Low Fat Banana Bread

So I've been on a journey with medical appointments and such over the past 2 months.  I've a need to bake when I get stressed, so in line with that  found this great Banana Bread recipe from the Best Recipes website.  The recipe can be found here and I will include it at the bottom of this post too. A big thank you to "marie" on Best Recipes for sharing this one.

I had bought about 3 kilos of very ripe banana's from the supermarket the day after I found this recipe with the intention of making a banana bread...or making millions of smoothies! Anyway, I used 3 of the 15 banana's to make the bread.  I was a bit dubious about the taste as I found the mixture rather dry to begin with, but then remembered I hadn't actually added the bananas!

It smelt rather tasty while baking and had me salivating the 40 minutes it takes to bake...well it took a little longer than that.  I had to try a piece while it was still warm from the oven, and I have to say, it really was yummy! Moist and flavourful.  I had added a half cup of walnuts to the mix as well.  I will definitely be making this again.  I sliced the loaf up once it had cooled completely, and froze it in individual slices, so that I can have a piece whenever I choose.

Low Fat Banana Bread

Recipe by 'marie" from Best Recipes website. 

(http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Low-Fat-Banana-Bread-L1162.html)

2 cup self raising flour

1/2 cup Splenda artificial sweetener - I used Hermesetas

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/4 cup milk - I used Semi-Skim

2 tablespoons butter, melted - I used the heating up oven to do this.

3 tablespoons golden syrup

3 bananas, mashed

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Place flour and sweetener in a large bowl.

Combine eggs, milk, butter and syrup in another bowl.

Add egg mixture and banana to the flour and mix well.

Pour mixture into a loaf tin lined with baking paper and bake for approximately 40 minutes.

As an added extra you could add in 1/2 cup of walnuts or oats.

To Experiment...

So I went shopping the other day at The Queen Victoria Markets here in Melbourne, like I always do the weekend I get paid.  Buying meat/fish/veges/deli & bread for most of the month.  I do go back every 2 weeks to get more veges.  I then take everything home and divide and chop and freeze what I won't be using over the rest of the weekend.  Lately I've gotten into the habit of easy meals on Saturday, and then firing up the slow cooker and the oven on Sunday to cook meals for the week.

So this past week I had bought a small leg of lamb on a whim, well that and the fact it was rather cheap.  I didn't have an idea of what I wanted to use it for, and thought about freezing it. that is until I got home and put everything away, only then realising I need a bigger freezer! It is currently chocka-block! So I needed to cook the lamb leg on Sunday.  As my last attempt at roasting only worked with another person in the kitchen, I decided to free style with the slow cooker again.

So here is what I did...

Recipe for Lamb Casserole...

Take one 1.5-2kg Leg of lamb, brown in pan to seal.
Place 2cm sliced pieces of potato in the bottom of your slow cooker. Use as may as you like, I used 3 medium sized spuds. Then slice an onion thickly and place on top on potatoes. I then had abut 2 sticks of celery already chopped and about a 1/4 of a red capsicum sliced thinly. I added those into the slow cooker too. About 2 carrots chunky chopped, but add more if you are feeding the family. Then place the sealed lamb leg in the centre of all that.  I then sprinkled about 1 teaspoon of Vegeta Vege Stock powder over it all and then poured a can of crushed tomatoes over.  Then added about half a can of addition water. Put the lid on and cooked on low for 8 hours.  Served it with steamed broccoli.

Experiment with it, after 8 hours the lamb fell off the bone, so I just broke it up in the mix.

I forgot to take a pic of the initial finished product, but will add one shortly of what is left...and below is the promised pic.

Small Pin Cushion

I spotted this pattern on the Moda Bake Shop website.  It is called a Cathedral Window Pin Cushion.  I purchased the materials from Spotlight , I thought these were quite cute.  I also used a piece of butterfly material I already had.  I must say it was very easy to make, and I enjoyed putting it together. 

I did make one change though, I appliqued the flower on the middle, as my sewing wasn't quite up to scratch, and the button I had was not big enough to hide the imperfections. I must also work on my hidden stitching though.

Pin Cushion Front

Pin Cushion Back

Finally Finished

Well I finally finished this cross stitch. 

It's only been about 20 years or so.

Trip into the past...

I got inspired about a month ago and decided to finish off some long outstanding craft projects.  One in fact from 1985!! The other one wasn't quite that long ago, but nearly!

Some of my former school friends might recognise this project from Year 8 Art Class! Yes I finally finished it! LOL! It was a screen printing activity.  We had to design a template based on a bug/insect of some sort.  I chose the butterfly and if I remember correctly the art teacher didn't think I enough detail, so co-opted someone else bug onto my material.

The next project I finished is a cushion cover.  I finished stitching the cross stitch quite some years ago, so it's just been sitting amongst my stuff waiting to be made into something. So I decided to use some of the leftover boarder material from another quilt.

Here is the finished project.  Laura this will be winging it's way to you at some point for Kate!

Cooking a Nigella Recipe

I made this over Christmas while in Noosa.  My Mum and I watched one of Nigella's programs and she made this on the episode we watched.  Mum and I were both so impressed, I tried to find the recipe on her site the next day, but to no avail.  So I did the next best thing, I watched it on ABC iView and wrote it down as she made it. 

It is call Black Beer Gingerbread, and it tastes heavenly!  All members of the family loved it too, even my Dad who isn't a fan of ginger anything ... taste not red heads! :D

I used Kilkenny Stout, and have made it again since with the same Stout.  Although I do have a can of Guinness sitting in the fridge for the next batch to see if it makes a difference to the taste.

Below is the recipe as I watched the program.

Black Beer Gingerbread

Recipe By Nigella Lawson

Pre-heat oven to 170 C.

Melt in a saucepan, 150 grams of butter, 300 grams of Golden Syrup & 200 grams of dark Brown Sugar (Demerara). Once melted, keep on heat and whisk in 250 mls of Black Beer (Stout). Then mix in 300 grams of plain flour, 2 teaspoons of Bicarb Soda, 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, 2 teaspoons of ground ginger and a ¼ teaspoon of ground cloves. Once this has been whisked into the beer mixture, remove from the heat. Whisk together 300 mls/grams of Sour Cream (Small carton 300ml) & 2 eggs. Mix sour cream into batter and pour into a pan. There is no need to grease the pan, especially if using the suggested BBQ foil pan. Bake in moderately slow oven for 45 minutes.
Serve on it’s own, or with cream, ice cream or custard.

So I made this ...

I again visited the Sylvia Pippen Designs website and spent some more money.  This time I purchased her Sashiko Scissors Holder.  The colour selection was a random pick by the person who fulfilled the order.  As luck would have it I got red & black fabrics!  I was really happy about that.  So the kit includes 6 Sashiko designs to choose from, white cotton, a needle, a button and all the fabric and wadding needed to make this beautiful and functional item. 

So the first decision I had to make what what design to choose.  The red and black accent fabric to go on the front was of paper fans, so picking a design to go with that was hard.  I decided to go with the double cranes, as that is what my eye kept being drawn to when looking at the selection.  I traced the design onto the black fabric, forgetting that I needed to angle it so it sat properly when the boarders were stitched on and it came time to construct the holder.

Double Cranes

Then came the cutting and sewing of the boarders to the above piece, which was fairly simple. Then came the sandwiching together and then some very simple quilting. I ditch stitched around the centre panel and then sewed a quarter inch line either side of the ditch.  I sewed on the binding, and made the button loop.  Which was to me a new thing and it took me a bit to work out how that might work.

Then came the folding into the shape and stitching in place.  I used one of my own buttons as the button that came with the kit did not match the fabrics.  Below is the finished result, both front and back views.

Front View.

Back View ... if a bit fuzzy!