Banana Bread

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

I got this recipe off allrecipes.com. Click here for the link. The bread has a nice banana flavor because it uses lots of bananas. When I made the recipe this morning I used 5 medium sized bananas to get the 2 1/3 cups of mashed bananas called for in the recipe. I made muffins out of them instead of bread. I just lined muffin tins with cupcake papers and cooked them for 15- 18 minutes.

Click here for another banana muffin recipe found on this blog. It doesn't call for as many bananas, but I'm sure it's a good recipe too.

Green Salad

Lettuce mixture:
mixed baby greens

dried cranberries

chopped red apples

green grapes

almonds

Dressing:

3/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 1/2 cups olive oil

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/4 tsp. salt

Add vinegar to sugar, whisk well. Add oil and salt Whisk everything long and fast unti it thickens to the consistency of Karo syrup.

Sugar almonds:

3 cups slivered almonds

1 cup sugar

Heat sugar in teflon coated sauce pan on low heat until melted. Add almonds and mix to coat. Remove from heat and let cool.

I was cleaning out my email inbox and saw this recipe from April Steimle that she sent last summer. We had it at the dinner that was served between stake conference sessions last August. I remember that it was really good. I would substitute rice vinegar for red wine vinegar. No one has officially taught me how to sugar almonds. I was happy to read the detailed instructions. I never knew the ratio of almonds to sugar and I didn't know that you should start melting the sugar before you add the almonds.

7 Things You Should Always Buy Generic

I read this post this morning about a money saving tip and was excited to share it here.
Be sure to click onto the video.


Have fun saving money.

Fruit Salad

Hello Fall! Goodbye summer!

Fall is my favorite season. I love the fall weather, starting of a new school year, and planting my fall vegetables garden.

The one thing I will greatly miss about summer are the summer fruits. Almost EVERY DAY for dinner this summer I have served a fruit salad. Below is a picture of one we had last night.

Included in this salad is:

• Watermellon
• Cantalope
• Honey dew melon
• Green grapes

Other fruits that I have included in other salads are:

• Pineapple
• Bananas
• Strawberries
• Kiwi
• Red grapes
• Apricots
• Peaches
• Nectarines
• Mango

In our town of Duarte, we have local food markets that sell produce at a fraction of the cost of grocery store chains. I can go into one of these markets and for $20 have a basket full of fresh fruits and vegetables to last the week.

We have a lime tree in our neighbor's yard that hangs over our fence. We love to slice a few up and squirt some lime juice our our fruit salads to give it a lime zip to the salad.

Lisa served fruit for a work event the other day. She said she served about 100 people for $22. She went to a local market that sold fresh fruit. She bought watermelon, cantaloupes, honey dew melons, grapes, and pineapple. She said she would have bought strawberries but the market didn't have any that day. Then she cut the fruit into big chunks and put them on skewers, and served the skewers off a serving platter. That was a great idea to serve lots of people fruit.

Goodbye summer and fruit salad. Hello fall and homemade apple sauce and apple crisp. (Made from apples grown on our apple tree in our back yard.)

Tub and Shower Spray

I saw this in the paper from Mary Hunt's column entitled: Ordinary Ingredients Can Produce Magic Results .
debtproofliving.com

If you haven't experienced the power of original blue Dawn plus white vinegar, you are in for a treat. Remove the top of a plastic spray bottle, and fill half of it with white vinegar. Carefully heat it in the microwave until the vinegar is hot, taking care not to melt the bottle.

Fill the rest of the bottle with blue Dawn liquid dishwashing soap. Apply the top tightly. Gently shake the bottle to mix. That's it. You now have a powerful cleaning product that will melt soap scum and tub and shower buildup and clean sinks, appliances, and just about anything else. Just spray it on, scrub, rinse and be amazed. For tough soap scum buildup, spray the mixture on and allow it to sit as long as overnight. The scrub and rinse.

9/17/10 I made this and used it to clean my tub and stovetop. I thought that 50/50 ratio of Dawn to white vinegar is too strong on the Dawn. I since have tried a 5% Dawn to 95% vinegar ratio and it worked a lot better. The other way was just too soapy.

Weed Killer

I saw this in the paper from Mary Hunt's column entitled: Ordinary Ingredients Can Produce Magic Results .
debtproofliving.com

Here's a recipe for weed-killer that has the power of Roundup for a fraction of the price. Mix 2 cups of ordinary table salt into 1 gallon of white vinegar that has 5 percent acidity. Add 8 drops of liquid dish washing soap.

Label it, and keep it out of the reach of children. This is not toxic, but it will kill any and all vegetation, even the good stuff, so be careful where you spray it.

Another caution: Spraying this multiple times in the same area will sterilize the soil so that nothing will grow there for a long time. It is ideal for killing weeds that grow between cracks in your sidewalk and other areas where you don't want vegetation.

I think I'll whip me up a batch and spray the brick path in my front yard!

Cafe Rio Chicken

4 chicken breasts

1/2 bottle Zesty Italian Dressing

1/2 cup water

2 t. chili powder

2 cloves of garlic

1 pkg Ranch dressing

2 t. cumin

Place chicken in crock pot.

Mix all other ingredients together and pour over chicken.

Cook on High for 5-7 hours.

Remove chicken and shred with fork. Serve on flour tortilla, with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, salsa...the works.

My sister-in-law, Brittney, is queen of finding AWESOME recipes. I don't have to look for recipes...I just wait until she serves a yummy dish to Dave and I, and then I know it's a good enough recipe to steal! "The boys" LOVE this meal...and "the girls" love how easy, quick, and satisfying it is!

Another New Recipe Blog

Lisa discovered another new recipe blog that I will include on my blog list. It is called, Favorite Family Recipes.

http://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/

or click here to go to it.

Happy cooking!