This is the recipe that my mom used to make delicious banana bread. I haven’t made it in years but recently found it beneath some other recipes in my very unorganized recipe binder. And the very overripe bananas in my fridge were calling out to be used up. It will certainly make it’s way back into being a frequently baked item in our household now that we’ve rediscovered this recipe.
Ingredients
1/2 cup oil
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas (about 3)
3 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup chocolate chips (optional) (I prefer the mini chips)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350′ F
Beat oil and sugar together
Add in eggs and beat well
Add in mashed bananas, milk and vanilla, mixing well
Sift together dry ingredients
Add dry ingredients to liquid ingredients, mixing until just mixed
Optionally gently mix in chocolate chips and nuts
Pour into loaf pan(s)
Bake about 1 hour if using a 9 x 5 loaf pan. Bake less if using 2 smaller pans (e.g., 3.5″ x 7.5″).
Notes
This freezes well. You may want to slice before freezing so you can take out a few pieces at a time.
These are the three cards that we made in my 10:30 online class for Dementia Society today.
I was trying to figure out how to colour in ladybugs and am not yet quite happy with the result. At dinner I consulted with Roland and Kevin. Tomorrow I’m going to try to colour the head in black and perhaps add eyes (and maybe other facial features) with a white marker.
Trying to figure out which colours work best for the flower and ladybug. I really enjoy colouring with these watercolour brush markers. This could potentially be my Picture This Year prompt 105 (brush) photo but I have another idea in mind which I may add to the end of this post tomorrow.A trial card inspired by one of my bee cards. But a few adjustments are necessary. I’m making these for the Arts for All program at Canadian Mental Health Association. It think black dots with red sentiment may be better.Starting to work on my next card (Card 32) for my Altenew Let it Shine course. An adaptation of that ladybug card using the Color Throwdown Challenge 830 colours.Adding some shine to my ladybugs with some Crystal Glaze. I turned one over by mistake.
Tulips on Tuesday
Here I am starting my writing at 9:40; again up past my ideal bedtime. So this will be pretty short. I have a fair bit to say but I think I will at to this tomorrow.
Heidi bought and arranged some tulips for her friend, Hannah, last night. So my theme for today is tulips. It’s a good thing I took the photos last night because Heidi and the tulips were gone before I came downstairs.
It was a busy day; it’s a good thing that the Arts for All class at Canadian Mental Health Association that I had in my calendar should actually not have been there. I spent some time getting ready for that class before my 10:30 online class and was happy when I found out that it’s another day because I really wasn’t as prepared as I should have been. I did some more work on it after class and did some work on my 100DayProject but don’t yet have another finished card to share. I will share the photos of the 3 cards that my 10:30 online class assembled. The nice thing about having uncomplicated cards to assemble is that we get a lot of time to talk together during class rather than mainly focusing on making sure that everyone can follow along with the projects.
I went with Roland mid-afternoon so he could pick up his car after the tire swap. I did some groceries at Costco on the way home then did a baking and cooking spree before Kevin came for 6:00 dinner and I had my 7:00 walk then dropped some baking off at Louise’s for her to take to Collingwood to share with Stefan, Georgia and the rest of the gang over Easter weekend. I also dropped another Lego set at Karen’s to round out her birthday gift since we were about 10 days short of Lego pieces in her daily envelopes. Then it was time to clean up the kitchen when I got home and to put the chili that I made into containers to put in the freezer, get the corn bread into a plastic bag in the freezer, put away our lemon squares and our banana bread (I’ll type up and post that recipe soon). I’ve left my chicken bone broth on simmer for overnight. I usually make a broth after buying a Costco roasted chicken. I’ll make some type of soup with it tomorrow.
I didn’t follow a recipe for my chili today; hopefully it’s good because we have a lot of chili to eat.
My metal pan of chicken turned out darker than Louise’s which she cooked in a glass pan.It was interesting how much lighter Louise’s batch turned out which she cooked in glass rather than metal.It was also interesting how her chicken browned a bit more after it had been sitting. We transferred all of hers to another container and put the sauce in mason jars so she didn’t get sauce sloshed all over her car when she drove home.
Background
This is a recipe that I have refined a bit since it was given it my my cousin Leila about 35 or 40 years ago. The original recipe I jotted down was 3 pounds of chicken wings, ginger, salt, pepper, garlic and soya sauce, 300 degrees, covered. I have since decided to make it using chicken thighs and have specified some quantities and added a few cooking instructions.
Ingredients
1 large (Costco size) tray of chicken thighs (about 25-30 pieces)
grated ginger (a piece about 1-2″)
minced garlic (about 3 cloves)
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup vinegar
2 tbsp soya sauce
2 tbsp corn starch
Instructions
Place the chicken thighs reasonably tightly together in a baking pan. I use a 10.5′ x 14.5″ pan for a single batch and a 12″ x 18″ pan for a double batch.
Mix all remaining ingredients together.
Pour the liquid over the chicken and move chicken around gently so that the sauce seeps between all the pieces.
Cover the pan.
Bake at 300-350′ covered, stirring occasionally, about every 30-45 minutes depending on the size of batch you are making and the temperature you bake it at.
I usually move the outer pieces in towards the centre and move some inner pieces out towards the edges of the pan partway through cooking to ensure they are move evenly cooked. I also turn the chicken over for a while to facilitate even cooking.
I usually use an instant read thermometer to test the chicken doneness (165’F / 74’C) to prevent over cooking.
Notes
This freezes and reheats well.
We tend to serve this over instant/ramen noodles (such as Mr. Noodles brand which we just cook without the flavouring package) or spaetzle noodles. And often serve with canned corn.
This is our family’s go-to recipe to drop off as a meal for friends. We make a big batch and divide it into labelled 2-cup cottage cheese / sour cream / yogurt containers. Then we package those freezable containers with some canned corn and instant noodle packages. That way the receiving friend can choose to have some within a day or two and/or to put the chicken into the freezer.
When warming up in the microwave, check it and stir frequently and separate the pieces of chicken as soon as you can to help prevent the chicken pieces at the edges getting overcooked. You can also thaw it out in the fridge beforehand to make it quicker and easier to reheat.
What kind of Wednesday are you having? My daily theme has generally been about me. Now it’s time for me to wonder more about you? What is your theme for today? So far it’s an average day here. Not too warm. Not too cold. I was up in time to take Luna for a short walk after putting out the compost bin and paper recycling. It’s not a ‘cans and cans’ day (a term I adopted from a friend for the biweekly days that we put out garbage cans and cans/glass recycling).
Roland had another early morning shift at the the Canadian Ringette Championships then stayed out that way and worked from there until Heidi’s 1:00 game. I went to 8:00-10:00 Pickleball then made some pasta sauce for an early 11:30 lunch with Kevin. Lots of dishes had accumulated (my experiment of doing my own and leaving Roland and Heidi to do theirs is turning out as expected: an accumulation of dishes) so I got them cleaned up before heading (late) to Heidi’s game. Nancy’s hosting bookclub at my place tonight so I wanted to get the kitchen cleaned up. After the game I continued to transform the past sauce with some noodles into ‘lasasga’ – I find it easier to just use a layer of rotini or other such small noodles rather than actual lasagna noodles when making lasagna.
The game was good, with Heidi’s team winning which puts them first in their pool and advances them to the quarter finals tomorrow morning at 9:45 with no need to play tonight which is nice because otherwise I would have had to miss a lot of book club. Karen and Kevin were out to watch the game so I had a good catchup with Karen since we ended up sitting side by side. We see each other briefly at pickleball and curling but rarely get much time to catch up. It was kind of like the good old days when we had more time to hang out with ringette parents while the children were in the change rooms and during the games.
Some of the other ‘What kind of Wednesday’ thoughts that arose today. Such as wishing for different weather. Not me, but a lot of other people get quite perturbed by the weather. I find it a lot easier to accept that we’ll continue to have winter weather occasionally at least until the end of April rather than expecting the weather to be good and being disappointed when it isn’t. This reminds me of an episode of a life coach podcast that I listen to by Jody Moore entitled ‘wasted wishes‘.
At pickleball we self-organized because we were without an ambassador – it worked out fine. We all waited out some turns. As usual there were some ‘where is my phone’ and ‘what did I do with … (my keys)’ occasions for me during the day. And ‘what is his/her name’ at pickleball. Usual memory deterioration I expect but I’m going to make a more concerted effort to remember names – and to pay more attention to where I leave things. I’m back to listening to some ‘Better Brain Fitness‘ podcast episodes for some motivation to get back at activities that are great for developing and maintaining cognitive function.
I made some soup while Nancy put the finishing touches on the dinner she’s prepared for book club. Very yummy vegetarian tacos. We all loved the roasted cauliflower, grilled Halloumi cheese and mango salsa. And the brownies and lime cheesecakes for dessert. I’ll have to get the recipes from her. And actually make it. I seem to accumulate recipes to make much faster than I actually make recipes. And, of course, we loved the conversation and laughter.
100DayProject Day 39
I didn’t make any progress at all on making cards or even watching videos today. But I did send out two cards – at bookclub everyone who was able to attend signed the cards to send to 2 of our friends who couldn’t make it because they were sick. We didn’t send cards to those who couldn’t make it due to travel. Too bad that postcards seems to have been a thing of the past. It would be fun to receive postcards from them on their travels. It’s always interesting to see where others go on their vacations.
I made 2 cards today: Card 25 based on Lesson 5 of the Altenew Easy Ink Blending Techniques which covered Faux Watercolouring. Card 26 was a slim shaker card using the technique in Lesson 6 of the Altenew Easy Ink Blending Techniques course entitled Putting it into Practice. Since it’s almost 11:00 p.m. already I won’t be posting the details of how I made the cards. I do hope to get those posted tomorrow since I’ve been trying to use the colour scheme in the Color Throwdown Challenge #289 to which I can link my cards using that colour combination until tomorrow.
Card 25
I have been using my Gardenia Duo stamp set quite a bit lately for my class assignments. I need to get busy making thank you cards to send out to everyone who so kindly made donations to the Dementia Society in my mom’s memory. I have quite a few nice card designs featuring the Gardenias that will be perfect for those cards. Gardenias were my mom’s favourite flowers.
At 26 cards made by the end of Day 36 I’m at about 72% completion rate. I definitely have some catching up to do, both on making cards as well as posting about them. If I continue to do 2 a day for the next week that would put me at 40 cards by the end of Day 43. Definitely an ambitious goal! I did get one lesson from my next course, For the Guys watched entitled Geometrics.
Card 26
Sleet on Sunday
As forecast, there was freezing rain today. Luckily it turned to just rain later in the day and we didn’t get nearly as much freezing rain as they had been forecasting earlier. We opted to take Luna for a short walk on the road followed by a short walk in the woods when we realized that it wasn’t raining too hard and that it was actually slipperier on the roads than on the forest, especially because we stopped back at home and put on our spikes. We definitely had a sluggish start to the day. And Luna came back rather soggy from our walk. We packed up and headed home before lunch in case the roads got icier. I did some grocery shopping at Costco and Farm Boy for Heidi who has a big week coming up with her ringette Nationals here in Ottawa starting tomorrow. I also made her some pasta sauce and will make a few more things including some soup early in the week. I’ve got the carcass from a Costco chicken boiling with some celery, carrots and onions overnight. She had a practice this morning and did some school work before opening ceremonies then had lots of laundry and other prep for the week to tackle before making her egg bites, getting her smoothie ingredients packaged into baggies and back into the freezer, boiling her pasta and assembling pasta and sauce containers.
Creative Treats 