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...

Smile!

How cute is this baby? So cute. I don't remember Wild Child (the older) smiling so much, so young.

This kiddo is a charmer, for sure.

Look who's TWO!

I cannot believe I have a two year old. He's becoming such a sweet boy. And adorable, to boot!

The night before his party (and I use that term loosely) we had a power outage that ended up leaving us without electricity - for five days. We busted out some awesome gifts from his grandparents that we enjoyed in the heat.

Since we were going to lose all our food anyway, we went ahead and fired up the grill and hung out in the heat. We got him a new climber, since he could spend all day outside and needed a bigger slide.

 A few of his best friends came to enjoy the morning and helped him break in his new wheels.

 And, of course, the kid ate his weight in cupcakes.

Because we had to clean out the fridge because of the power outage (and also because his grandparents were in town) we had a week-long binge of cupcakes and donuts. The kid had a sugar crash from a week of birthday treats. It was pretty serious. But how can you deny a little face like this?