This *&^% is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

Oh man- once again is has been a hot minute since I last posted here. Time has escaped me more and more as my beautiful girl has gotten bigger. Some of it is because she requires more attention now that she is so mobile, but the majority of it is that I just want to be off the computer and playing with her more.

Recently we went on a fun filled vacation with Grandma to Florida to see our family there. We stayed with my sister Gina and her awesome family which felt like a home away from home. Got to see my cousin David & his partner Paula who we have not seen in a good 22 years or so- they spoiled us rotten with some very good cooking. We also traveled to see my Uncle John & Aunt Nancy on the west coast and had a good visit with them. Excellent family time for sure.

One day, while at Gina's, I noticed two lonely bananas sitting on the counter getting mighty ripe. "Make us into banana bread Nicole..." they beckoned. So I did. I pulled out my trusty recipe that I found on my most favorite recipe blog of all, Smitten Kitchen that I then adapt a bunch more to make my famous banana bread. The universe must have been on my side this time, because it came out better than I think it ever has before.

It was a huge hit, and I was asked for the recipe by everyone who tasted it. It was gobbled up by the family in record time, the first piece before it even had a few minutes to cool from the oven.

Here is the recipe, adapted by me!

Jacked Up Banana Bread by Deb (& further Jacked up by Nicole)


Adapted from Simply Recipes & again from Smitten Kitchen.

No need for a mixer for this recipe — need I say more?

3 to 4 ripe bananas, smashed

1/3 cup melted salted butter

3/4 to 1 cup light brown sugar (depending on the level of sweetness you prefer- I also often use dark brown)

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon Rum- I am particular to Kraken, although any Rum of your choice will do. I used 2 Tbs.

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 cup of flour

Nicole's special ingredient: Nestle Butterscotch Morsels- 1/2 to 1 cup depending on how sweet you like it.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla and Rum, then the cinnamon. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour, mix. Now add the butterscotch and toss to around to mix in. Pour mixture into a buttered 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 50 minutes to one hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

All that orangey goo is melted butterscotch!

Perfection I tell you, perfection.

I have 4 ripe bananas in my kitchen right now.... I see another loaf in my very near future.

Simple things

Once again, so much time has passed since I last posted. I keep feeling like I have so much to say with so little time to get a post up- mostly because my little one is becoming more mobile and life itself is picking up the pace.

Ready for the garden

May is here and along with its arrival comes hotter weather. My desire to get outside is decreasing, but the need for it in many ways is increasing. I need to get to the garden more- both because it feeds my soul and my tummy as well as the need to water it more often. Grant and I packed up the baby into the stroller yesterday and walked over to see it after several days of neglect. Thankfully, the soil seems to be holding moisture pretty well in spite of my bad watering schedule, so everything looked pretty good still.














My artichoke plants seem to be coming to the end of their production cycle, but everything else we have planted are coming up good. My favorite currently being my squash bed.

The squash!

We have 4 varieties planted- 2 summer & 2 winter. My summer are flying saucer and yellow crook neck, both of which are already giving us squash to eat. We had our first flying saucer in our dinner last night and are having the crook neck and zuchinni in a gratin tonight. Our winter squash are already producing as well!! I have butternut growing and my spaghetti squash is spreading everywhere and putting out squash as well. We are trying to train those up and along the fencing since they want to run and climb. I have a lot of radishes planted in this bed as well and beans along the back fence. I am hoping they all play nice with each other.

My tomato and pepper bed is also exploding- both tomatoes are flowering or already have baby tomatoes. Both peppers are producing as well- I have several Hungarian wax peppers already there and almost ready, and peppers on the Serrano. This bed also has beans and radishes among it. I went a bit bean crazy, finding several varieties among our seed stash the day I was planting. They are all bush style green beans, but some are Italian beans, some are these gorgeous purple colored beans, and I forget what the others are! I didn't expect them all to take, but they did.

These are all the purple beans with one bell pepper back there to keep them company. I suspect we will be swimming in beans again this summer, so I am already on the search for good recipes that call for them since we will have so many. Thankfully, the baby is already at the age where I can puree them for her or steam them really well and chop them small for her to eat as finger food, so at least she can partake of them too.

My eggplants are starting to flower, a few of the beets actually came up and the herbs are coming in nicely. I hope I will be able to care for the garden well over the summer so we can keep the production going. Thankfully, I have some friends who are interested in coming to the garden with me to either help garden, or play with Alchemy so I can get some serious work done there. I keep hoping that a weekend or some time will open up where Grant can get there with me too- I miss gardening with him.

Beyond the garden, I have a strong desire to take Alchemy swimming and get out into some water myself! Some of the mamas from my Baby Mama group (I call them the Baby mamas!) were able to get out this past week to a pool with their little ones, but I unfortunately missed out. I will try to get out soon with them though.

Yummy breakfast pastries

Grant and Alchemy outside the Ransom Center

Grant and I managed to get out for two fun adventures in the past week. The first was Slow Art day last Saturday. Slow Art day is an event where you go to a museum and are charged with the task of looking at a certain number of pieces of art for at least 5 minutes. On average, a person only usually looks at a piece of art for 8 seconds before moving on! We packed up in the morning and jumped on the bus together, getting off near campus to enjoy some breakfast together before continuing on foot the rest of the way. We went to the Harry Ransom Center here in Austin on the UT campus where our friend was hosting this Slow Art Event. She picked 5 pieces for us to check out. We worked hard to stay at them for the full 5 minutes, although Alchemy did distract us a bit, we enjoyed it. After the viewing we went back to Dog and Duck Pub to eat lunch and talk about the art. After that, we wandered around downtown for a while before finally getting back on the bus and heading home. We were exhausted, but we had a ton of fun.


Then, on May 1st Grant, Alchemy and I went to a friends to celebrate Beltaine. We BBQed and wrapped a Maypole with them and just like last year's event, it was tons of fun. We used the same Maypole that already had last year's ribbons on it, and will hopefully get to do this with that family again in the years to come to watch that ribbon pile grow.

It's a good start to the summer so far. May is packed with mini adventures to come- Colorado Bend State park for a camping trip in a little over a week to celebrate Grant and I's 5th anniversary of when we met, a trip to Houston to play for a couple of days and then June will come with my birthday celebrations and our trip to Boston. I am looking forward to the fun ahead!

Ready, Set, Go!!!

Man- it has been a long while since I last posted. I had so many different blog posts in my head that I never found time to come write. Part of that has been from the amount of travel we have done in the past month, but mostly it is from trying to keep up with Alchemy!! She is now 6.5 months old, and getting far more energetic.

Let's see if I can recap some important things from the past month:

I have started making baby food for her since we started eating "solids". It has been a fun adventure of chopping, steaming, smushing, pureeing & freezing into cubes.

Sweet potato (white originally, look green when roasted) cubes

I have made pears, sweet potatoes and avocado (although we decided that is best eaten fresh) and a friend recently gifted us with her peas, mangoes, peaches, apricots, pears and blueberries. I have squash in the fridge right now that needs pureeing.

Alchemy's first sweet potato meal

She really loves the sweet potato, seems to like the pears, but is iffy about the avocado at the moment. Next up we will try more veggies- I think maybe peas.

It has been great feeding her- certainly fun and messy at the same time. She eats more than I expected her to for just starting. I need to make a regular schedule of eating so I make sure I get at least an oz. of food into her each day, trying new foods every 4 days so I can begin mixing them and stepping up the amount once she is older and starts taking food in as an actual nutrition element, rather than just for taste as she is now. Breast feeding has been going really well, although I think teeth are coming soon, so that may be more of an adventure than I am ready for.





She also has recently learned how to roll over onto her stomach and push up on her arms. She is trying to get the hang of getting her legs under her- I am betting within a few weeks, she will start to crawl. This is both extremely exciting and terrifying for me. I want her to have fun crawling, but I have so much to do in order to get our house more mobile baby ready. She is also starting to get the hang of sitting up without support- I hope she will be able to sit up on her own soon.

While we were in Ohio visiting Grant's parents, she had a lot of time to practice her rolling, pushing up and sitting. We spent some time in the back yard playing in the grass together, which she loved. Living in an apartment, she rarely gets to just sit and play in soft grass. I am going to try to give her lots of play time at our garden or local parks so she can commune with the land (literally) a little more often. The earthworms came up from the soil to greet her. Thankfully, she didn't put one in her mouth.









Last week we spent a lot of time gardening in our plot, getting the beds ready and planted for our summer crop. Alchemy spent time for a while in the Pack n' Play with her toys, but eventually cried until I decided to wear her- this time on my back for the first time while gardening for 3 hours!

It was hard work but very worth it- the garden looks much better now. We had a lot of rain this past week while we were away in Houston- I suspect if I go see it today, some of my seeds may have germinated. I need to spend some more time there this week or weekend to finish getting in our last batch of seeds for the radishes and beans.

At the moment, the garden has been taken over by poppies, but they are so gorgeous we don't mind at all.

Alchemy likes the Menil Park swing.

This past week we went to Houston so that Grant could attend a conference at Rice he was giving a paper at. Unfortunately, this means he missed out on a lot of the fun Alchemy and I had, but we did get a chance to spend a lot of time with my best friend Lesley. Much of our time on the first day was spent just Alchemy & I- roaming around my old neighborhood soaking it all in. We went to the Menil museum together and spent some good time in the Cy Twombley gallery, hanging out on my favorite bench outside it while enjoying the weather and squirrels, then on to the Menil park where we played on the rope swing there before our trip to the Menil bookstore. She slept through some of it, but enjoyed the swing. We had lunch with my parents, then spent the evening hanging out with Lesley, Brent and some of their friends before a full day on Saturday with just Lesley, Alchemy & I.







On Saturday, Lesley and I set off for tasty Baby Barnaby's breakfast before a Houston Zoo adventure! We saw lots of really cool animals- my new favorite being the Okapi- an ancestor of the giraffe that looks like a cross between a giraffe, antelope & zebra.

The Okapi- sorry about the fence. He has the horns on his head, a longish neck, but zebra striped legs and butt.

I carried Alchemy for half the trip then passed her over to Lesley for the second half. We had snow cones, rode the carousel & bought cotton candy before finally calling it a day and heading back to the neighborhood to meet up with Grant briefly during his break and then moving on to a new local pub called The Hay Merchant.

 Lesley and Alchemy check out the giraffes

We very much enjoyed some tasty beer and food, while hanging out on the porch with Alchemy and various folks who shared our table. Alchemy has become a bit of a "what are you drinking, I want it" pest, trying to steal my beer when she can, although I am greedy and keep it all for myself. She gets to stick with water.

Attempted theivery

 We didn't give her any, I swear!

Sunday, Grant and I went to our friends house for a Bengali ceremony called Annaprashon- loosely translated into "Rice eating ceremony" where they were celebrating/blessing their baby as she reached the age to start eating solids. Since she and Alchemy are only 12 days apart in age, they asked us to come be a part of it too. Feeling blessed and very excited, we dressed her up and took her to join in. She was decorated with a pretty lei and sandalwood powder designs made with a clove on her face.

They both were happily grabbing each others face and hair- they were mesmerized

.

She and Asmi played together, happy to see each other again after so long- they last saw each other when they were only a month old.

All dressed up and ready to go!

Once the ceremony began, Asmi went first- being blessed and offered some "solid" food ceremonially, then little bits of real solid food were touched- a grain of rice last- smushed and offered ceremonially for her to eat. While Asmi took it like a champ, Alchemy ate it but cried- hahahahhaha. I think all the camera flashes, people crowding around her excitedly & conch shell noise scared her a little, or maybe she just wasn't sure about the new tastes and excitement after not having a nap. Either way, it was adorable and she got the same blessings.

The offerings spread

Baba feeds Asmi the sweets...

... and a pinch of rice

Baba feeds Alchemy the sweets...

... which she wasn't so happy about :)

the pinch of rice

and her pinch of rice, which she also seems a bit skeptical of.

The second part is much like a game- the babies are offered a tray of items that each are symbolic of something in life- i.e. a pen means a desire to study or gain knowledge, etc...

Asmi went first and grabbed the gold bracelet first- not sure what it means, but we suspect she will either love jewelry or be rich one day. ;) I think it has an unfair advantage of looking like a teething ring.

Alchemy grabbed the soil first, then the bracelet- both of which she happily put in her mouth. Last, she grabbed the money. Baba said that the soil means she will own land or be sovereign, and the bracelet beauty & abundance, the money wealth.... all this sounds very familiar to Grant and I- from our wedding vows! So mote it be!

mmmm, gold bracelet, NOM!

Hmmm... so many choices.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip full of fun. I think we may take it easy on the travel, at least for a little while. Although, we have camping plans, possible festival outings, a trip to Boston in the works.... this is going to be our year of travel for sure.

Abundance

Things have been super busy, but also a bunch of fun lately.

Here are some highlights:

sleeping soundly after her bath

Alchemy turned 5 months old a few days ago (Feb 12th). I can't believe how fast this time has flown by and how much she has grown. She is developing quite the personality- mostly a happy baby, but during those moments when she is upset, she sure can let you know! I am not sure if I have ever seen a baby this young so observant and expressive. We have started signing with her a bit to try to teach her a few basic words- the other day I signed "I love you" at her when I said it, she looked at me really intently, then curled her fingers into the sign!! We were astounded, and although it may have been just a fluke and she hasn't done it since, I can't help but think that she is watching us carefully and may be able to make her first real intentional signs soon (hopefully "milk" so she can tell me when she is hungry).

before our weekend adventure together

tummy time is fun!

 She is getting so much stronger- tummy time is becoming something she is starting to enjoy- I need to do more of it not to strengthen her neck so much, but to strengthen her arms so she can push up eventually and begin crawling (What a terrifying thought). She is drooling more than I thought possible- we suspect that her teeth are moving around in her gums. I suppose its only a matter of time before the first two make an appearance and the days of more comfortable nursing are over. *sigh* She is chewing on just about everything at the moment- I was just eating a pear and smooshed some up with my finger to let her taste. She actually seemed to like it, which hopefully bodes well for the first set of baby food puree I am about to make and freeze. Hopefully she will still like pears when we really start trying food.


She is also getting better at sitting up with my support. I am looking forward to when she can sit up on her own and play with toys more. Recently she has taken an interest in Jezebel, my scaredy cat who is not all that scared of Alchemy. They lay on the bed together most mornings and occasionally Alchemy will reach a hand out an touch her. I am trying to encourage gentle touch rather than the "fist full of fur" yanking approach that she has previous tried. Thankfully, Jezebel didn't even seem to notice.

making friends with Jezebel

Beyond the amazing cuteness that is my daughter, the garden has also been a delight lately.

My favorite of what we have recently grown is the cauliflower- this year we grew two varieties:

Purple Graffiti

Veronica Romanesco

Both varieties getting tossed in the oven to roast!

Chilli lime cauliflower breakfast tacos

As you can see, one is a gorgeous purple color- that head of cauliflower was ginormous- I have never seen a cauliflower so large before. I was worried it wouldn't taste good but it has turned out to be very sweet. I had never grown let alone cooked one of the fractal variety before- I was delighted at how beautiful the Romanesco turned out. Both mixed together have made us some very tasty meals. Grant made us breakfast tacos one morning with chilli lime cauliflower.

A neighbor gardener also has shared a ton of his food with us, including a beautiful head of purple cabbage that I would have loved to turn into a dye or paint. I didn't think I liked cabbage much because I had so rarely had it in the past, but it came out good sauteed with caraway and wine.

purple cabbage

 I have really enjoyed eating from our garden. We have had almost no cold days/nights here, and the lack of winter has in some ways let our garden really flourish. We have had rain which has also helped quite a bit. I keep waiting for a frost to hit, but so far we are managing to keep things going well and the weather seems to be warming up. This worries me, since no winter may mean our summer is even more unbearable than last year.


The last exciting thing to share is that my art room is finally coming back together into a usable space. Since Alchemy was born, the room has been in a weird stasis. First it was the residence of my mom while she was staying with us (which I will once again say was absolutely wonderful), then it became my sister Gina's bedroom when she visited (also absolutely wonderful!), then it became the baby & mama clothing storage space as well as the place to put everything in transition for our big house remodel over the holidays. Finally, it is back to almost normal-

I sat yesterday afternoon for the first time at the desk and made some much overdo art again. We plugged in my ipod for some good music, Alchemy hung out in her old bassinet, or on her playmat on the floor, or in her bumbo chair playing with toys. I sang, she giggled & art got made.

 

I can see the desk top again! Art is once again being made.

When Alchemy is not using her bassinet, Jezebel loves to sleep in it. It has gotten to the point where I have to put a towel down to catch all the hair so when we actually want to use it for Alchemy we can. 

Alchemy's library and toy box

 Probably my favorite new addition to the space is Alchemy's library. I have been gathering the books we got for her, books we have received as gift and new books that I picked up for her at Recycled Reads- the local bookstore that has all the books that are out of use in our Austin Library. The awesome part is that all their children's books are fifty cents, their adult books only a dollar. For the cost of one book at Half Price, I was able to get her a ton of books! It is my hope that I can eventually fill this shelf with books for her to read.

I love our glider rocking chair.

We often sit in the rocker together in the afternoons reading- lately we have nursed there often and she has fallen asleep while rocking.



I still have some things to hang on the walls, shelves and a mirror to put up, curtains to hang- but overall, it is really coming together.

I'm Smitten.

I am completely in love with Smitten Kitchen.

Since I am no longer working out in the world, I have taken on a lot more responsibility in our home for cooking, especially dinners. This week, our friend is here from the Bay area visiting, giving me the perfect excuse to make elaborate tasty meals each night.

I planned my meals for this week over a week ago, shopped to buy the perfect ingredients and then jumped in.

On Tuesday, I decided to make a meal that would bring together ingredients I love with other ingredients I have previously disliked- this nights specific challenge: lentils. I know, you are probably thinking "WHAT!? You don't like lentils!?" I have tried and tried many times to love them, and finally decided that what I needed to do was be the one to cook them in a recipe that sounded good to me so I could learn to love them like everyone else in the world, especially since they are such a healthy legume to take in. That is when I found a recipe for spicy squash salad with lentils and goat cheese.

The photos are what really drew me in- beautiful soft roasted squash mixed with creamy cheese and studded with lentils- it felt like something I could get into. Of course, being me, I changed it up a bit.

For one, I used a Kabocha squash instead of the butternut or sugar pumpkin it called for, knowing it would be just as wonderful because it still has a sweet taste.

After peeling, seeding and cubing it and tossing it with the oil and spices, it went into the over for a while to roast.

Next up was the lentils- I used green lentils instead of black because that is what I had on hand, and Grant says they are a bit more mild in their "dirt" taste (as I call it) than the black would be. First I soaked them....

.... then I cooked them until they were tender.

Her recipe called for greens that she didn't use, but I decided to amp up this salad by adding not just the arugula but a mix that also contained spinach. Goat cheese is pretty expensive, so I substituted feta.


The final result was better than I could have hoped for- drizzled with balsamic vinegar (instead of red wine vinegar) and olive oil, it was absolute squashy lentil perfection.

I had the leftover for lunch today, and it was just as awesome.



Last night, I ventured into a new squashy delight with roasted acorn squash and poblano quesadillas.

Now I can roast squash no problem, and absolutely love to- acorn squash looks like beautiful ridged flower petals on the baking sheet to me. I sliced up the squash, seeded it and roasted it on an oiled baking sheet.

While it was in the oven, I had a fun new adventure in roasting a poblano pepper. I have never roasted a pepper before, but by the pictures on the Smitten Kitchen blog, it looked as if she just held it over the flame, so I gave it a try.

 I have to say, this was crazy fun!!! Peppers make a popping sounds as you roast them, the skin cracking and softening to be peeled afterward.

I didn't do a very good job peeling them afterward, I probably could have roasted them a little longer to make it easier, but they came out good just the same. 


All the yummy roasted stuff got cut up, or sliced in the poblano's case, and tossed in a pan to cook with the onion, garlic and serrano pepper until it was hot and soft and ready to be used to make the quesadillas.


I used thin slices of muenster cheese along with the squash spread inside my tortillas. I wanted to use the Pacqui pumpkin tortillas, but the Coop was out of them when I shopped, so instead used regular flour tortillas. The quesadillas came out beautifully! Served with refried black beans, salsa and sour cream- they were so good I forgot to take a photo of them before I scarfed them down. Next time I make them I will use those pumpkin tortillas if I can get them and will try to remember the final photo.


This all leads me to today- I had the desire to finally make the cast iron pan pineapple upside down cake my husband loves, so I went on a search for a good recipe. I googled it and found a bunch of recipes I couldn't hang with- one called for shortening. No way. I don't do shortening. Another called for "yellow cake mix". I am sorry, it's not really cooking if it came from a box. Finally, I found one in the search list and was pleasantly surprised to find out- it was from Smitten Kitchen!


This recipe made me especially happy, calling for all the ingredients I have and the main special ingredient I love in a pineapple upside down cake- rum!


This really is the perfect cake.



Perhaps one of the best parts of this cake is the cast iron pan. I am not sure it would turn out as well if it was made in any other type of pan. This cake is also lots of fun to make, starting with the caramel topping. The recipe called for light brown sugar,  but I used dark because I love it for this cake. That mixed with butter stirred constantly over a medium heat. I tossed a bit of rum in at that point just because I am rum-happy which caused a bunch of sizzling, very nice!  After my caramel was done, I added the pineapple and homemade maraschino cherries Grant's mom made to cover it.

It was so beautiful, I almost didn't want to cover it in batter, but alas, it wouldn't be much of a cake if I didn't. On to making the batter!

More sugar, butter, eggs, pineapple juice, flour, vanilla and rum- all beaten together.

Butter, sugar and eggs, oh my!

I discovered in the process that Alchemy was unhappy with the sound of the beater until I brought her over to the kitchen to see what it was. Then she became my baking helper.

Finally the batter was ready! In went the cake and we played a bunch while attempting to patiently await it. I decided it would be fun to play with the rum during the wait as well, taking my photo for the new 30 day photo challenge- today's challenge was Reflection.

Day 3 challenge photo: Reflection

I love LOVE Kraken rum! 

When the cake came out of the oven, I was speechless. I have never seen such a beautiful cake, ever.

 

I excitedly sprinkled it with a good amount of rum, and wa-la! It was done. The hard part since has been not tearing into it before Grant got home, then sprinkling the crumbs around Alchemy to blame her for it. 

 

She would have looked totally angelic and innocent anyways- helping baking is a tiring job.

Three fabulous things, all from Smitten Kitchen. I am super excited to see what I end up making next week.