Banana Bread

A few posts back we had started our mini baby shower planning theme. With all that is happening in the world right now, we are delaying the baby shower that we were planning and blogging about until later on. When we figure out a new date and pick up with our planning, then we will continue with that mini theme.

Since many people are having to stay inside and isolate themselves, we thought that we should do some posts of things to do while you’re staying home.

Today we have Margie’s Banana Bread recipe that we are going to share with you. It’s super simple and quick to throw together. It’s also super yummy and perfect for a nice snack or to have with your morning tea or coffee.

You will need...

6 tbsp. of butter

1 cup of brown sugar

4 eggs

3 cups of flour

2 tsp. of baking soda

4 tsp. of baking powder

2 tsp. of vanilla

6 bananas

First of all, this is the original recipe doubled so that you get two loaves. I actually tripled the recipe and made three loaves and froze one for a rainy day.

Here we go.

Cream the butter and sugar and eggs.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, soda, and powder.

Defrost, if you're using frozen bananas, the bananas. Then mash the bananas in another bowl.

Alternately, add the banana and flour mix o the wet mixture in the mixing bowl.

Once everything is mixed together, stir in the vanilla.

Now you can leave them all plain if you want to, but we like to add some chocolate chips to at least one of the loaves. Usually 1-2 cups of chocolate chips is good. It all depends on how chocolatey you want it.

Pour batter evenly into pans (butter them slightly so they don’t stick).

Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes.

Cool slightly before cutting.

 Enjoy! Oh, and Happy Spring too!

Baby Shower Planning, Part 1

We have come to the end of February and soon it’ll be Spring and Spring often times (in Nature mostly) means babies. In some upcoming posts, we will be planning a baby shower! We are actually throwing a baby shower at the end of March so we thought that we would do a couple of posts along the way of how to plan it, decorations and any crafting needed, and food.

This week we’ll look at the early stages of planning a baby shower. Take it as a guide for throwing one if you have never done so before. If you are planning one with others, kind of divide the duties as best you can. We have three people planning this shower; one is doing food, one is doing games and décor, and the other is hosting it at their house so they’re doing a lot of the decorating and also working on the decorations.

First of all, timing is everything. You have to decide if you want to do shower before the baby arrives or one after (Sip and Sees are becoming ever so popular). Take the mom-to-be into consideration. Is she having a rough pregnancy? Does she know the gender? Do her and her family have any hesitations or superstitions about having a shower before the baby arrives? When the mom isn’t feeling so great it might be better to have the shower after. It may not matter to some, but if you are waiting on finding out the gender it may be nice to wait for a shower so that you can buy gifts and decorate accordingly (that may not matter to the mom at all). Also, some moms-to-be might just want to wait until the baby arrives so that she can introduce him or her to all of her friends and family. On the other hand, having a baby shower before the baby arrives is very common. It’s a nice way to wish the mom well before the baby arrives and to also play some fun baby prediction/belly games!

We decided on a shower after the baby arrived so that everyone can meet the baby and mom can get some gifts that are more suited to her brand-new little one. We chose a date almost a couple months after baby was due. That gives mom time to adjust to things and to recover. That’s always something very important to remember as well if you’re picking a date afterwards. If you’re planning to do a shower before, check in with the mom to see how she is feeling and if she’s up for having a baby shower in general.

Once we picked the date, then we started planning the food, decorations, and the games. We’ll focus on all of these things in more depth in later posts because we are still in the process of creating and preparing for this shower, but here’s an overview…

Decorations/Crafting – We opted for a digital invitation. Handmade things are our specialty, but we thought that it would be more efficient and save money on all that postage if we just sent out an email. Ask the mom for a list of important people that she would like to have at the shower and ask her about people if you think she may have forgotten about some. You can find many online templates to create a fun and original digital invitation. We sent out these invites before mom gave birth so a fun thing that we did was get everyone to send back their RSVP with a prediction of gender, weight, and date. The person closest will get a prize on the day of the shower. Make sure you give people enough time to send in their predictions but also a fair deadline because they will lose out if mom delivers before they send in their prediction!

Other crafty and decorative items that we have on our list to make are garlands, favour bags, table décor, flower arrangements, and a name banner.

Games – Games are always a fun part of any type of shower! We went through a long list of ideas and narrowed it down to three. Baby food guessing, match the mom with the baby, and baby Bingo. We’re doing an afternoon shower from 2-5pm so you want time to mingle, hold baby, and have food so as much as we wanted to have lots of games, we just had to pick three.

Food – This is my specialty and responsibility! On our invitation we mentioned that if people want to bring food, then they can but they not obligated to do so. We are going to provide the basics like drinks (punch, tea, coffee, juice), a fruit platter with dip, a veggie platter with dip, and a meat and cheese platter. We are also going to do some deep-fried won tons and some special baked treats. Make sure you check if anyone coming to the shower has any food sensitivities or intolerances. Since I have bad food allergies, I always want to make sure and try and not exclude anyone from enjoying in on the food. You can also do some alcoholic beverages and more finger type foods like, sandwiches, chips and dips, skewers, and chicken wings. Or you can do a sweets only afternoon too. It’s up to you and what you think is most practical.

So now you have a plan in place to throw a fun baby shower. Stay tuned for more posts and to see how it all turned out!

Heart Healthy Food

Valentine’s Day is a day away. Such a happy week and day! We’re doing our last Valentine’s post and we’re taking a little different approach. We’re looking at heart healthy foods. Oh, and we haven’t forgotten or left out our Oscar Dress card, we’re gonna do up a card and our top 10 list of dresses next week so hold tight!

We usually do the typical Valentine post, heart crafts and sweet treats but today we’re going to delve into some foods that support heart health. Literal hearts!

Top Heart Heathy Foods:

1.      Leafy Greens – They a great source of vitamin k which helps with promoting proper blood clotting and to help with good artery function. Some include, spinach, kale, and collard greens which are full of minerals and vitamins and antioxidants.

2.      Whole Grains – They are high in fiber which can help reduce bad cholesterol. Common whole grains are quinoa, oats, rye, brown rice, and barley.

3.      Berries – Are also high in antioxidants and help with controlling the bad cholesterol. Blueberries in particular help improve cells that promote blood clotting. Berries that are good to have are strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries.

4.      Avocados – Are high in monounsaturated fats which help lower cholesterol levels and lower the risk of heart disease. They are considered a healthy fat and are also high in potassium.

5.      Beans- Beans can reduce the levels of blood triglycerides and bad LDL cholesterol. They can also help reduce blood pressure and inflammation which are linked to heart disease.

6.      Dark Chocolate – Yum! It is rich in antioxidants and flavonoids and can help lower the risk of heart disease. Make sure to have a high quality of dark chocolate though with at least 70% of cocoa.

7.      Tomatoes – They have lots and lots of lycopene that has powerful antioxidant properties which can neutralize harmful free radicals that can lead to inflammation and heart disease.

8.      Garlic – It contains allicin which has therapeutic effects. It can help reduce platelet buildup that can lead to strokes and blood clots.

9.      Olive Oil – Again it is loaded with antioxidants that can relieve inflammation and decrease the risk of chronic disease. The monounsaturated fats in it helps with heart health.

10.  Green Tea – It has a lot of polyphenols catechins which can prevent cell damage and improve heart health. It can also decrease blood pressure and lower cholesterol.

Christmas Tradition #6 - Advent Calendars

It’s another week closer to Christmas so we have another Christmas tradition post ready for you. Something that I looked forward to when I was little was getting an Advent Calendar. I don’t get them anymore, but the other day as I was looking at various ads for Christmas items, I saw so many cool grown up Advent Calendars so I thought I’d take a look at the tradition.  

Advent Calendars were first created by Gerhard Lang in the early 1900’s. It was featured in a newspaper as a gift to the readers and it was made of 24 coloured pictures that were attached to cardboard. Eventually, he added little doors to the pictures which is what we see in most of the Advent Calendars that we have today.   

Nowadays there are so many types of Advent Calendars so take a look below and see the different ones that we found.

This is the type that I like. It’s a makeup Advent Calendar with a different product each day. Many different brands will have one so look for your favourite beauty brand and treat yourself. 

  

I didn’t realize that this type existed, but now I have to plan better and get myself a nail polish Advent Calendar for next year and I can try a different colour every day. 

For a tea lover, this one is perfect. You can taste test a different tea each day up until Christmas and there’s enough to share with someone special. If you’re a coffee fan then there’s also coffee varieties available by different companies as well.

Beer every day could be a very interesting lead up to Christmas. 

This is the most traditional advent calendar. Open up a window each day up until Christmas day and get a delicious treat.

If you’re willing to splurge then try this calendar which has 12 days of stud earring by top jewelry brands! This is my type of calendar.

Marshmallows with different flavors, mmmmmm, so good.

 Pork cracklings. This one could be very very interesting. You have to have a pork lover to give this one to or an adventurous foodie.

Who doesn’t love cheese? This one will give you a taste of a different cheese each day.

 This is a fun one for kids of all ages. It’s a Play-Doh Advent Calendar. You’ll open up the doors to find a different moulding tool or colour of Play-Doh to play with.

This one is cool and something that you can keep for years to come. It is a wooden tree with little doors that you can fill up with things for your loved ones each year. You can do a different theme each year! You can make or buy reusable Advent Calendars so that you can fill it yourself each year with something different.

If you have a sweet tooth or baker in mind then this is a perfect calendar for them. It has different jellies and preserves each day for them to experiment with and try out. 

This is seriously a cool calendar...it’s a Lego Advent that includes Legos and accessories for each day leading up to Christmas.

There are even ones for pets. This one is for a dog but they have ones for cats and other animals as well.

I’m sure there are so many other types of Advent Calendars out there. I was amazed as I looked to find these ones at how many cool ones there are out there to satisfy everyone’s wants and needs. I definitely think that the beauty products ones are very, very cool!