banana cake

My husband got me a standmixer for Christmas - it arrived really quickly and we opened it since this means I can use it to make stuff for Christmas more easily! My husband gave me a rundown of the features (he's compulsive about reading manuals) and my daughter must have been paying attention because the next day she gave me another whole spiel about it and demonstrated the mechanism for moving the bowl up and down. Then she wanted to use it and since we had some over ripe bananas lying around the kitchen we improvised a banana cake. The basis for this cake lies in three banana bread recipes that I like - one from bakingbites, one from orangette and one by Delia Smith (from a recipe book my mum owns, oh but wait it's on her website - I usually omit the walnuts and add chocolate chips and chopped dates).

Banana Cake

5oz butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
4 Tbspns walnut oil
4 bananas
1 egg (I wasn't originally intending to use the egg but my daughter fetched one from the fridge and insisted)
1 1/2 Tbspn rum (optional)
1 cup AP flour
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger (to taste)
3/4 cup coconut
1 cup chocolate chips

• cream butter and sugar

• add remaining wet ingredients and mix thoroughly

• mix dry ingredients in separate bowl

• add dry ingredients to wet and mix until combined

• pour batter into 9x9 cake pan

• sprinkle with demerara/turbinado sugar (or the coarsest grained kind you have)

• bake in a 350 degree oven for approximately 40 minutes

This is a moist, slightly crumbly cake. We brought half of it to share at breaktime during the evening singing (along with another oaty thing I threw together) and we didn't bring any leftovers home so I'll take that as a positive review.

Unfortunately with the miserable weather we're having at the moment getting a good photo is more difficult than usual. Maybe the sun will come out again before it's all eaten...

cooking and crafting

After a period where I was feeling undercreative (I don't think that's really a word is it, but you now what I mean right?) things seem to be picking up (as evidenced by actual blogging, new sweaters and so on). This makes me happy and hopeful that I can gain and maintain momentum.

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But to get to the point... I made soup. I usually make this quite often around this time of year. It's my Orange Soup (no actual oranges involved, just the colour). I cut a butternut squash in half, scoop out seeds (roast separately for snacking) and roast in the oven until cooked. I like to halve an onion to put in the cavities of the squash, some garlic cloves too, and rub with a bit of olive oil. Meanwhile also cook some red lentils in water or broth. That's basically all the ingredients, sometimes I put in some carrots too. I put the ingredients in the blender with extra broth (this time I had some made from the Thanksgiving turkey which my SIL would otherwise throw out). Heat, add seasonings (I sometimes add cider, this time I tried a glug of cider vinegar) and that's basically it. My husband is not a big fan of squash soup but he'll sometimes eat this -- the lentils make a big difference for him.

I like to eat this soup with a spoonful of salsa stirred in, and maybe a bit of grated cheese (or cheese on toast). Today I added some frozen corn kernals (I like some texture in my soup). It's also lovely with some fried up slab bacon cut into small chunks!

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My favourite thing I made yesterday though is this little book for my daughter.
Now I'm not claiming it's well made, but it's made which is the important thing. If I have a notebook anywhere in sight my daughter wants to draw/"write" in it immediately so I thought it might help keep what's in my notebooks legible if I gave her her very own notebook to draw in. She liked this idea and helped with some of the snipping of threads for sewing the pages together, and also with the gluing. I used some sheets of drawing paper for the pages and card and paper from the recycling to make the cover. I'm going to consult with the book's owner about how to decorate later!

craftiness in the blood

My daughter has been very interested in my sewing, knitting and crochet for a long time. Now of course she wants to help me constantly. Partly inspired by Soulemama* and partly by memories of my own sewing projects my mum set up for me as a child, I helped my daughter do her first sewing project. I found some cross-stitch fabric (which has holes she can poke the needle through built in) which I put into an embroidery hoop. She chose some embroidery floss (blue first as it seems to be her favourite at the moment) and threaded up a cross-stitch (blunt tipped) needle for her.

She's only two and it was her first try so I mostly held the hoop for her and reminded her which side to work from with each stitch, but she retained creative control so far as where the needle and thread went. It may not actually be complete yet because she wanted to add some pink and more blue. I think she did a pretty good job with her "crochet" as she keeps insisting on identifying it! (I scanned this as an experiment hence the blotchy bits where the canvas isn't quite flat.)

* I'm adding this to the Creative Family Pool at Flickr where you can find lots of photos posted by people inspired by soulemama's book The Creative Family. (I went to one of the book events when the book came out in the spring time. I find Amanda's book and blog constantly inspirational.)

Eat cake

Yesterday my husband and I had rehearsal with our church choir in the evening. Before singing there was a choir meal. The main course was taken care of but I knew my daughter would enjoy making something so we made Mincemeat Quickbread using the last of the mincemeat I made a few years back (one of the other choir members is also originally from England so I thought he'd appreciate it at least). So now a new batch of mincemeat goes on the to-do list.
This is a super quick and easy recipe to throw together since there's so much in the mincemeat before you start (it does take an hour to bake though). The mixture always seems a bit dry to me when I mix it up (this time I was more anxious about that since there was slightly less mincemeat than the recipe called for so I added a bit of apple butter) but it moistens while in the oven. I timed the baking so that the cake was still warm when we got to church. When I make my way through leftovers (which won't take long this time) I like to put it under the broiler to toast lightly and then spread with some butter.

thrifting thursday plus buttons

First, look look the knitting is all done on my gathered cardi! A few ends to sew in, some blocking and buttons to be sewn on and then a FO photo op.
Yesterday alongside our excursion to the library my daughter and I stopped and got some buttons. Some for my cardi and some for her february baby sweater that's been sitting around waiting for way too long. Daughter wanted to touch everything in the store but was mostly pretty restrained (thank goodness, this is a fancy fabric store that I don't usually dare to enter). The lady there gave my daughter her own bonus button in an envelope too so now I need to find a cute cardigan pattern requiring just one button to feature it.

On the way home from the library we had a quick thrifting stop. I haven't done much thrifting lately, at least that's the way it feels! My favourite find though was this:
I'm very excited, it was only $3.25 (and from the price sticker I think it had actually sat around for a month waiting for me). I go to lots of potlucks and didn't have anything good for carrying cakes and all I've really seen out there has been plastic. This has a handle and two little catches to keep lid and plate together. So now I can start thinking about all the cakes I've contemplated...


I was also really excited to see a big plastic container of sewing patterns for 50c each and picked up a few of those (baby/small child clothes, aprons etc), also some crochet yarn to try making ornaments (when I find my tiny size crochet hooks) and some tins (for gift giving). Very satisfying.

...and Making

Two posts in such quick succession after so long. Am I setting myself up to fail I wonder?! Since posting in August I was away for a while (singing in AL & GA over Labor Day weekend and then a trip to England - visiting family and friends plus some more singing - for the bulk of September) and then not feeling creative or productive and being so much out of the habit didn't get back to the blogging.

More recently I've been starting to get back into the swing of things again. Lots going on in the kitchen (examples in my previous post). As for crafts, I haven't been sewing much of anything but there's been quite a bit of knitting lately. Perhaps I can do some something old something new posts!

Here's a picture of one of my current works in progress. This is the Gathered Cardi (ravelry pattern page) from Knit.1 Magazine (Spring/Summer 2008 edition). I went out and bought the magazine after seeing this photo, not sure I would have bought it from the pic in the magazine (especially as I'd not even noticed the existence of that particular publication before). Here's a link to my project page on ravelry.

Also please note that my almost cardigan is being modelled for me by a dress form. It is my somewhat belated excellent birthday present from my husband. Now that I have passed the baby swing chair that was residing in my sewing room (not that my daughter sat in it more than a handful of times) on to some expectant friends there was a space for me to set it up. Now I just need to sort out the rest of the room and perhaps I can manage some sewing in the run up to Christmas. I have The Omnivore's Dilemma on CD from the library to listen to while I work. Wish me luck!

Baking...

I've been baking with my daughter more recently. She's really liking getting involved especially when she can do stuff herself.

For these cookies I got the ingredients mostly ready to go in advance and she got to put stuff into the bowl and mix until bored and ready for the next addition. I would do some extra stirring as needed.

Then I cut the dough into pieces the right size for one cookie and she rolled pieces and "squished" them onto the baking sheet herself (well about half of the dough and I did the rest, these in the picture are her own work).
I found the recipe at the Baking Bites blog - Spicy, Chewy Molasses Cookies
(note the ones I made were chewier than my daughters, probably because I lightly pressed my balls of dough onto the baking sheet rather than squashing them!)

Then for dinner we made pizza. I used some basic bread dough (using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book and making a dough somewhere between the basic recipe and the olive oil recipe with some whole wheat bread flour in it) and cut off a 1lb piece for the pizza for me and my husband and about 3 ounces or so I think for my daughter. She loves having some dough to work with. Unfortunately we couldn't find her smaller rolling pin and she was a bit frustrated using mine but it worked out and she did a bit of stretching and pressing it with her fingers too. I helped her spread some tomato sauce on (both of us holding the spoon) and then gave her slices of cheese and pepperoni and some olives to place on the dough as she pleased. Then I put it in the oven and she watched it cook.