Don't Mess with Texas

When we were in Texas (photos to come!) I picked up the final piece to an art project I'd been rolling around in my head since Wild Child was born. Both of the boys wore a little t-shirt home from the hospital that sported our Texas roots. I put this together this afternoon:

The Texas Ranger pins are personalized with their names. I had wanted to do this for months, but the only place I could find those little badges were at the Texas store in the mall. Because yes, that's a thing.

Faucet Update

I came home from Bible study yesterday and my handy husband had quite the surprise for me. Earlier in the day I had showed him the new faucet I wanted for the kitchen, since our old one started leaking a few months after we moved in. While I was gone he picked it up! A few hours later (and another trip to Lowe's for some new parts, since almost everything was corroded) I have a new sink! And no more leaks. So thankful.


Before:

After:

Peaches in Vanilla Syrup

Yesterday during nap time I canned four quarts (and a pint, since I guess I improperly weighed my peaches) of summer peaches in vanilla syrup from the book Canning for a New Generation by Lianna Krissoff. I've made a few things from this book, mostly jams. I love this book. Lianna Krissoff has made the canning steps easy to understand, and her recipes are wonderful. She warned me to make sure that they were freestone peaches. She even suggested that I go out to the car to cut one open to make sure before I bought a ton of them. I did not listen. I have two tiny kids and two weeks worth of groceries in my cart. I am not going to purchase one peach to see if the pit comes out with little coaxing. Luckily, they were mostly freestone and I only had to struggle with pitting a few of them. That was enough, though. Pitting cling stone fruit is a pain. I'm hoping to crack a few of these open to top plain yogurt or add a few to a fruit salad. Let me warn you, though - I started during nap time but Wild Child (The Older) woke up right was I was about to put these in the water bath. It is much more difficult to can with a small child underfoot, and I do not recommend it. I had to kick him out of the kitchen for 15 minutes so I could finish up, since all that hot water and glass jar business can be dangerous for little fingers.

Egg free banana bread

As is usually the case a few days before grocery shopping, I have no eggs and a random assortment of things that I need to make TODAY RIGHT NOW ASAP EMERGENCY before they go bad. I need to really get up on my meal planning. And of course, since I am just not planning much these days, I decided to make banana bread with a few extra ripe bananas and got pretty well into the batter before I remembered, "I have no eggs. Hello." More coffee, anyone? Luckily for me, I keep a box of milled flax seed in the refrigerator. Well, lucky depending on who you ask. You can usually substitute one TB of flax and 3 TB of water for one egg. I took a chance and tried it out. This is my mother's recipe, but with a few changes. It turned out wonderfully!

No Egg Banana Bread

3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup ripe, mashed banana
2 TB milled flax seed
6 TB water
1 TS vanilla
1 TS cinnamon
2 cups flour
1 TS baking soda
1 TS salt
1/2 cup sour milk
1 cup mini chocolate chips or walnuts (optional)

Cream the butter and sugar. Add banana, water, flax and vanilla and mix well. Sift together the dry ingredients and add alternately with sour milk. Fold in mini chocolate chips or walnuts if you're feeling a little adventurous. If you're baking for someone like The Husband, then leave these out. There's no time for frills when it comes to banana bread! He says.  Grease two small loaf pans and bake in a preheated oven at 350* for about an hour (until a knife or toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the loaf.) These freeze well, if you have the room!

This is why I can't get things done

So I put the boys to bed the other night and came into the kitchen to check some things off of my to do list. I found this on top of my agenda book.

Watch out, to do list! You've been conquered. I love having boys...

Jammin'

I canned my first jars of jam this week. Blueberry apple! I'm impressed with myself, though it took me longer than expected and I had to work around not having all the right equipment. I mean, who keeps a 21 quart pan just hanging around? Not me. Next on my agenda is strawberry jam and then (if I can work fast enough during nap time) a spiced cherry preserve. Time to find a good scone recipe.

A rose by any other name

Y'all. Is this not the most pathetic rose bush you've ever seen? I challenge you to find a more poor excuse for a rose bush. I'll be honest - I didn't even know what it was until we got that little bloom. I know I should probably dig it up, since it's a mess of branches and they are all flopping over and sad, but part of me hopes that I can try to prune it up and salvage it. We'll see...