Sunny afternoons... beautiful.

I love where we live, even if it is only a single room. It's lovely, isn't it?

Katy's Banana Bread

Hello everybody...
Have you ever bought a large amount of bananas following a high-consumption banana week? Well, we have. We went through a phase of eating bananas in our cereal, which prompted us to buy a very large bunch of bananas, and then promptly stop eating them this way. So, I decided to make banana bread. I found a recipe online, but have modified it to meet my tastes and also to make it healthier, so I am calling it 'Katy's Banana Bread'. Feel free to try it and let me know what you think!!

Katy's Banana Bread

Ingredients:

-4 well-ripened bananas (lots of spots will do, they don't have to be black or anything)

-1 1/2 cups bread flour (original recipe called for all-purpose, so I am sure that would work too.)

-3/4 cup white sugar (original recipe called for 1 c. but I thought it was sweet enough with less.)

-2 tablespoons softened butter

-1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

-1 teaspoon baking powder

-1 egg

-2 generous tablespoons of applesauce


Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. (I love when recipes remind me to do this at the very beginning!)

1.Mash bananas in a mixing bowl. I did this with a potato masher, and left the bananas a little bit on the chunky side.

2. Add all of the other ingredients and mix well. I just mixed it by hand with a spatula, but a hand mixer on a low speed would also probably work great.

3. Pour mixture into 1 lightly greased loaf pan.

4. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 60 minutes, or until a fork or toothpick comes out clean in the center of the loaf.


Pretty simple, right?!

The reason I liked this recipe better than some others I have tried (and I have tried several), is that it is VERY banana-y! Most recipes I have tried called for an astonishingly small number of bananas in proportion to the other ingredients, I thought. Also, because my bananas were not extremely overly-ripe, they still had a little tang left in them. When combined with the applesauce, it left a very surprising and satisfying tang to the bread! Lovely! If this is not in your taste, I would recommend using the full 1 c. of sugar, rather than the 3/4 cup. Another lovely feature; because I left the bananas slightly on the chunky side, the bread was filled with pockets of sweet, delicious banana goodness! Yes!!
Also, if you like to use nuts in your banana bread, feel free to throw some in. I always choose to leave them out because I am allergic to nuts. Not so delicious. However, if you feel that banana bread is naked without some type of toxic nut inside, go ahead and add it in. I'm just sayin' that it tastes just fine without. Something else I'd like to throw in sometime would be a handful of craisins. I bet that would be delicious.

Anyway, Let me know how yours turns out!

P.s. Is it pathetic that cooking has become one of the more exciting topics of my life these days? (at least of topics that are socially respectable to talk about...) ;)

Ives Go Green

Nathan had a desire to be good to the environment and get a few of those reusable grocery bags. Great, I say! ...Except, every time we see them for sale in the grocery store, they seem so incredibly small! You could barely fit your milk and bread in there! ..until... we discovered the BUY LOW MARKET! We thought everything in there was pretty good for a discount grocery store.. but their bags are HUGE! Look! You can fit about 15% of me in one! Yahooo for going green!

Next step for going green, remember the bags when you go to the store. That is the real trick.

Have You Seen My Photo Blog?

Yes, many of you know, I have a small photography business.

Before now I have not published any of my photos publicly. This is because I keep as busy as I want to be from word-of-mouth advertisement.. but I wanted a place for clients to see a sneak preview of their photos in the works.

If you too want to see what my recent/current projects are, hop on over to:

http://katyivesphotography.blogspot.com/

Ta ta!

Our Recent Project

So, we needed a new chair, and so I went to D.I. and found this lovely baby... except she didn't look as great as she does now... she was upholstered with the most hideous, barf-stained, mismatched sad excuse for fabric than I have ever seen. However, I looked down deep inside her beautiful form, and saw.... THIS!





Nathan and I pulled it all apart, and using the tools in his dad's woodshop, we uphostered it! It was so fun! I want to upholster more furniture in the future... but unfortunately, we don't have room in our apartment for anything else right now... sigh...

By the way, have I shown you around our little apartment? How about a little tour?

Well, that is about it really..... Hahaha.....

It IS all one room, and the bed does fold out of the wall..

And when you turn around you see this (the front door is directly to the right of the camera).

Sorry that this one is sideways...ooops!

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner nook. Cute :)

Tiniest bathroom EVER!

The shower is directly to the right in this photo, and that's about it!

I will have to take a few more recent pictures, we have hung up some artwork and clocks, hung some curtains, got a few plants, etc. It is really homey! We are loving it!