Better Banana Bread

In good news...the hubby found the camera!

So you're probably wondering where it was misplaced...I'll give you a hint: somewhere on the golf course lol.

Not in a golf cart.

Not on the driving range where he was teaching a lesson.

Not in the pro shop where someone turned it in.

Luckily, not with the university students, either!

Where was it?

Hidden in the rough grass beside the driving range. How it got there, I'll never know. But, the good thing is, it's home!

Like I said earlier, I will post a picture from the concert! Only one, I promise!

This is while he's singing one of my fav songs! And there you have it, that's it, I swear! 

Now onto the important part of this post (next to finding the camera, of course). I did some searching, and decided to make a delicious banana bread. I had plenty of rotting bananas and with a move coming up...everything's gotta go!

Better Banana Bread

Adapted from The Kitchen Sink Recipes

Ingredients:

1/4 cup + 1 tbsp almond milk

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup Greek yogurt

1/4 cup liquid egg whites (equivalent to 2 large egg whites)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2-3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

3 medium rotten bananas, mashed

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

2. In large bowl, combine the wet ingredients

3. In medium bowl, combine dry ingredients

4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix together with a spatula

5. Pour mixture into a pre-greased loaf pan

5. Bake for 50-55 minutes

Enjoy!

Cut a nice warm slice and add some butter, if you like.

Do you like to add anything to your banana bread?

And now it's time to enjoy some time with the hubby now that he's home! Good night!

Sitting, Thanking, Wishing

Soooo, it's Canadian Thanksgiving (I'm sure everyone knows this by now - even Kelly acknowledged it on Regis and Kelly this morning) and I'm so excited for turkey. I think this is one of the reasons why I wouldn't/couldn't fully give up meat. I think I'm more excited for turkey than I've ever been because we missed Thanksgiving last year...all in good reason, though. At this time last year, we were just arriving in Florida to get ready for my wedding! So I was ok will missing it!

Even though last year's Thanksgiving was different, this one is mighty different. See, most of my family lives in Ontario *tear*, but my husband and I now live in B.C...so even though we're technically home this year...we're really not. I have my dad here, so we're going to his house for dinner tonight, at least.

I decided that I was going to bake a pumpkin cheesecake. I made it two Thanksgiving's ago and it was delish!

Here's how it went!

Please be advised that by no means is this a healthy version of cheesecake. It's go big or go home for this special dinner/feast (and dessert)!

I started by making the Oreo crumb bottom layer:

Now, if you're anything like me...you don't exactly open the bag carefully to make it easy to pour and end up having your kitchen look like this:

Notice the little dirt-like mounds...woops!

Next, mix all the mostly wet ingredients togethaaaaa:
(Some brown sugar, eggs, cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg and of course, pumpkin!)

In another bowl, goes the cream cheese, cornstarch and sugar. Now I haven't had cream cheese in SO long and it smelt so good! So glad I decided to make cheesecake.

Nothing beats Philly cream cheese! Now for a little creaming.

Add, the pumpkin mixture to the cream cheese mixture and mix to your heart's content!

Here's what mixing does to it!

Which only makes sense that it would be lighter in colour...orange + white = lighter orange!


Add to your pan! Unfortunately, I don't have a springform pan (yet), so I had to make do with another baking pan.

Then it was time to place this bad boy in a 350 degree oven for 55 mins!

While it was baking, I did some packing...for mid-day, I think I did pretty good!

Fast forward 55 minutes and cheesecake is done...and looks mighty tasty (this is all without even seeing the oreo cookie bottom)

Thank-you Philly for the awesome recipe and I can't wait to eat you after dinner tonight!

Onto more packing, but first I needed the necessary things to get more packing done (thick tape, plastic bags for clothes and bins), so it was off to the store I went. But not without this delicious honeycrisp apple first!

So, I was a little bad after getting everything I need to pack...I stopped at Tim Hortons and got a latte. I've been on a latte kick lately and I'm not really helping the situation by getting another one today. For all of you Americans that don't know what Tim Hortons is...it's only the best coffee/donut place in Canada. It's super cheap and always busy...and I'm not kidding about the busy part. Be warned! It's a must go-to when you come to Canada! I definitely missed it when I was in Australia, and funny enough, my Aussie friend here can't get enough of it here!

Multi-tasking was definitely used today! Along with packing, I decided to get some much needed laundry done. Sometimes I'll send away for samples and never end up using them. So with this new Purex 3-in-1 laundry sheet, I thought I must you use it today...or else, I probably never will (with moving and all...)

Let's hope it does a good job!

You know when you have one of those productive days and things go good (ie: today), well when the washing machine was washing a load (a previous one), I saw a toonie (aka: $2) getting all cleaned up in there, too! I decided I would leave it until the wash was done, but at the end of the wash...I couldn't find it anymore (which made me sad). Until, I discovered a lining that you could stick your fingers down into and voila! not only did I find the toonie, but a loonie (aka: $1 coin) as well.

Finding money is fun, even if it's only three odd dollars!!

So I'm up $3, picking the hubby up from work soon and off to eat turkey. I. Am. Excited!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

The Last Few Days...

Ahhh-HHHHHHH....I got my macbook back!!!! It was long awaited and very overdue!

It's very refreshing to know that I have it back...and from now on, I will back it up (every month, which is one of my goals)!

So let me take it back 2 days ago...my husband normally has Tuesday's and Wednesday's off (it sucks that he doesn't exactly get the weekend off, but we make the best of making Tuesday and Wednesday the weekend), so on Tuesday we decided to stay in and make some pizza.

This pizza was so delicious. We used fresh and local goat cheese, eggplant, spinach, zucchini, cremini mushrooms, onion and peppers. This is the first pizza I've ever made AND had where it wasn't covered in cheese (I really enjoyed having the majority of the pizza covered in veggies instead - plus one of my goals this week is to not eat cow's products).

We also got a soup from Natures Fare (local, organic grocery store) to go with the pizza:

This was just amazing! It was a Moroccan spiced soup with yams and turkey. I would eat it again...as in, I was craving it the next day!

Also, we decided to make cookies!! Cookies with peanut butter because I love peanut butter! For the longest time Skippy was always my favourite brand, becoming more healthy I eventually switched to organic peanut butter, and boy had I been missing out. If I had known all along that organic could taste better than hydrogenated oiled peanut butter, I would have switched years ago! I also enjoy almond butter!

In this case, these peanut butter cookies actually asked for peanut butter cups (oops!) so, not as healthy. I chose this cookie recipe though, since it contained no milk! Tyler and I are an awesome team...he greased the trays while I finished mixing up cookie mixture:

He went a little butter crazy:

Boo! We burnt them!

















Ah well. Better luck for us next time!

Apart from burning them...we had fun.

On Wednesday, I attempted to golf with my hubby! He was super excited to fiiiiinally take me out and to tell you the truth...I actually didn't do that bad. My first time golfing in a year and a half, and I actually hit the ball the first time! It was nice to get out and try at least. I might even attempt it one more time before the season's over!

Since we're more than halfway through the week, I'll update you on how our goals are doing. Here's the summary with how we've progressed:

Tyler:

• Practice (golf) - 4 hours/2 hours short game  ~ practiced today.
• Workout 3 times ~ worked out once so far (shot hoops)
• Play golf 3 times ~ played Tuesday morning, then yesterday afternoon with me!

And mine.

Char:

• Eat foods that contain no cow's milk ~ so far, so good.
• Make a dinner with fennel ~ hoping for Friday to do this.
• Workout 3 times this week (run at least once and climb stairs) ~ climbed stairs yesterday and calves are KILLING today!
• Get a food journal ~ have been recording it on a whiteboard (oops, forgot today so far).
• Make a new recipe and/or create one of my own ~ we kinda did this with our pizza...but I'd like to fully make a new one, so hopefully before Monday!

There you have it!

What have you accomplished so far this week that you're proud of?