of you and can't wait until you come home! Stay safe.

On a side note...

Happy Happy 4th Birthday (tomorrow) Ethan! 

You truly are an awesome little boy!

Make Your Own Hand Soap!

After I made our laundry detergent I began thinking about making our own hand soap. So, I Googled recipes for hand soap and of course scoured Pinterest and found that you only need 3 ingredients! 

Ingredients: 

Water -1 Gallon

Bar of Soap (without moisturizer)

Liquid Glycerin - 2 TBSP

I used Distilled water and had no problems, but I'm sure you could use any water you'd like. As for the soap, a lot of people who had made their own hand soap had problems when using a moisturizing soap, like Dove, so I chose Dr. Bonner's Magic soap- it's organic and fair trade- in peppermint, it smells wonderful. I found the liquid glycerin in the cake decorating isle at Michael's. So, the total for this experiment has been:

Water: $1 from Target

Soap: $4.17 from Target

Glycerin: $2.99 from Michael's

Totaling: $8.16 + tax

To make the soap  all you do is grate your bar of soap, which I repeatedly called cheese (due to the grating).

Pour your gallon of water into a HUGE pot, add your grated soap and glycerin. Stir over medium heat until all of your soap is dissolved and then let your mixture sit overnight- for at least 10 hours. 

It won't look very exciting before you go to bed...just be patient. :)  In the morning, it will look much more soap like. Stir it around to make it more consistent and then viola you have a year's (or more) supply of liquid soap!!

All of our soapy goodness!!

Enjoy!

Food Truck Friday

The return Food Truck Friday is one of the most anticipated events in the Williams' household! The three of us (yes I'm including Moose) love Food Truck Friday (from now on I will refer to it as FTF). We pack a bag with drinks, napkins, Moose food and treats, a blanket and bug spray and head across the river to Tower Grove Park. I highly suggest that if you live in the area,you add this monthly event to your calender, it's worth it. For more information on FTF, you can visit Sauce Magazine.

2013 Food Truck Friday Schedule: 

The second Friday of the month May through October

May 10

June 14

July 12

August 9

September 13

October 4

Tips and Tricks: 

-If you have children, it's best to come early so you don't have to stand in line quite as long.
-If the food is good one of two things will happen:
      1. They will run out fast or
      2. The line will be crazy long. Be patient and it will be worth the wait!
-There will be a lot of cars, don't let them overwhelm you. Plan to park and walk, it's part of the FTF experience!
- Bring your own drinks and napkins.
- If you've got a pup, don't leave him at home. Moose loves to see and smell everyone and everything when we go!
- Visit the ATM before you leave. Most of the trucks have an app on their iPhone's for debit cards, but I'm a little leery of that business, so we take cash.
- Get a cupcake. Seriously, they're fantastic! Last year I got one with an ice cream filling, it was very tasty!

See you there!!

Bedroom Dilemma

Alex and I decided that we loved the second bedroom so much, that we wanted to paint our bedroom too! We chose the same Velspar paint in "Cinder Block." However, we've got a bit of a dilemma. Where should we put our bed?  Below are some pictures and on the right sidebar please vote for where you'd like to see our bed! Thank you!!

By the wall?

OR

By the window?

Thank you!!

Thoughts for a Monday...

Let me be transparent for a minute...follow up.

A few weeks ago I told you about my Pinterest "problem" here.  After my week without Pinterest I learned:

1. I had more free time.
2. I was more content with the state of our house.
3. Alex enjoyed using the iPad a lot more often!

When my Pinterest free week was over, I began using again (that sounds like I'm an addict). But, I quickly learned that the problem wasn't Pinterst, it was my heart. I was allowing myself to sit and gawk, lust and covet over seemingly unimportant things and think it was acceptable (obviously it's not).

I'm not perfect and I still get on Pinterest. But, I limit my time and know my boundries. There is a point when something becomes a problem and you need to begin searching for a soulution. Alex and I prayed about the situation and I'm consciously try to spend less time gawking.

Philippians 4:11 {esv}
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned whatever situation I am in to be content.

In light of the subject, I found this ecard and thought it was amusing and fitting: