Banana bread

Yum.

This is, in my opinion, the perfect banana bread. Mainly because it is both the most delicious I have ever tasted AND it's super easy to make.

Some banana breads are too dense, or dry, or they involve creaming butter and sugar or something else that requires an electric mixer. Now, I love my Kitchenaid but sometimes I want to bake something fast that doesn't require using a bunch of stuff that doesn't fit in my dishwasher.

I'm pretty sure the secret to this bread's deliciousness is to super ripe bananas. Like, way beyond freckled. Like these bananas:

I wouldn't want to eat those plain. They taste like banana liquor which is freaking gross. However, I would want to eat them in banana bread because they make it sweet, sticky, and delicious.

Ingredients:

3 super ripe bananas

1 cup sugar (You can see that mine is not quite a full cup. You can easily reduce the sugar to 3/4 c)

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup butter (1/2 a stick), melted

1.5 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Preheat your oven to 325.

Oh, this was my view while I was working on my bread:

The guys working on replacing our garage roof, for whom I am very thankful. If I tried to do that business myself we would end up with a broken legged mama and banana bread for no one.

So. First you mash the bananas until they are super mushy. Add the eggs, butter, and sugar. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. Mix all the ingredients together. It should look like this:

At this point you could throw in 1/2 cup to a full cup of blueberries, chocolate chips, nuts, or any other crunchy bit. I prefer my banana bread plain but I won't judge you if you need an excuse to use up some chocolate chips. I've certainly been there!

Once your batter is all mixed and mushy, pour it into a greased loaf pan. You can use non-stick spray, butter, oil, whatever.

Put it in your preheated oven for about an hour. Just be sure to check it after about 50 minutes. I don't know your life. I mean, your oven. You don't want ruined burned banana bread! Tragedy!

Once a toothpick comes out clean, remove from the oven and cool in the pan for about 10 minutes.

Then cool completely on a rack and try not to eat it all before your husband comes home.

If you don't happen to eat it all in one day, wrap it tightly in foil. It will keep at room temp for about 4 days.

I like mine with cream cheese:

Clara likes hers plain:

Happy baking!

Egg Salad, My Favorite

Am I the only one who thinks of Big Top Pee-Wee when I think of egg salad? I couldn't find a video of the scene but I will paraphrase it for you:

Pee-Wee's girlfriend, Winnie: "I made you your favorite!" (for lunch)

Pee-Wee guesses and guesses: "Ham and cheese? Tomato soup? Tunafish?" etc, etc.

Until finally Winnie has to say, "No... Egg salad."

Then Pee-Wee has to say, "Egg salad! My favorite!"

Which I guess is a joke because egg salad is nobody's favorite?

And while it may seem like a strange/overly simple thing to explain, I've heard many people say, "I'm a great cook but one thing I always mess up is a hard boiled egg." Kind of like my brother-in-law who is a chef but still always messes up rice. The simple things can trip you up, folks!

Anyway, I like egg salad now but I had to learn to like it by making it myself. Here's the only way I had ever had it before:

Take a hard boiled egg.

Mash it in a bowl with mayonnaise.

Maybe add salt, too.

Put it on bread but DON'T toast the bread.

The end.

Then I got inspired when I was working as a hostess at a busy, fancyish restaurant in New York City. Being a hostess was not as great as being a waitress because we got paid less. But! Being a hostess was also BETTER than being a waitress because a) we had to do less running around, b) we didn't have to wear the terrible uniform and instead got to wear our own clothes, just in black, and c) when it came time for our break we got to order our food instead of eating "family meal."

Family meal was, nine times out of ten, terrible. I mean... it would be something like BEANS. That's all. Whereas I, as a hostess, could eat yummy gruyere grilled cheese or beet salad or, sometimes, egg salad.

The egg salad at this restaurant was better than any egg salad I'd ever had for one main reason: they separated the whites from the yolks before mashing. This made it much less mushy and, in my opinion, much more delicious.

So, now that I've written way too much about something simple, here is my version of that slightly-fancier, hostess-inspired, just-in-time-to-use-up-your-Easter-eggs egg salad.

(Oh, and if you hate eggs or mayonnaise, just run along and come back another day. I promise I will make something much less mayonnaisey and eggy- mayonneggy?- next time.)

You will need:

-eggs (I used six this time which made about 4-6 servings)

-mayo

-grainy mustard

-salt

-pepper

-dill

That's all! It's not hard.

-Start by covering your eggs with cold water and setting them over high heat:

-When the bubbles become pea sized (like a real pea, not like a frozen pea), remove the pot from the heat, cover, and set aside for exactly twelve minutes:

-Run the eggs under cold water:

-and peel- running them under the cold water makes this easier. (Sorry, I wear gloves when I cook because I have eczema on my hands. This is why you won't see my hands in many pictures.)

-separate the yolks from the whites!

-Dice the whites and set aside:

-Mash the yolks with a fork and add a couple plops of mayo (this is probably about a quarter cup), and a plop of seedy mustard (maybe a tablespoon):

-add salt and pepper to taste:

-Sprinkle dill all over the top and mix the whites back in:

-Eat it! I ate mine on toast with tomato and pea shoots. Added a little crunch to the mush.

And she's not walking yet.

So, baby Clara turned one in March. Since then, I have been asked more times than I can count what appears to be The Question to ask a mom of a one-year-old. Conversations go like this:

Person: "Awww! So cute! How old is she?"

Ashley: "Thanks! She just turned one."

P: "Is she walking yet?"

A: "Well... no but she's climbing stairs and standing and cruising along furniture and she is very verbal and says about thirty words and does so many other things she says about fifteen animal sounds and she can point to her tummy, ears, nose, mouth, eyes, feet and she can do all the moves for The Wheels on the Bus and..."

...and on and on until I run out of air.

Why do I feel like I need to do that? She is thirteen months which is well within/below the normal range of learning to walk. And she IS learning other things. She IS progressing physically. And even if she wasn't, who cares? She's still awesome. She's just... not walking yet. Which should be FINE except for some reason I can't resist that impulse for mompetition. You know, to show everyone else how GREAT SHE STILL IS even though she's not walking yet.

I mean... why?

(And it's not to say that I don't think people should ask that question, because I find myself asking things like that all the time. It's just how we make conversation, and how moms/people connect to each other.)

I just feel like I need to make her a t-shirt like the ones they make for pregnant ladies that say things like: "It's a boy. Due in May. No, he doesn't have a name yet. NO, you can't touch my stomach."

OR like the t-shirt my friends made me when I lost my voice on my twenty-first birthday that said: "YES, I lost my voice. Now buy me a drink."

You know, just to save time and energy when people ask the same questions over and over again.

I think I'll manufacture it myself: "I turned one in March. And no, I'm not walking yet."

I can't be the only one who needs something like this, right?

We're back!

Remember when I started this blog and kept saying things like "I'll post again later," and then never did?

Well, that was two years ago. Let's try this again!

Many things have happened, and many of those things would have made awesome blog posts. Unfortunately I was a major slacker so I'll just do a quick re-cap. Here is what has happened in the last two years:

-I cooked some food, we both ate a LOT of food. I learned to like beer AND olives, but not mushrooms yet.

-We traveled to many places near and far, including:

Connecticut

Provincetown

New York City

Fishers Island, NY

Washington, DC

Baltimore

Camden, ME

Kennebunkport, ME

Charlottesville, VA

Franconia Notch, NH

Las Vegas

Athens, Crete, and Santorini Greece!

(They were varying degrees of far, but all 100% fun.)

-We re-did our kitchen. By "we" I mean, "the people we hired to install all the stuff we picked out."

-We got pregnant! Well, one of us was pregnant, and one of us helped.

-We had a baby! Clara was born March, 10, 2010. She just turned one and our life rocks even harder than it did before.

We continue to be lucky, lucky, lucky.

I'd say "more to come later," but we both know how that turned out last time. For now, some pics:

(Clara, Clara, Greece, Nellie)

April Garden

I have turned into the giant nerd I never thought I would become. A giant gardening nerd. And, to be honest, I totally love it. 

We moved into our house a little over a year ago at the very end of winter when there was nothing in the yard. We always talk about how lucky we are that we were able to get the house when we did because we surely would have had to paid more for it had we seen it in spring or summer. It turns out that that a beautiful garden was hiding with flowering trees and perennials so carefully planned out so that no matter what time of the season it is there is always some thing blooming. The first spring in the house was super exciting, seeing what came up. This year I am no less excited knowing what's to come.

So I have decided to take  a picture of the back garden once a week so that I can have a record of how it grows. See? Nerdy. 

Anyway, here is series one- April 2009:

April 6

What's blooming: nothing. I stuck some pansies in the ground to give the yard some color

What's coming up: hyacinths

April 13

(I am still trying to figure out the best time of day to take the picture. This one is a dud because of the giant shadow of the house but I thought I'd include it anyway)

What's blooming: hyacinths

What's coming up: Forsythia

April 20

What's blooming: hyacinth, forsythia, also I planted some daffodils

What's coming up: Weeping Cherry, some tulips (although the tulips suck this year for the most part)

April 27

What's blooming: Forsythia, Weeping Cherry, daffodils, some tulips 

Also the star magnolia and cherry tree in the front yard, violets in the side

What's coming up: more tulips, Solomon's seal, lily of the valley

Also, dogwood in the front, lilacs and peonies (not for a while, but I do see the first buds)

Also blooming now: Tons of dandelions. I am trying not to be annoyed by them because I understand there are many bigger problems in the world. They just look so trashy but I care much more about the garden than I do the lawn. Oh well.

Additionally... today is my birthday. Jesse and I went to see Spring Awakening on Friday night which I loved, then took some nice walks this weekend and ate a lot of food with family. Today I'm getting a mani-pedi with my mom and going to another garden store. Life is pretty good!

Palm Springs, not Palm Beach

Every year Jesse's company plans a trip to reward employees for doing an awesome job. Last year they took us to Puerto Rico:

This year was Palm Springs. Which is in California, not Florida, contrary to (very) popular belief... at least on the East coast.

Since Jesse works in mortgages and- you just may have heard- this was a particularly horrible year, this trip was particularly well deserved!

Here we are enjoying our mostly free trip:

...and I have about 500 more pictures but blogger is being a pain in the a. I just tried to upload a bunch and it isn't working. So now I'm annoyed and can only post one or my neck is going to explode with frustration. BLURG!

Perhaps tomorrow I'll have more patience.

On a side note, it's Easter! I'm making sweet potatoes and a lemon cake to bring to my mom's house (and dad's... they both live there but I don't consider my dad to be hosting Easter (no offense Dad)). Maybe if I have EXTRA patience tomorrow, I'll post some food and Easter pics.

Hippity Hop Hippity Hop Happy Easter!

Second post

This is titled "Five (out of many) Embarrassing Things About Me"

1. I have a scar developing on my knee from when I got all fired up imitating Jason Bourne at the end of The Bourne Supremacy (he starts swimming after lying motionless in the water for a while, just as that crazy Moby music starts)... and I whacked my knee on our coffee table.

2. I'm pretty sure I kiss my dog more times per day than I kiss my husband. This includes on the lips. And no, this doesn't mean I don't kiss my husband enough.

3. The other day I had some time to kill so I drove through Dunkin Donuts to get a donut. Then I ate my donut but I was still hungry for another one. I was too embarrassed to go back to the same Dunkin Donuts so I drove to a different Dunkin Donuts. Thankfully in Rhode Island, you are never far from a DD... or two or three. 

4. My husband and I drive matching cars. I have a Saab wagon and love it. He was looking for a new car and none felt as good as my Saab wagon so now we have TWO Saab wagons. It's super nerdy.

5. I semi-recently made a blog and then only posted one post. But now it's TWO- I'm back y'all!!