Double Weekend Update

I realized that I have just gotten 2 weekends behind again in my posts, and before I post about the most recent things going on in our world, I feel compelled to share about the past 2 weekends first.

The 1st weekend (2 weeks ago - Nov. 16th) David and I didn't have anything planned. It was nice to just be home and relax together, but after a day of that, we were ready to go and do something. One thing we like to do occasionally is go to open houses in the area. But not just any open houses - the ones that are really big, and uniquely designed. Most of the time the real estate companies will post the open houses available to tour on Sundays on their websites. David found one in a nearby city that sat on 43.5 acres, had a barn, a pond, a greenhouse, an infinity pool with hot tub and fountain, and was overlooking a river. The house was about 5,000 sqf (with only 2 real bedrooms!), and pretty looking from the outside. It was very ornately decorated on the inside, but very odd as well. I think if I had to name this property, I would title it the "Pepto Pink Property". Seriously, the lady that owned the house was OBSESSED with PINK! I could just tell you that and let you picture it in your head, but I don't think your mental image would really do it justice. This place was REALLY PINK!! Not just like a can of pink paint exploded in the whole house, but painstakingly detailed with all different shades of pink and faux finished to look like pink wood grain too. This was intentional!! I think it was the oddest house I have ever seen in my life. Here are some pictures to show you what I mean.

The next weekend involved pink too, but definitely not THAT much pink! This past weekend was just about pink nails :) My good friend, Allanna and I made plans to have lunch together at her new house and then pamper ourselves at the SPA! We both got manicures and pedicures. I got a dark shade of pink on my toes and a lighter shade on my fingers, and she got bright red on both to be festive for the holidays. The spa that we went to is brand new in Greensboro and it is a really nice, simple day spa. It's called Sorella Day Spa, and offers services not just for nails, but facials and full body spa treatments including massages and wraps etc... Allanna and I just experienced the nail services, but both were very luxurious. I was impressed with their excellent customer service. While the actual "spa treatments" of the manicure and pedicure were very pampering and relaxing, the polish job on my fingernails didn't turn out quite as well. First of all, the lady administering my services didn't speak english and I think she used the top coat as the base and the base coat as the top, so the polish bubbled up on all my fingers. That wasn't that big of a deal, but she had also painted a couple of nails thicker than the others, so they took longer to dry and consequently I smudged them badly. So badly, in fact, that I decided to go back the next day and see if they could at least just fix those badly smudged nails. The most impressive part about my return visit is that they not only fixed the smudged nails, but also repainted ALL my fingernails (so that I didn't have the bubbles in the polish any more) AND repainted both my big toe nails that had also gotten smudged some. Plus when I tried to offer an extra tip for a different girl taking the time to practically redo the paint job on all my nails, she refused to accept it. She also encouraged me to let Allanna know that if any of her nails smudged she would redo them for her as well for no charge. I thought the whole experience was very pleasant and professional and I would definitely go back another time.

Still Baking...What has gotten into me?!?

As I write this I have already baked 2 more loaves of Banana Bread since the 1st one in the post below -1 plain with nuts and 1 with nuts AND chocolate chips...mmmm. Again, they didn't last long, but since they turned out so well, I decided to branch out and try some other different kinds of bread. So while David went out of town for a couple of days, I secretly called his mom and had her give me the recipe for his absolute FAVORITE bread ever, Plum Bread. I know it doesn't sound all that wonderful, but honestly, the plums come from baby food, and you really don't even taste them. To me it was closer to a spice bread or even Amish/friendship bread. Anyway, while he was gone, I bought all the ingredients (although I couldn't find plain baby food plums anywhere, so I had to use a combo of apples and plums - but that's really ok) then I made the bread, and only tasted 1 slice before he had almost all the rest of it. Amazing, the whole loaf didn't even last a full 3 days in our house! I knew I should have made 2 like the recipe called for instead of trying halve the recipe so that we didn't have too much. But oh, well, I guess I'll just have to make it again. Anyway, without further ado, I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to see what this AMAZING recipe is, so here it is...

PLUM BREAD

2 SMALL JARS PLUM BABY FOOD (or any other fruity flavor you like)
2 CUPS SUGAR
2 CUPS SELF RISING FLOUR
3 EGGS
1 CUP WESSON OIL
1/2 TSP EACH CLOVES & NUTMEG
1 TSP EACH ALLSPICE & CINNAMON

MIX SUGAR & OIL, ADD EGGS, ADD FLOUR, ADD SPICES ADD PLUMS BAKE 1 HOUR 10 MIN AT 350

(MAKES 2 LOAVES, OR ONE BUNDT PAN)

Now that I have successfully made Banana Bread and Plum Bread, my next bread adventure is going to be Pumpkin Bread (recipe courtesy of my friend, Rachel). I plan to make this one next week and bring it to our Thanksgiving dinner. I'll let you know how it turned out and post the recipe after Thanksgiving.

Me, baking?!? What's the occasion?

Well, there isn't one. I was just given several bananas today, and I can only eat so many. Usually in the summer I like to peel them, wrap them in tin foil and freeze the over ripe ones to use in smoothies. Mmmm... But it's not great smoothie weather to me now, so I thought I'd try my hand at making banana bread. Now, those of you who know me well, know that I have never baked any type of bread ever in my life, so of course I didn't have a bread loaf pan or half the ingredients, but I did have bananas, so I thought I'd go out on a limb and give it a try.


I found the recipe on myrecipes.com. It looked less complicated than the other ones I'd looked at and it was "lite" so I thought that was a plus. I printed out the recipe, went to the store to get the pan and ingredients I needed, and commenced baking after going to vote (where there was no line at all) and to yoga class. Oh, and 1 more thing, I read the reviews too and added a little more banana and a tsp of vanilla as suggested on one of the comments. I also had mentioned to someone (who's been to cooking school) that I was going to make this banana bread and he gave me a secret little tip. I'll share it with you... He said to add a tiny pinch of pepper to the dry ingredients and mix it up well before adding it to the wet ingredients. The pepper will enhance the good flavors in the bread and make the flavor burst in your mouth - but be careful you don't use a big pinch, just a tiny pinch. He also suggested adding a little apple sauce to the banana mixture (use the 2 bananas and and the apple sauce to make up a whole cup). Also you could substitute Splenda for the sugar if you want to make it even more low-fat. (but I didn't do that this time)

Here's the recipe I used (including my additions) if you want to try it. It was actually pretty easy (time consuming, but not too hard) and good too.

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 (8-ounce) package fat-free cream cheese
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2 medium bananas plus a little apple sauce)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups reduced-fat baking mix (such as Bisquick - with a tiny pinch of pepper)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Cooking spray

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
Place sugar and cream cheese in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add banana and eggs; beat until well blended. Add the baking mix and walnuts, and stir just until moist.
Pour batter into a 9-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray; bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Tent bread with foil, and bake an additional 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Nutritional Information
Calories: 161 (24% from fat)
Fat: 4.3g (sat 0.8g,mono 0.6g,poly 1.9g)
Protein: 4.6g
Carbohydrates: 26.7g
Fiber: 0.7g
Cholesterol: 28mg
Iron: 0.8mg
Sodium: 260mg
Calcium: 49mg

Yield
16 servings (serving size: 1 slice)

(Taken from Cooking Light, MAY 2003)

Well, I'm off to enjoy another slice of fresh, homemade (by me!!) banana bread. Happy fall baking, everyone!

Edited on 11/5/08 to add that I gave this recipe to a friend of mine yesterday and she made this last night too. She didn't add the apple sauce like I did, but used a 3rd banana instead, and she made it sugar free with Splenda, as well as cholesterol free with better 'n eggs instead of real eggs. I tasted a little of it this morning, and although it was different tasting than mine, it was really good too!

Last two October weekends catch-up and 50th post!

Well, it's hard to believe that it's been over a year before I reached my 50th post. My goal this year is definitely to post more. I have had several random blog posts formulated in my head, but I really didn't think they were that "blog-worthy", so I haven't written them. And really the last 2 weekends in October were not all that "blog-worthy" either, but I felt like I had neglected my blog for too long, so it was time for a post, even if it's not all that exciting.

So I'll start with the 2nd to last weekend in October. On Friday October 24th David was invited to play in a charity pro-am golf tournament to raise money for the Triad Youth Golf Foundation (TYGF). He used to be involved in the foundation, teaching classes and giving lessons back when he worked as a Pro Golf Instructor. So it was nice for him to get to see all of the guys he used to work with again. He was paired up with Robert, his old college coach and former employer, and 2 other amateurs. They played pretty well. I'll let you go to his blog to read about all the details. But the end result is they finished fourth and still got a little prize for that. After the tournament, they had an awards dinner and silent auction for the golfers and families. So I joined David for that. The dinner wasn't anything special, but it was nice to meet his old coach and some of the people he used to spend a good bit of time with in the past. The awards were mostly for the kids that are a part of the TYGF, but they also gave out the 1st-4th place prizes before all that started. The prize David got was a $25 gift card to a nice local restaurant, The Village Tavern. Since we didn't have any plans for that Saturday, we decided we would have a "date night" and use the gift card. The dinner was really nice. We skipped the appetizers and just got two entrees and split a dessert. Afterwards we stopped by the video store to rent a movie, then went home to enjoy the rest of our "date night".

Oh this is worth mentioning - sorry I forgot on the day, but in between that weekend and the next, we celebrated my mother's birthday! David, Mom and Dad and I went out to O'Charlie's for dinner and a birthday celebration on Wednesday night (October 29th - her birthday). We had another good dinner and a great time.

Finally on to this past weekend. Again it wasn't all that exciting, but we did have a fun, relaxing weekend. On Friday evening (Halloween) I didn't want to be home in case kids came to the house trick-or-treating. I know, that's mean...but I didn't know how many (if any) would come and I didn't want to buy candy and then have to just eat it ourselves if no one came. So we planned to stay out all night. That evening we went shopping near the mall, then on to dinner at Bonefish Grill. We don't normally spend a lot of time on that side of town, so it had been a LONG while since we had been there for dinner. We left completely full and didn't even "technically" have a meal. We both got a cup of their spicy corn chowder with lump crab meat, and then split the best appetizer on the menu, the coconut fried shrimp with a tangy sweet citrus dipping sauce. And we finished that off with Creme Brulee for dessert. Mmmmm... After that we did a little more shopping, then on to the $2.50 movies for a hilarious comedy. We got in around 11pm...Mission accomplished! We both stayed out of the house the whole evening and had a great time!
Saturday morning I slept in. It was the 1st time in while that I was able to do that and it felt GREAT! Then I got up and went to the gym with David. We stayed around the house some, went shopping in town again, and then out to dinner at our favorite little Mexican restaurant. Like I said, nothing too exciting, but just a fun and relaxing weekend. I need some of those every once in a while. Now on to another busy, productive week...