BANANA SWIRL {Bread}

I can tell baby is coming soon because I woke up at 6:30 am and started making bread! I normally have a freezer full of brown bananas and end up giving them away to someone who knows how to make bread. . .It has been on my blog ideas list from the very beginning. I had no clue it could be this simple!

Special thanks to my sister Lauren for telling me about this and the creator of the recipe Dessert Now, Dinner Later!

Ingredients:

Bread

4 Brown Bananas

3/4 cup sugar 
1/3 cup melted butter
1    large egg 
1    teaspoon vanilla extract 
1    teaspoon baking soda 
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1 1/2 cups flour 

Cinnamon Swirl

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350˚F - grease pan
2. Using a mixer, mix bananas sugar, butter, egg & vanilla until combined.
3. Sprinkle baking soda & salt on top of banana mixture & then gently mix in flour until just combined.  Do not over-mix!
4. In a small bowl, mix together the 1/3 cup sugar & 1 Tbsp cinnamon.
5. Add half the batter into the prepared loaf pan.  Sprinkle 2/3 of the cinnamon-sugar mixture over the batter.  Add the other half of the banana batter & top with the remaining cinnamon-sugar.
6. Bake for 60 minutes - until your toothpick comes out clean
7. Enjoy!

Life has been wonderfully crazy the past few weeks. . . hence the lack of posting. My apologies. Somethings gotta give and this time it was the blog. 

Keep an eye out for his arrival. . . 

What are you baking these days?

Joanna

Passion Tea + Lemonade {ICED TEA BLENDS}

Two parts Tazo passion tea + one part lemonade = enjoying one of my favorite Starbucks drinks at home. It really does taste the same to me, except I don't have to leave my house to get it and its about 1/4 of the price. 

How I brew my iced teas:

1. Boil water in your tea kettle

2. Pour boiling water over tea bags & stir a bit

3. Place in refrigerator over night

4. Sometime the next day remove tea bags, pop in a couple iced cubes,  for this recipe add lemonade, and enjoy!

*If you are going to add honey or sugar I recommend doing this while it is still hot 

What is your favorite tea?

Joanna

Blueberry Gingerbread Spice {ICED TEA}

I've become some type of a tea fanatic in the recent months, which means I've accumulated ALOT of different flavors in the process. Thinking about the warm spring/summer months ahead I've been getting creative with my tea drinking. With that said...Welcome to my iced tea series. In the coming weeks I'll be sharing with you some of my favorite blends. 

Blueberry + Gingerbread Spice = AMAZING! This blend of teas creates a nostalgic feeling, like you are taking your favorite pie and creating an amazing tea out of it. I choose not to sweeten my teas, so the flavor remains light and not too sweet. 

How I brew my iced teas:

1. Boil water in your tea kettle

2. Pour boiling water over tea bags & stir a bit

3. Place in refrigerator over night

4. Sometime the next day remove tea bags, pop in a couple iced cubes and enjoy!

*If you are going to add honey or sugar I recommend doing this while it is still hot 

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Joanna

MEAL PLANNING

Once upon a time, I was at the grocery store everyday just to buy one or two items. My food budget was hardly ever achieved and cooking was becoming stressful.

Then I discovered meal planning. Now I go to the grocery store once a week, I never have to frantically decided what to have for dinner and my food budget actually is achievable!

There area lots of different methods you can use to do meal planning. I won't go into detail on those. 
But I do think you should give meal planning a try if you sound like my once upon a time scenario. And to help you get started you can download my meal planning template. I don't know about you, but if something is cute and functional I will use it.

What are your thoughts on meal planning?

Click here to download the free template

Thanks for stopping by!

Joanna

BAKED APPLE CHIPS

Baking vegetables and fruit has been on my mind lately. Apples seemed like a good place to start. In the end, they turned out very pretty looking and pretty tasty. However, as you will see in my instructions I used nutmeg as a seasoning, but turns out I don't like nutmeg. I think my next batch I'll just use cinnamon and sugar or maybe even some maple syrup.

How to make baked apple chips...

1. Slice apples as thin as possible (no more than 1/8 of an inch thick)

2. Place apple slices on baking trays lined with wax paper. Make sure apples are spread out and not overlapping. 

3. Sprinkle on your seasonings. I used cinnamon/sugar and nutmeg this round.

4. Put in oven at 200 degrees for an 1.25 hours.

5. Take tray out and turn apples over. Put back in oven for another 1.25 hours. (Keep baking until nice and crispy.)

6. Enjoy your healthy and pretty treat!

Have you ever made chips out of fruit or vegetables?

Joanna

SWEDISH TEA RING

You know those recipes that evoke a powerful emotion or give you a sweet memory? Well for me, this is it. I have faint memories of my dad baking Swedish tea rings when I was little. It takes an afternoon to make, but trust me, they are worth your time. The recipe makes two rings, so I chose to do one tea ring with a raisin filling and the other with a pecan filling. Click here for the recipe. 

Joanna