Crazy Banana Cake

I tried a new recipe this weekend. It's called Crazy Banana Cake, and turned out really good! I found it on Facebook. But you can see it here...
http://happyhooligans.ca/best-ever-banana-cake-with-cream-cheese-icing/

I have to admit... I didn't do that freezer part. I just put it in the fridge. But, it still turned out very moist and super delicious. A lighter version of Banana bread. mmmmm! I even took some to work, and everyone loved it.

Pizza Taco

We found this recipe in one of my magazines...

And decided to make it for dinner.

Basically, it was a taco recipe, just put together a little differently. But it was actually pretty good, and an easy recipe to make.

It's all about food

hmmm. My first post after what seems like a long time away, and I'm talking about food.

This weekend I spent a bit of time in the kitchen. I made 2 new recipes from my Chatelaine magazines. The first is a Blueberry Struesel-Crunch muffin found online HERE.

The second was a Chocolate Walnut Banana Bread. Recipe found HERE.

While I've made blueberry muffins before, and have 3 or 4 recipes for banana bread, I thought I would try something new and different. Both turned out really good. I especially liked the muffins. In fact, I like Chatelaine's recipes. They always seem to turn out good.

food!

Wanna check out a great blog all about food and recipes? Check out
SkinnyTaste

She's got some great recipes on there for summer. And all recipes have the nutritional information, so if you are following a diet, or Weight Watchers, you can calculate the points values. I especially like her photography though. She takes pictures of all the recipes, and her photographs are fantastic! Warning! Reviewing her blog will make you hungry!

dinner!

I made a monster Shephard's Pie on the weekend. It's our favourite, and I usually make enough to feed a family of 6, thus the mini roasting pan sized Shephard's Pie. Don't worry. We actually like leftovers in our house.


I don't follow a recipe, but here's how I make mine.

4 medium (or 3 large) russet potatoes, washed, peeled, boiled, drained, then mashed with a bit of butter, salt and cream. Set aside.

In a large skillet brown 1 pound of lean ground meat. Ground beef works best. For this one, I used 1/2 pound of ground turkey, and 1/2 pound of ground beef.

Then add veges. I diced and cut up 1/2 large onion, 4 carrots, 3 celery, and a handful of mushrooms. Stir and cook on medium.

Then add spices. I included salt, pepper, 1/2 teaspoon dried mustard, 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, a dash of HP Sauce, and some dried parsley. Continue to cook uncovered on medium until veges are softened.

Add 1 can of corn (drained), and about 1 cup of frozen peas. Cook on medium until peas and corn are warmed through.

While that is cooking, make gravy. I use Club House Seasonings gravy mix, but anything else will do. It's especially good if you have left over gravy from a roast beef dinner... but in our house that NEVER happens. Left over gravy?! Not likely. Gravy is a food group in our house, and there is never enough. So, I cheat, and use the mix. The Club House ones come in a package with 50% less sodium, and make a really nice gravy. You will need 1 1/2 to 2 cups.

Then, pour the beef and vege mixture into a large pan, pour the gravy overtop, and give it a bit of a stir. Then gently layer the mashed potatoes on top, using a spatula to push the potatoes into the corners, so that the entire dish is covered. Top with a bit of melted butter, and bake at 350 for about 30 to 40 minutes. Enjoy!

bread pudding

When your mother gives you a bag of left over bread pieces to make bread crumbs... well, it's just more fun to make a bread pudding instead.

I love bread pudding!
I don't usually follow a recipe, but here is what I usually use:

Enough bread pieces to fill up the dish
Butter the dish, so it won't stick (although, it will anyways)
Mix together:
- 4 medium eggs (or 3 large)
- 2 cups milk
- 1/4 cup of sugar
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract
- 1/2 to 1 tsp of cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp of nutmeg
- salt and pepper to taste

Pour mixture over bread slowly, so that all the bread pieces soak up the mixture. Sprinkle the top with more sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 350* for 45 minutes or until knife inserted into pudding comes out clean.
Enjoy hot, drizzled with maple syrup. Although I do like it cold too.

recipe update

For those of you who want the recipe for the Pork Chops stuffed with Brie... I took it from the Chatelaine "Modern Classics" recipe book, but also found the recipe online here... click here

Project 52 - Week 3

If you recall, I only had 39 items last week. Well, this week, I made finding 52 items part of my list... and then completed the list! Sneaky, huh? Click on the link above to see the list in total.

For my Accomplishments this week:

1) Try two new recipes every month (2/24)
This time, it was Pork Chops stuff with Brie. Only we used Camembert instead. They were good!!! I was going to take a picture of them before we ate... but we sat down and devoured more than half before I realized that I hadn't take a picture. So, a pic of the recipe book will just have to do...


9) Scrapbook at least 2 pages every month (2/24)

I don't usually buy prepackaged scrapbook pages. But, this was too good to pass up. 2 pages, with all the matting, stickers and embellishments, for $4.99... marked down an additional 90% off. Wow! It was perfect for the school pictures of the kids that we get each year.

11) Finish my 2011 scrapbook calendar -- Done! See last Friday's post for details.

13) Eat healthy -- I've been doing well this week, staying away from junk food despite the amount of chocolate in the house, and finding organic healthy alternatives for snacks.

16) Lose 40 lbs (3/40) -- ok, I'm down another pound. The loss is slow, but at least I'm not gaining! Am I following a plan of any kind? Not really. Just trying to eat less, eat healthy, and move more. Eventually though, I will have to set some kind of plan up to follow.

18) Read 20 books (2/20) -- This week I finished Nora Ephron's "I Remember Nothing".

28) Create a budget, and track our expenses -- I've started a spreadsheet for this now. It's going to be one of those ongoing things.

40) Choose 52 items for my Project 52 list -- DONE!

41) Setup an automatic savings program -- DONE! A small sum of money is now coming out of my chequing account each month, and being deposited to my high interest savings. I used to do this 'manually' each month by transferring the money online. But, usually what ended up happening, is that I never did the transfer, and spent the money instead. Now, there are no excuses!

52) Blog about my "Project 52" every week (3/52)

I had a really productive week this week. How about you?

recipes

Our family has a recipe for these waffles. I grew up on them, and my mother's family made them all the time. They weren't regular waffles. They were sweeter. Kind of like a dessert waffle. We called them 'Galettes'.

Now if you query the internet for Galettes, you get all kinds of recipes, but none of them are close to being what we had as kids. On the internet, Galettes are described as a thin pie or tart. What we had was more like a Belgium Waffle than a Galette. So, not being able to find a suitable recipe on the internet, I decided to ask Grandma for her recipe. This is what she pulled out:

The recipe starts off with 1lb of butter. 1 pound!?!?

"Cripes Grandma! How many Gallettes does this recipe make?" I asked.

"Oh, a few", she says.

The next line: 1/2 pound shortening.

With one pound of butter? Ok... I think I might have to cut this recipe in half!

The next ingredients: 1 pound of white sugar and 1/2 pound of brown sugar. Again with the pounds! How am I supposed to measure that? Just how many cups are in a pound anyways?

Then there was 1 dozen eggs.

"Grandma, I don't think this is right", I say.

"Oh, it's right. It made enough to feed us all on the farm", she replies.

"How many of you were there on the farm? Like 40 people?"

She laughs, and says, "No, there were... what... 8 of us kids..."

I continued to read the recipe: Vanilla. Salt. That was it. No measurement of any kind. Just the words "Vanilla" and then "Salt". huh??

By this time, we were laughing and joking around about the whole thing. Then I read the last line: Mix as for cakes, and drop by tablespoon onto a hot greased waffle iron.

Let's see. You make the whole recipe, all those pounds of sugar, pounds of flour, a dozen eggs and the like, and then you have to use a TABLESPOON to fill the waffle iron... Cripes! You would be making Galettes until the cows come home!

I am still laughing over all this. And I'm still searching Grandma's recipes for a more suitable version of her 'Galettes' recipe.