Rabbits and Eggs and Cookies, Oh My!

I am so thankful that Spring has arrived.  I am looking forward to Easter this year as we have our first grand baby.  She is not old enough to hunt Easter eggs, so in her honor,  I decided to purchase these whimsical salad plates from Pottery Barn.  Normally, our children's Easter baskets (yes, I continue to fill a basket for my adult children) adorn the table as a center piece, but I like this much better.

The cookies are a lemon ice box cream filled cookie.  One day while in Fort Worth, I stopped in McKinley's to buy a piece of cake and pie as a surprise for my husband.  They had three Lemon Cream Cookies, so I added them to my bag.  I ate one on the way home.  Oh my goodness was it good.  If you have never been, and are in the area, do go by and taste their baked goods.  These were melt in your math delicious.  Of course, I have to make them now, so I have been sampling different recipes.  I have not found one quite as good as theirs, but these from Betty Crocker come close.

Mr. Rabbit is ready for Easter.  He is thinking about taking a bite of the cookie!

The glass  cloches were a Christmas gift  a few years ago.  My daughter helped create a table scape for a spring and summer setting. I use Robin's Egg Blue throughout my home, so these eggs are the perfect touch.

 The moss covered ball and bird freshen the  table scape.

No time for cooking today.   I must venture outside to work in my flower beds and garden and listen to the birds sing as they build their nests and to the wind stir the blossoms on the fruit trees.  Enjoy!

Lana 

Betty Saves the Day

My husband travels nationally and internationally for business.  His days away from home range from one to several weeks.  Most of his trips are 4-5 days in length, so when he helps with grocery shopping, I have yet to understand why he buys a bunch of bananas knowing that he will be gone for the next week.  Inevitably, we end up with over ripe bananas which I dutifully place in the freezer to be used at a later date.  On this particular morning, I opened the freezer and alas I had 12 frozen bananas stored, so I decided to make banana bread.  I have been carb watching the past year, so I don't indulge in breakfast breads often.  This would be a treat for us.  

I gathered my tools and trusty cookbook.  This particular cookbook has my favorite recipe, so when I discovered I did not have enough brown sugar (and knew from past experience the substitute methods do not work well for this recipe), I decided to check out the banana bread recipe in a Betty Crocker circa 1950's cookbook I acquired on a recent antique shopping trip.  I had wanted one for awhile as my mother cooked from hers frequently, but my sister has our mother's cookbook complete with our mother's notes, so I bought one for myself.

I found a recipe titled Fruit Loaf.  Additionally were the different substitutions to make for various breads.  Viola!  The recipe did not call for brown sugar, and I had the ingredients for everything else.  The basic recipe:

2/3 cp sugar

1/3 cp soft shortening  (I substituted Coconut Oil)

2 eggs

3 tbs. sour milk or buttermilk  (I keep powdered buttermilk on hand for just such occasions.)

1 cp mashed bananas

2 cps sifted Gold Medal Flour (General Mills was the publisher of the cook book.)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup chopped nuts (I had walnuts from Christmas baking)

*1/2 cup blueberries (My addition to the mix as they were very ripe and needed to be used.)

The recipe is much like any other for making cakes, breads, etc.  Cream the sugar, shortening together.  Add eggs one at a time.  Add the buttermilk and bananas and mix well.  Sift dry ingredients together and stir into the wet batter mixing thoroughly.  Add the nuts. (Gently stir in the blueberries so they don't pop) Pour into a prepared loaf pan and bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 50-60 minutes.

This bread is a lighter loaf than my brown sugar version.  It is almost cake like in texture.  I made two loaves, and shared one with my daughter and son-in-law.  She called me within 15 minutes of us leaving her house to say the bread was like eating a dessert.  Her husband loved the blueberries.

Needless to say, the bread lasted for one day, so I have none this morning and must rely on the delicious memory of sweet banana, tart blueberry and crunchy walnut bites to see me through until my husband buys another bunch of bananas.

Enjoy!

Lana