Best ever Banana Bread

Tis the time for baking for alot of us. Here is a recipe for banana bread I found on All Recipes. I tweaked it according to one of the reviews from a lady who has been baking for over 40 years. It was fantastic and our family gobbled it up....very delicious and moist!!
(this makes 2 loaves)
Ingredients
1 cup butter
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
2 cups mashed bananas
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 9x5 loaf pans.
In a large bowl, cream butter and add white sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla, mix well. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix into the butter mixture until smooth. Fold in sour cream and bananas. Pour evenly into loaf pans. Bake for 60 minutes. Cool in pans for 10 mins before removing to wire rack. Cool completely before cutting!

You will love it!!!!

Birthday boy

Our boy is 6 today!! I know the saying gets old but "it goes by so fast!!!!" He is turning into quite the young gentleman. He loves to be helpful, hold doors open for the ladies, will go up and shake hands of the gentlemen, has the sweetest smile....I pray God will use him mightily as he grows up! Happy Birthday my son. You are such a blessing to us. I love you.

Growth!

The first fruits of our labor!!! Or should I say veggie....
A cucumber never looked so good :)

Update on hanging garden

Look what's growing!!!
Do you see what is 'pea'king out between the leaves?
Yay!

Our cucumber plant is flowering....

Fasting

I felt led to fast for a day a while back and after the day was over, I looked to hubby and said "I don't even know if I did that right." He encouraged me that God knows my motives, but it made us both realize we knew very little about biblical fasting which got us studying!
Fasting is something I haven't really heard preached about much. It peaked hubby's interest so he started to search for himself and we discovered some very important things.
Fasting is actually a discipline the Christian should be practicing.

Matt 9:15 And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.

The disciples were not fasting while the Lord walked with them on earth. They were in close fellowship with Him. But Jesus says that when I leave, then the dynamics of our relationship is going to change, and that is when they will need to fast.
Biblical fasting is for the purpose of bringing us closer to God. It is a humbling of yourself before God, it is a time to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us to the place of repentance and reveal our spiritual condition and allow us to restore a more intimate relationship with God. It is a time to rely less on food and more on God himself. To have a deeper prayer time and study time with our Lord.

Matt 6:16 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

Did you notice the first part of the verse? When you fast.....not 'if' you fast. It should be a part of the Christian walk. Jesus fasted (Matt 4:2), Paul tells us in I Cor 7:5 that a husband and wife are to only be apart physically for a time of fasting and prayer, II Cor 6:4-5 says ministers should prove themselves with fasting... Paul fasted (II Cor 11:27), Daniel fasted (Dan 10:2-3), Elijah fasted (I Kings 19:8), David fasted (2 Sam 1:12), Ninevites fasted after Jonah preached to them (Jonah 3:5), Moses fasted (Duet 9:9) ......the list goes on!
To read more about fasting, a good resource is here and there are several more good articles if you search them out.

Have we been neglecting an important discipline as followers of Christ? I encourage all of us to be in prayer about fasting and listen to God's leading about fasting.

Garden

We've put together our second hanging garden structure. We're seeing some growth but no produce yet :) Not sure how long it is suppose to take. We anxiously wait.....




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What a mess!

I think this may be the longest I have waited before letting our child feed themself. Our almost 17 month old got to dive into her oatmeal this morning all by herself.....not so great since it ended with a broken bowl on the floor!
She switched back and forth between her left and right hand, so I'm not 100% sure that she is a righty yet. Time will tell.
It made for some cute photos though :)

Homemade is fun!

Over at Raising Homemakers, they posted a video on how to make homemade butter. Hubby and I were amazed it was that easy!! We are so use to convenience....it's amazing what a little work will produce :)

So the family got together (yes, it was a family affair) and we grabbed 2 cartons of Heavy Whipping cream, divided it between 3 plastic containers, put 2 marbles in each container and started shaking!!!

It was hard work as you can see from our boy's face *grin*

After about 15 mins, we had butter and delicious buttermilk. I'd say it made over 3 cups of buttermilk and over 3 cups of butter.

Our daughter used the buttermilk to make buttermilk biscuits from scratch and our son made us some cinnamon butter.

I have to say it was delicious!!!!! (and soooo much fun!)

shake, shake, shake!!!

the butter separating from the buttermilk

2 cartons produced all that!!!

from scratch buttermilk biscuits

cinnamon butter

Doesn't that look GOOD!!!!!!!

Homemade granola bars

Daddy found another recipe for homemade granola bars and they turned out really, really good! They are nutritious and delicious :)

Taken from http://www.joyfulabode.com/2008/04/11/homemade-granola-bar-recipe-no-high-fructose-corn-syrup-in-these-bars/
Here's the recipe:
2 cups oats
3/4 cup wheat germ
3/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup peanuts (crushed)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
4 Tbs butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
8 oz dried fruit (raisins, cranberries)
Preheat oven to 400 deg Fahrenheit. Mix peanuts, oats, wheat germ, sunflower seeds in a baking dish with sides. Toast them in the oven for 10-12 mins, stirring every few minutes so they don't get burned.
Prepare glass baking dish (about 11x13 in) for your granola by lining it with waxed paper lightly sprayed with nonstick spray.
Put brown sugar, honey, butter, vanilla and salt into saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly.
Your grains and nuts should be toasted, so mix everything together in a large bowl. (Grains, liquid 'glue' and dried fruit)
Mix everything well and dump granola mixture into your prepared baking dish.
Spread out mixture with wooden spoon or spatula.
Fold over the sides of the waxed paper or add a sheet on top, and press HARD all over the granola. You want to compact it together so that your bars won't fall apart when you cut them.
Wait 2-3 hours until granola has totally cooled.
Open wax paper and carefully turn granola onto a cutting board. Firmly press down with a knife (not sawing) and cut granola into bars.
Wrap individually or store in a ziploc bag. Enjoy!

Over the weekend

Not too much happening here. Everyone is mostly over their colds. Just the lingering cough.
Here are a few pics. Our boy reading to daddy, our other boy being 'cool' :) and our girl made homemade granola bars today.

Eat cake

Here are 2 cakes I did over the past 2 days. I have one more on Thursday for a bridal shower. Here are some pics also of baby girl's first birthday party. What fun!

God's goodness through neighbors

We went for our evening walk around the block tonight. Half way around, one of our friendly neighbors stopped us and took us through his garden and let the kids pick vegetables to their hearts content!! He let us fill up a bucket of tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, cabbage and gave us some beans that have already been picked, cut and frozen. The kids loved it!

Our daughter was baking again today. She made some dark chocolate fudge cake cookies. They are soooo tempting but I'm sticking to my 'diet' of no sugar! (Ok...so I had to try ONE but that was it :)

And here are some more of baby girl. I never get tired of taking their pictures!

Pirate party

Arrr....Ahoy thar matey. We be havin' a pirate party o'er here.
The cake is done, the birthday boy is dressed up and brother and sister had to have a little splash of the pirate life too...moustaches for everyone! Here's some shots before the guests arrive.

Love this!

Love this new website at i am baker. She mostly does royal icing cookies which I have tried once before and failed miserably. She does some cakes as well....but she has definitely sparked my interest again in cookies and trying out royal icing using her recipe. What neat ideas....I think I spent almost an hour looking through her stuff!!

I've also added a new blog to my left side bar. Women living well has some great reading!!

Marshmallow toothpick towers

Today we were making marshmallow towers and shapes....and I'm pretty sure there was some eating too when Mommy wasn't looking :)