day 227: banana cake with peanut butter frosting

banana cake with peanut butter frosting

before i start with day 227's creation i have to apologise to jenny for the combination of flavours ... she always leaves such lovely comments but i am guessing she won't be today as i am putting peanut butter with banana's, not her favourite mix!  after making the peanut butter and banana smoothie that we all enjoyed the other day, i was excited to find some more recipes that involved these two ingredients.

when searching on pinterest, i found this banana cake with nutella frosting ... nutella is something we haven't really got into in this house so i figured i would make the same cake and frosting but substitute the nutella with peanut butter :)  the recipe comes from toasty biscuit and is pinned to my recipe must do's board.  linda describes this cake as indescribably good and foolproof, just the cake needed for a spot of sunday crafting before a birthday party!

apart from the peanut butter substituting the nutella, the cake was made according to directions ... you will need to lift out the heavy machinery for this cake.  while it is foolproof it isn't made in five minutes, but that's ok as today there was time.

what's in this creation :)

the finished batter, ready for the oven .,. almost :)

while the cake was in the oven, the frosting was whipped up :)

the baked cake ready for its peanut butter frosting

this is a good looking banana cake!

outcome:  the cake is delicious, really good flavour and super moist ... i like that!  the peanut butter frosting on top was yum and a really nice change from the other frostings we have had recently had.  sorry  jenny but this combo of flavours is totally working for me!

today's thanks goes to linda at the toasty biscuit, this cake was yummy (even the land agent for the open home had some and left a note to say so!), the directions were really easy to follow and it was well worth the effort.

day 226: home made pita's

yes, a home made pita, and yes i do love pepper :)

day 226 and we are making home made pita's for lunch today!  family project, we all love pita's and steve saw these amazing pita's i had pinned on pinterest from and declared last night we would be making these tomorrow ... fair enough, given he volunteered to help AND make sure all the ingredients were sourced and ready.  the recipe is from under the high chair and everyone who pinned it has said it looks like a really easy recipe, i have to agree ... but the proof will be in the baking!

we went about making the dough and then my sweet husband kneaded the dough for 8 mins ... he got all the hard jobs!  you then leave them to rise for a while (we left ours 20 minutes) but they didn't rise too much.  i love that she adds to make them all different sizes for the different needs.  this is such a great idea as steve made his much larger than the ones designed for the peeps :)

the bits you need

the kneading husband ;)

divided and ready to roll

the puffed up pita's in the oven!

happiness is a rack full of hot pita's

then it was filled and ready to eat!

outcome:  oh my gosh i cannot state enough just how good these were.  we had them hot from the oven and filled them with roasted chicken and salad bits ... so delicious and they were loved by everyone.  only one thing to mention was we forgot to flip them in the oven as we were so excited watching them puff up.  that meant we had a more crisp side and a more bready side.  i am guessing this is why you flip them, so don't forget this step when you make them at home as i am sure this will even out both sides to be the same texture.  i didn't even notice, but my decided straight-laced, needs perfection husband picked up on it ;)

my thanks goes to aimee from under the high chair, the recipe really is easy (especially if you have a loved one to do the kneading for you!) and doesn't take much time at all to make ...  i have been spoilt by these pita's and won't be able to have store-bought again!

day 225: first day survival kits

the finished articles......and maybe a few m&ms missing

day 225 and the school room is still going through its makeover thanks to some time away holidaying.  it needs to be finished during next week as we start school in two weeks time! yikes, i can't believe how fast this summer is going and i feel very lucky to have done so much and spent most of it with family and friends.

this year the peeps are moving into uncharted territory, especially for ben who is going to have a huge year of home learning.  he is ten but will be starting year 9 english, maths, and science.  its going to be a big step up for a boy who loves learning and his mama who realised this week just how big a jump up from primary learning this is going to be ... it's exciting but heart stopping at the same time~!

i was looking through my home school projects board for resources to compliment the curriculum i am putting together and found this first day of school survival kit from bee in our bonnet.  i thought this was a great idea for the peeps only to discover when i went to  bee in our bonnet for further investigation it was supposed to be for teachers!  not easily put off and wanting to set the year off on the right foot i decided to make the peeps first day of school survival kits :)  the items all went into an embroidery box for each peep and the bits and pieces that made up the kits were colour coded according to their favourite colours (yellow and green for ben, red and pink for pollyanna).

yellow peanut m&ms.....yumm

red peanut m&ms.....yumm

for the peeps first day of school survival kits i went with the following:

• m&m's
• erasers
• pencils
• staplers
• yellow pins (for the places they want to visit)
• fruit sticks
• sharpners
• pegs
• glue sticks

i then used my new favourite publishing tool (my memories software) to make the kit toppers ... :)

outcome:   this little kit will hopefully ensure the peeps (and teachers if you are gifting this) know that you are right behind them for having a successful, fun filled year ... that's what i hope the little bit of effort says anyway!  these were really fun to put together, not sure if that's because i love shopping for stationery or whether it's because i know my peeps will laugh when they open up their little boxes and say "did you get these off pinterest mum?"  yes, that is almost an automatic question from my peeps nowadays if i try to make something new ... and you know what, more often than not it is!

my sincere thanks to bee in our bonnet for this great idea.  whether for peeps or teachers everybody deserves to start the first day of school excited and enthused about the year of learning ahead.

days 223 and 224 and we are safely home

the peanut butter and banana smoothie

days 223 and 224 coming at you tonight from home ... we are safely home after a three day adventure to a beautiful spot just north of auckland.  it was glorious, the peeps were great (most of the time), the company of a dear friend is always the best, and the weather even came to play!

day 223 saw me making cupcakes with a box of vanilla cupcake mix and lemonade.  the recipe is pinned to my recipe must do's board and comes from cookies and cups. shelly used a fruity soda can and a funfetti cupcake mix but i went with vanilla and lemon. so i am guessing you could use any flavour cupcake mix and any flavour of soda! as i was away on holiday, i wanted a lazy easy icing so i purchased betty crockers vanilla icing to add to the top of these little beauties.

what i used

look how frothy the mix goes as soon as you add the soda!

fill the cases to 2/3's full

baked and ready to ice

iced and ready to eat!

outcome: who knew you didn't need eggs and butter to make beautiful cupcakes.  they were so delicious and just as beautiful and moist today as they were yesterday ... so perfect if you have a party and want to make cupcakes a day ahead of time.  my usual cupcake recipe is normally only good for the day they are made so i am stoked these remain just as yummy the day after.  i am making these for a gift on sunday, that's how good they are!

my thanks to shelly at cookies and cups for this outstanding cooking secret ... ignore the cake mix packets just add soda for the best, moist baking ever!

day 224 and i was very tired when i got home this afternoon.  after eating lots and lots of unhealthy food for the last 3 days i wanted something nice and simple to eat to fill me up.  i found this yummy looking smoothie that also looked nice and nutritious as well.  this recipe is from the chiquita banana's website and is pinned to my weight watchers recipes happy days board on pinterest.  cool website and if your peeps love banana's as much as mine do, this site is definitely worth a look for all sorts of neat recipes.

what you need for the peanut butter smoothie

blend all the ingredients together and serve .. easy!

the finished smoothie ... so yummy and totally filling :)

outcome:  i have never had peanut butter and banana's together before and it was surprisingly good.  not a combo i would have naturally put together but it was actually really nice and boy was it filling.  this is definitely something i will add to the after school snack list as it's pretty darn nutritious, yummy, totally kid friendly, and nice and easy to make ...  plus for a growing tween boy, it's much more likely to FILL him up than a lot of other snacks!

my thanks to chiquita banana's for this recipe that i will use again and again with the peeps for after school (whilst  filling my glass!) ... love recipes that are filling, healthy, and liked by the peeps ... happy days, happy days ;)

day 222: and p365 hits the road again!

the places you've been

day 222 and the peeps and i are off with a couple of dear friends to have some midweek fun while my sweet husband heads to work.  we are going somewhere i have never been before, the tawharanui peninsula [map]  it's supposed to be a beautiful part of new zealand and i am excited to explore it with one of my dearest friends, lana.  we are also taking one of polly's sweetest friends, hayley.

the five of us are heading up their to stay until thursday and i am reliably informed there is NO cell coverage in the area .... so there will be no blogging, BUT there will be creating! amazingly i could fly to singapore and still be able to blog each day, but if i head an hour and a half north for relaxation i can't :)  one day the entire country will have cell coverage and i will be able to blog till my hearts content no matter where i am in this fine country!

anyway (!) all this travelling got me to thinking about the peeps and knowing where they are going and where they have been ... a while ago i pinned a great idea that cements the above.  essentially you put a big map on the wall and the peeps add push pins to the places they have travelled.  this idea is not new and i pinned it from jesse papirio and i loved how she pinned the places she had been in blue and the places she wanted to go in yellow.

i purchased a big map of new zealand and a map of the world and put them up in the classroom.  the peeps put pins in all the places they had been in blue and then as we study and they find out about new places they can add the yellow pins for the places they want to go in the future.

ben pinning taupo on the new zealand map

the world map

pollyanna pinning singapore

outcome:  it's one of those simple ideas that is completely underrated.  already it has shown rewards for my youngest peep who has a greater appreciation for scale and distance and for just how big the world is and how many places she can go!  what an easy idea for the classroom walls and it is already paying educational dividends :) LOVE pinterest creating!

my thanks to jesse papirio for acting on this idea and then pinning the results to pinterest, it inspired me to get busy and do my own.

day 221: weight watchers egg salad

egg salad in tomato and pepper nests :)

day 211 and i am looking to start the year with some slimmer recipes to continue slimming down ... christmas is over and the holidays are fast coming to an end so it looks like it might be time to get back on the weight reducing horse!

i figured this egg salad would be the perfect way to ease back into healthy food ... looks delicious and nothing like rabbit food ... teehee!  the egg salad is from the yummy life website and is pinned to my weight watchers recipes happy days board on pinterest.

i started off with every intention of following this recipe as per the instructions.  unfortunately i had a male look in the fridge and thought i saw plain yoghurt ... it was actually vanilla bean :(  don't get me wrong, i LOVE vanilla bean yoghurt just not in an egg salad.  i had already boiled and peeled the eggs when i went to retrieve the not so plain yoghurt, so thought i would wing it instead.  enter curry powder and hummus!  i added 1/2 a teaspoon of curry powder to the eggs and three heaped tablespoons of hummus as well.  i also added the salt, pepper, and one tablespoon of mayo that was in the original recipe.

and this is when i discovered the yoghurt wasn't as plain as i had though

the two saving ingredients!

the finished egg salad with it's two extra ingredients!

the recipe then suggests serving it in a variety of ways, i went with the tomato basket option for three of my family members.  and for the other two peeps (who are less keen on tomato) i made pepper baskets to serve their egg salad.

the nests for the salad

the finished, filled nests

it went really well with the rest of our dinner :)

outcome:  this was delicious!  really, who knew hummus would make an egg salad so yummy!  we all loved our little egg nests, and while the outcome wasn't quite what i had planned at the start of the day, it did not disappoint, and i even felt a little proud of my concoction!

my thanks to the yummy life, i apologise whole heartedly for butchering your very delicious looking recipe and while mine was a triumph i am very keen to give the original recipe a go in the near future.

day 220: peanut butter m&m cookies and a wrap of pinterest creations on the raod in taupo

the family bach, is always such a relaxing place for a getaway !

day 220 was yesterday while we were in taupo, which is halfway between wellington and auckland on the north island of new zealand (here is a map if you want to see where in the world i have been this past weekend!)  .... so what did we get up to?  

this adorable girl and her very sweet poppy did some of this

we three did some time in here ... teaching my littlest sister how to make  this cake so she can wow her new flatmates

 

we did a fair amount of eating

we didn't do any of this as the weather continues to be terrible

we did a fair proportion of this because the weather was foul ...  

 

he did a lot of this when the weather allowed for it

we mostly did this

some of us tried to do this, some better than others

these two did a lot of this which meant we were really well fed

and finally i did some of this to keep p365 going :)

yesterdays creation was another recipe ... peanut butter m&m cookies ... they were REALLY good, not too peanut buttery but the combination between the sweet and salty tastes was an absolute winner :)  the recipe was made according to the instructions from the curvy carrot (such a cute name for a website) and it is also pinned to my recipe must do's board.  the adorable family i spent the weekend with kept eating the m&m's so the only change i made was to top up the m&m count with some chocolate drops leftover from the banana s'mores.

speaking of which, the s'mores i made for pinterest on saturday were a big hit for dessert.  we were all agreed they won't have been half as successful without the crunchy cereal on top, so when you make them don't do it without adding the crunch factor!  the recipe is on my summer loving board and is from quick dish by tablespoon .. another cool name for a website :)  we had our banana s'mores with ice cream as well, YUMMO.  the recipe was SO easy and while the men (my sweet dad and husband) did overcook them on the bbq slightly (the marshmallows disappeared totally from sight, but their lovely sweetness stuck around thankfully!) they were mighty fine and definitely something i would happily make again.  they would be perfect for school camps and such things as the peeps could easily make them for an easy sweet treat.

what you need for banana s'mores

filled and ready to be wrapped

i chose to make these while drinking brancott estate rose, that's optional but totally adds to the experience ;)

this lovely man was in charge ....

with this lovely man of the s'mores grilling

the end result ... the crunchy cereal totally makes these divine :)

ok, back later today with day 221's creation :)  but in the meantime my gratitude goes to the curvy carrot and quick dish for fantastic recipes that fed the crew with such delicious food while we were relaxing in taupo ... made taking p365 on the road a joy!