Healthy Banana Muffins

Wow! A new year, another attempt to NOT let two weeks go by without a blog post! I have many goals for 2012, not the least of which is to be more consistent here.

So to start the new year off right I'm going to deviate from my usual recipe sharing and share something that is actually healthy.

Believe it or not (I know it's hard to tell from this blog) 99% of the time I'm a total health nut.

These are everyday muffins, delicious by themselves or with a smidge of peanut butter.

I made a rookie blog mistake and forgot to take pictures while baking so these are the only two pictures of my banana muffins that you're going to get:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup old fashioned oats

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 egg

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 mashed bananas

Preheat oven to 400.

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

Add wet to dry and stir until just mixed, don't beat up the batter please.

Spoon in to 12 muffin tins lined with paper muffin cups.

Bake in the center of the oven for 17-20 minutes, until brown on top.

A note for those who hate to dishes like me, when combining wet ingredients use a fork to mash the banana in a medium size bowl, add the egg and whisk them together, then add the remainder of the wet ingredients. Saves you an extra dish from mashing the bananas.

Enjoy! These are super easy in the morning, just lightly toast and add a bit of peanut butter. Low sugar, low calorie, delicious!

Santa Stache

I had a cookie swap this year and I think it's going to be a Christmas time tradition, and not just because everything was yummy, it was a great group of women and we had an awesome time!
I'm not saying we had more fun because of our Santa mustache cups...but that was probably a huge part of it, how can you not smile and laugh looking at this:

To make them I bought white foam board at the craft store, traced and cut out a bunch of mustaches and then used regular old scotch tape to stick them to wine glasses! Serve with Santa Sangria (Wine, diet Sprite, triple sec and lime juice) , and Elf Elixer (Juice and lemon lime seltzer water) and voila, holiday cheer:

I also made a crescent roll wreath, which I've never done before but tasted fabulous and looked ridiculously festive:

And of course, our cookie assortment...does it get better than this?



Definitely a tradition in the making!

It's a whipped up racket!!

Whipped cream cheese and I used to have a love/hate relationship, so much easier to spread than block cream cheese, but for some reason 3 times more expensive.

We now have a solidly love/love relationship since I started making my own.

Take THAT Philly and your ridiculous $3.85 tub of cream cheese that's mostly just air! You won't be reeking your wallet havoc in this house anymore!

So, thanks to my Kitchen Aid and 4 tablespoons of milk, I turned two blocks of "sure to demolish a toasted english muffin" in to light, fluffy, super spreadable goodness. That's right, just put two blocks of cream cheese in your Kitchen Aid (a handmixer with a whisk attachment would work too), put on the whisk attachment, and add 4 tablespoons of milk, and whip on medium/high speed for 5-6 minutes. Use the savings to get yourself an afternoon coffee.

It's not the best picture, but you get the idea:

Christmas Wreath

I have a total backlog of blog stuff to post! I had to choose between this, the yummiest breakfast ever, and a little party hosting "cookie swap" blog. So I will start with the Christmas wreath and you can look forward to the other two in the next few days!

Pinterest is such a great place to get new ideas from! I made a Christmas wreath for the front door and started with a 6 foot long piece of foam pipe from the plumbing section of Lowes. Never in a million years would have come up with this if I hadn't seen it on Pinterest.

You will need: Foam piece, duct tape, various fabrics, hot glue, embellishment (I used mini jingle bells)
Here are the steps:
Cut the foam to desired size for your wreath, I cut it down to 4.5 feet.
Cut a piece of fabric 1" wider than the width of the tube, and 1" longer than the length.

Pin the fabric right sides together and sew in to a tube, open on both ends.
Slide the foam piece in to the fabric tube.

Duct tape the tube together.

Pull the fabric together to cover the entire tube and hand stitch in place ends together.
I made a little door hanger with fabric at this point and wrapped it around the top of the wreath, but you could easily sew on a loop of ribbon and it would work just as well.

Next cut three pieces of fabric about 20-25 inches long and 3-4 inches wide. I used three different fabrics for this. Fold them in half the long way, with right sides facing out and sew a basting stitch across the top, do not back stitch at either end. Tie a knot in one end and then holding one piece of the opposite thread begin gathering the material in to a ruffle. (There are awesome videos on You Tube if you search for "how to make a ruffle")

Roll them up counter clockwise in to flowers.

Hot glue the flowers on the wreath, using embellishments in the center if you wish. I think that gems would look really adorable here too. I added a little red sparkly something that I had lying around from a Michaels after-Christmas super sale two years ago.

When I hung my wreath because the foam base is so light it titled toward the embellished side so I had to use duct tape to secure it straight up and down.

Love it!

Picture Christmas Cards- My husband is a grinch

If you ever want to see my husband, a normally mild mannered, agreeable man, go off on a tirade of epic proportions ask him about picture Christmas cards.

He loathes them.

Truly.

He hates them in the following order, with hatred being multiplied exponentially as the list goes on:

1. Pictures of children

If I know you well enough to be getting a Christmas card from you, I've seen your kid in the last two months, he doesn't look much different now. What a waste of a stamp.

2. Pictures of entire families, all in white shirts, on the beach

You're a bunch of pretentious a*holes.

3. Pictures of just couples

Seriously dude? What am I supposed to do with this? It's creepy enough when I stick a picture of someone else's kid on the fridge. What will people think of me if they see a picture of a 30-something year old couple?

4. Pictures of pets

Throw it out! Don't even think about putting that on our fridge! What is wrong with people? No one likes your dog as much as you do. NO ONE! (Please note, this reaction is much, much worse if it is a pug...Linds, I'm talking to you)

5. Pictures of pets dressed in Christmas clothing

This is the worst thing humanly possible to do, not just for a Christmas card, but in life in general. It should be a federal offense. And your dog hates you for it.

So what did I do today you ask?

I ordered our Christmas card, with a picture of our daughter on it.

I think that it's a compromise that I didn't put his mug on it, and I only ordered 12 so they won't be flying about New England attached to fridge's of 3rd cousins.

But she's so damn cute I couldn't resist showing her off a little.... I'm an offender, and I'm willing to take the tirade.

Holiday Decorations

Thought I would take this post to share a few of my favorite holiday decorations in my house.
We had a great time setting up for Christmas on Sunday, we put on A Christmas Story, busted out the ornaments, and repeatedly told our daughter that Christmas was still REALLY far away, and Santa only brings a few things. This is something we've been reiterating lately, lest she get caught up in what she sees in her rare moments of TV watching, or hears from playmates. We are firm believers in making Christmas about sharing a special time with family and friends and enjoying each others company, and being grateful.

That said, I do LOVE how the house looks decked out for the holidays and I think there's something super special about welcoming the season by bringing some additional sparkle in to our house (because honestly, sparkle rules).

Ornaments hung from our dining room chandelier with regular wrapping ribbon, just curled the ends. I would have used fancy ribbon but it's a pain in the bottomus to get through those teeny ornament hanger holes.

This is a super fun cookie jar that my aunt bought us a few years ago and every time I unwrap it I smile! Cookies only last in there for about a day, but it's so whimsical and fun! The other item is a hot chocolate frother. You may have seen these out and thought "That's ridiculous why would anyone buy that?" well let me tell you, you're missing out if you left it on the shelf. It delivers hot chocolate that is unparalleled and kids love using it. If you see one for $15 or under get it!

This is my little snowman family, from left to right, a sugar bowl, creamer, salt and pepper shaker. So tacky. So fun. Sometimes you've got to roll with the ceramic snow figurines and revel in your holiday lack of taste. Own it.

Mini Mitten Advent Calendar

This project is super fun! I created a mini-mitten advent calendar for my daughter to start counting down the days until Christmas. We are moving a Santa hat from day to day, but when she's older I'm going to put little activities for the day in each mitten, like make hot chocolate or do something special for a friend.

It is fairly simple, I used a sewing machine for a lot of this, but I would imagine that a hot glue gun would do the job as well, I'm just not sure that it would last as long as sewing.

What you will need:
Felt, ribbon, foam board, hot glue gun, sewing machine, scissors

1. Cut a mitten out of the foam board, use it to trace 50 mittens. In my case I used 20 red, 20 green and 10 white.

2. Cut small shapes out of the foam board and write 1-25 on them with a Sharpie. Let dry.

3. Divide the mittens in half. Hot glue the numbers and small embellishments to one set of mittens.

In my tradition of refusing to use photoshop on my blog I would like to note that yes, I'm aware that my iron needs a new cover.
4. Arrange the mittens that do not have embellishment on them uniformly apart on the ribbon. Sew a straight line down the ribbon, attaching the mittens.

If I didn't already have the advent calendar plan in my head I would have just used this as a garland because it's super cute by like this.
5. Place the embellished mittens (in descending order) over the mittens that make up the garland. Pin in place.
6. Sew each mitten, leaving the top part open to use for either a "marker" (like our Santa hat) or to insert messages/activities.