Bananarama Cupcakes

Remember Bananrama?  Well, I still have “it”, but “it” is now Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting!  Macarena cool. 

 "Almost Heaven", West Virginia… that’s what they are! 

(I’m just gonna see how many fieldtrips I can take us on while describing these cupcakes.)

Any who… So the men folk went off to the football game last Friday and left me and my friend to fend for ourselves with nothing but  too much time on our hands and a hankering for cupcakes. 

My favorite cupcake, at the moment, is the Banana cupcake at the naughty Sprinkles in Dallas.  Do check their menu if you plan to make a pilgrimage as the Banana cupcakes are only served on Monday, Thursday and Saturday.  And bring your piggy bank…  nibbling at Sprinkles doesn’t always make sound financial sense.  It’s a good thing that a lot of road separates me from this place. 

Haute cupcakes!  I’m lovin’ everything about them.  The box, the sticker and the little wooden forks you eat them with.   Good times, good times.

All that road got me to thinking about how I could bring all that Banana cupcake goodness a little closer to my home. 

Things are now under recipe control and I’m going to share the Bananarama cupcakes with you.  This recipe is easy and moist with “made from scratch” taste.  Banana cupcake goodness is headed your way.  You got it!

Bananrama Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frostingness

Adapted from Cupcakes! From the Cake Mix Doctor

(Monster Monkeys Cupcakes and Chocolate Buttercream)

Cupcakes:

1 package (18.25 ounces) plain yellow cake mix

1 1/2 cups mashed bananas, from 3 medium bananas

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Put 24 cupcake liners into 2 cupcake pans.

2. Put all ingredients into a large mixing bowl.  Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds.  Stop the mixer and scrap down the sides of the bowl.  Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again if needed.  The batter should look thick and well combined.  Spoon or scoop batter equally into 24 cupcake liners.  Place the pans in the oven.

3. Bake the cupcakes until they are golden and spring  back when lightly pressed with your finger, 16-20 minutes.  Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 5 minutes.  ***Do not overcook your cupcakes!  16 to 20 minutes is a guideline, akin to the Pirate code, and not a rule.  When you smell them, they’re done.  In my oven this takes about 16 minutes.  Overcooked cupcakes make people cranky.***  Then remove cupcakes from pans and place on wire racks to cool before frosting.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

3 to 5 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Place the butter and cocoa powder in a large mixing bowl.  Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until the mixture is soft and well combined, 30 seconds.  Stop the mixer and add the confectioners’ sugar., 3 tablespoons of the milk, and the vanilla.  Blend with the mixer on low speed until the sugar is incorporated, 1 minute.  Increase the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 1 minute more.  Add 1 to 2 tablespoons more milk if the frosting is too stiff.

2. Frost the Bananarama cupcakes. 

3. Gather friends and enjoy.

    

Technorati Tags: Bananarama,Macarena,Sprinkles,Cupcakes from the Cake Doctor,Banana Cupcakes,Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

An artful weekend

   It’s an artful weekend and you should be a part of it!  Do you live in the DFW area?  Need something to do that will definitely be out of the ordinary?  Then the Cross Timbers Artists Studio Tour is definitely for you.  You can get more info here.  I tell you what, you never know what you’ll come across.  Artists are an interesting lot! You can plan out your tour on the map and visit a few artists or go crazy and try to see them all.

   This tour allows you to go into the homes of these artists, talk with them and see how they live, work and where their inspiration comes from.  And, if the stimulus plan has worked in your favor… sigh… you can purchase yourself an original piece of art. 

   I really enjoy this tour and hope you will too.  One of the artists, Sweety Bowman, was my ceramics instructor years ago in another life.  She is too much fun.  She has led the most interesting life and the stories she tells are a hoot.  I don’t know if she finds them as amusing as I do as she had to live through them.  But you know how that goes.  Years later we can laugh at our tragedies.  Her husband, Alton Bowman, (on the tour) is also an artist.  He is a master craftsman and has restored furniture for the Dallas Museum of Art, the Texas State Capitol and many others.  The pieces he restores are incredible and rare. 

   Here are some of my favorite pic’s from last years tour at Sweety’s house:

 

“She makes pottery”

In Sweety’s studio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bronze sculpture of Sweety’s mother.

One of Alton’s pieces in the background and Sweety’s ceramics.

 

 

 

Sweety’s hand, her mothers foot.Very heart warming…

 

 

 

 

 

The clay stage of a bronze sculpture.  This is huge!  It may be finished by now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The side view.  This idea has been floating around in Sweety’s head for years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside Sweety’s studio.  How did they get here?

 

 

Big outdoor kiln.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A desk by Alton.  All the Texas birds and flowers are inlaid wood.  Very pretty.

 

 

 

 

Notice the hand turned legs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alton restores very interesting pieces.  This happened to be in his studio when we visited, Lady Bird Johnson’s high chair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alton’s studio.

 

 

 

 

That’s all for now.  I hope you have a great weekend!

Technorati Tags: Cross Timbers Artist Guild,Artists Studio Tour,Sweety Bowman,Alton Bowman,Lady Bird Johnson

Spidey News

All the news that’s fit to tell…

Because inquiring minds want to know, I thought I would update you on the latest Spidey News.  A while back, I introduced you to the spider growing in our backyard.  If you remember, while I was trying to research her, I was completely rabbit trailed by the Spidey Silking nonsense.  Lo and behold, through life’s synchronicity, she showed up in September’s issue of Better Homes and Garden.  (I started this post a while back… backblogging, ya’ know.)

You might wonder about my curiosity with this spider but I can tell you it’s all perfectly normal.  Kind of.  For about the last 5 summers we have had one of these spiders take up residence in our backyard.  We call each of them “Cool Rockin’ Loretta”, or just Loretta for short.  All of them have the same name. Every year.  It keeps things simple.  The name comes from a song by Joe Ely called Cool Rockin’ Loretta .  It fits.  

BHG tells me that our spider is a female black-and-yellow garden spider.  Also referred to as Argiope aurantia.  Now you know why we call her Loretta.  We can’t say that other bit.  She is easily identifiable by her exceptional decorating skills (note the lovely zigzag pattern in her web) and her impeccable sense of style (her colorful markings).  She is perfectly harmless unless you are a grasshopper who has made the unfortunate mistake of hop scotching into our backyard.  The chilies get a kick out of throwing grasshoppers into her web to watch the show.  No, this is not cruel.  It’s nature and the circle of life, blah, blah, blah. 

This is where the updating part comes in.  I was supposed to show you her growing, moving (she moved from the basil to the hydrangeas) and then, finally, her moving on to spidey heaven. 

So, here it is.  I strongly encourage you to listen to Joe (You can do this by clicking on the underlined song title above, it’s a hyperlink)  as you read through this.  Then, one way or another, I’ll know you’ve been entertained.

Loretta growing… 

  

 

 

Living by the basil. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems living above the hydrangeas agreed with her.  See how much bigger she got?

 

 

 

 

Loretta eating things… 

A few weeks ago the kids fed her a huge grasshopper that sort of looked like this:

I was gonna take a picture of the actual event but decided it was a little morbid.  I thought this wasn’t as morbid since we all know Martha Stewart doesn’t have real, dead, larva people hanging around her house.  Probably, is what I’m saying.  This is all just good Halloween fun. 

Loretta being scary…

(That’s her in front of the window)… 

 

 

 

Who knows what is going through Beau Hiney’s head.  He eats a lot of weird stuff so it’s probably something like:  “Spider thingy, ummmm.”

 

 

 

Then, as the weather gets cooler, she’ll make her egg sac full of lots of tiny, (less) scary spiders…

Finally, Loretta will disappear… 

Next summer, we’ll hope that another spider will show up.  We’ll name her Loretta too.  

Weird stuff.

More good fun with Joe:

Here’s some more good ol’ Joe to listen to:

All Just to Get to You with Bruce Springsteen

All Just to Get to You (Part 2)

Me and Billy the Kid

Carnival Bum

Technorati Tags: garden spider,Argiope aurantia,Joe Ely,Bruce Springsteen

The Promised Beef Stew

This is my own recipe adapted from others over time.  I hope you enjoy it!

Julie’s Beef Stew

1 1/2 – 2 lbs. Sirloin Tip Roast, cut up or Stew Meat

4- 6 tbsp. flour

1 tsp. salt

2 - 4 tbsp. butter

1 large onion, chopped

1 1/2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/4 cup parsley, chopped up

3 - 8 oz. cans tomato sauce

3 cups beef broth

1/8 tsp. cloves

1/2 – 1 tsp. coarse ground black pepper

1 small bay leaf

1/2 tsp. dried thyme, or 1 1/2 tsp. fresh, chopped

dash of Tabasco sauce

1/2 cup red wine, or red cooking wine

6 potatoes, cut up

6 carrots, cut up or a couple handfuls of peeled mini carrots

1 stalk of celery cut up, optional

1. (Stew meat, flour and salt will be divided into 2 parts to dredge meat with flour and sauté.)  In a large, Ziploc bag, combine 2 - 3 tbsp. flour and 1/2 tsp. salt.  Shake to combine flour and salt and then add stew meat to bag.  Shake to coat meat with flour. 

2.  Melt 1 – 2 tbsp. butter in large pan and sauté flour dredged stew meat at medium high until browned on all sides.  Repeat step 1 with second portion of stew meat.

3.  While the meat is browning, you need to get out your Crockpot. (Stove top directions are at the end of the recipe.)  Put these things in it: cut up onion and garlic, chopped parsley, tomato sauce, beef broth, cloves , black pepper, bay leaf, thyme and Tabasco.   

Add all the browned stew meat to the crock pot. 

4.  Set the timer on low for 5 -6 hours.

5.  Now you need to prepare the vegetables.  In a glass 9 x 13 dish, add the cut up potatoes, carrots and celery.  Add a little bit of water, 1/2 – 3/4 cup, to cover the bottom of the dish.  Cover vegetables and dish with plastic wrap.  Cook in the microwave for 5 – 7 minutes (depending on your microwave).  Turning, if necessary, halfway through if your microwave doesn’t have a turntable.  I like to cook my vegetables to where they still are a bit firm and not completely soft as they will cook more when added to the pot.  BE VERY CAREFUL when lifting the plastic wrap as serious steam burns happen to those who aren’t!  Ouchy, ouchy!

I leave my vegetables in the microwave and go do a lot of other things for the rest of the day…

6.  Add the wine the last hour of cooking. 

7.  Add the cooked vegetables the last half hour of cooking. 

Serve with your favorite bread.  Here is the finished Boule from the dough I showed you yesterday.  Absotively delish!  The recipe is in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  See how the one on the right is shaped like a heart?  It was made with love.  Or maybe I just love bread. 

Dinner is served for some very happy people.

Other cooking tips:

This recipe doubles nicely if you’re feeding a crew.

For the beef broth, I use, McCormick’s Beef Base purchased at Costco.  1 tsp. beef base plus 1 cup water = 1 cup broth.

Stove top instructions:

Follow steps 1 and 2 to brown your meat.  Add step 3 ingredients and cooked meat to a big pot.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for 2 - 3 hours or until meat is tender.  Add wine the last hour and add the cooked vegetables the last half hour.

Technorati Tags: beef stew,crockpot,Boule,Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Thyme in a Bottle

Guess what I found out today? 

You can save thyme in a bottle.  This makes me smile.

Momma Kitty wants to see how this is done.  Perhaps I, too, will figure it out.

Here’s another “guess what?”. 

Guess what’s for dinner? 

With fresh picked thyme in it.  Simmering in the crock pot to save me… time! 

This is the dough that I mixed this morning.  This is the book with the recipe and lots of others to try.

(Many events and hours later…)

Dinner is ready!  I love coming home, on a cool and overcast day, to a well seasoned crock pot full of homemade stew and fresh, homemade bread. 

My favorite recipe for stew… tomorrow!

Till then, a poem, somewhat about time…

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

Technorati Tags: Thyme,beef stew,boule,homemade bread,Rumi

A Rainbow’s Arch

Photos taken out in middle of somewhere in Colorado.

Big spoonfuls of Thoreau honey.

Technorati Tags: rainbows,Henry David Thoreau,Colorado

This post goes out to the Stay at Home Dad’s

So, our friend, we’ll call him Cliff (because that’s what he answers to), recently became a stay at home Dad. 

Private note to Cliff:

(Everybody else do something else for a sec.)

Do you mind me sharing your life with a few of my closest friends?  

He’s changing a diaper right now and will get back to me when I’m about through with this.

He just survived his first few weeks of Back–to-School, Stay-at-Home-Dad-ness.  Don’t get anything done-ness.  Eat your fish stick dinner and be happy-ness.  But, oh the joy and fulfillment he’ll find buried deep under piles of laundry.  It’s there.  Keep looking and make sure you separate those lights and darks. 

During a recent visit, and because we care, we were offering suggestions of things he could do to entertain himself and the preschooler who will be his constant potty companion from here on out.  The park was suggested.  Pre-schoolers love the park.  The grocery store and Wal-Mart  are also often overlooked entertainment venues.  And play groups.  They’re both going to need support and friends.  Playgroups are generally made up of available, on occasions underappreciated and lonely, attractive, stay-at-home mom types.  But that’s just my experience.  The attractive part, that is.

So we scratched playgroups, Wal-Mart, the grocery store and parks.  Now, he’s been relegated to auto part stores, oil change facilities and the proctologist.   These are all fine substitutions that when approached with the right attitude will be fondly remembered with misty eyed-ness.

Because, see, what we’ve decided is that he is now a “babe magnet”.  Follow me on this.  When a man shows up at the park with a small child or dog, the women gathered there (in their “playgroup”) just assume he is attentive, emotional, family centered and thus, good mating material.  No matter that they already have a perfectly good husband holed up somewhere and his offspring nearby eating the sand meant for castles.  This park guy, this “emoter”, would produce better offspring.  Offspring that wouldn’t eat sand and more importantly not feed it to their younger sibling.

This “Man with child and/or dog will surely make a good mate” business is what the internet refers to as an “Urban Legend”. 

And here I will offer my proof.  We have another friend, who we’ll call… Bernie (not his real name) who often used the “My dog is a babe magnet and I am surely good mating material” method.  He believed that walking his dog at parks, the apartment complex, etc.  would magnetize the babes to him.  The dog was somehow going to negate his “less than stellar, stinky, bachelor ways”.  He was not good mating material.  Once, he left that same dog in his apartment for a long weekend…  during the Texas winter.  He, thoughtfully, left the balcony door ajar so the dog could come and go and do her business.  You would never do this with a child, which he considered his dog to be. 

He asked us (who are not dog people) to “peek in” on the dog while he was gone.  “Peek” we did!  It was Hiroshima bad news.  The dog, of course, did not use the “opportunities” that the “ajar” balcony door presented her.  Apparently, our friend, didn’t foresee dog-proofing to be much of a necessity either.  The dog had returned the favor by tearing apart most everything that wasn’t securely bolted down.  There was a large fish tank which I presumed, on Friday, housed live fish.  She took care of that.  It was a Kevorkian, mercy killing.  The icy,Texas air freely flowing through the apartment would have sent their tropical souls to fishy heaven if she hadn’t.  Luckily, at some point she found some brief entertainment in a ball point pen and left “Daddy” a message all over the carpet.  I can’t say for certain but I’m sure he never had the pleasure of spending his apartment deposit. 

Is he a real “Daddy” today?  Yes.  Is he doing it well?  I don’t know.  It’s Lovey who talks to him most and it’s not a topic they, being of the male persuasion, discuss.  But it comforts me to know he lives in a milder climate with  warmer winters. 

Oh gosh.  I meant this to be some kind of positive, dedication type of happy note to our good friend who’s been blessed to be a stay-at-home Dad.  Can I dedicate a good recipe to you that will warm your soul?  Are you finished with that diaper yet?  It’s time to start dinner.   

Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup

(This recipe is adapted from Reames Classic Chicken Noodle Soup)

1 Cooked Rotisserie Chicken, meat removed and chopped up

10 cups water

4 tsp. dried parsley flakes

2 tsp. dried thyme, crushed

1/2 tsp. pepper

6 –10 tsp. chicken base or bullion granules, to your taste

2 bay leaves

1 pkg. (24 oz.) Reames Homestyle Egg Noodles

4 cups sliced carrots

2 cups sliced celery

2 cups chopped onion

1 cup frozen peas, thawed (optional)

1/2 cup flour

4 cups milk, divided

salt to taste

In a large pot, add water, parsley, thyme, pepper, chicken base and bay leaves.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

Add noodles, carrots, celery and onion; return to a boil.  Reduce heat and cover, simmer 20 to 30 minutes or until done.

Meanwhile, whisk together 1 cup of the milk and the flour until smooth.  Add to the noodle mixture with remaining 3 cups milk.  Add the chopped chicken and the thawed peas.  Continue cooking over medium heat until thickened and heated through.  Salt to taste.

                                       Enjoy!

Cooking Hints:

I use McCormick Chicken Base purchased at Costco instead of bullion granules.

Reames Egg Noodles are in the freezer section of the store.

Change the vegetable amounts to your families taste.  I like 1 cup of celery and 1 cup of peas. 

Technorati Tags: Stay at home Dad,Back to school,diaper change,parks,play groups,babe magnet,dogs,Chicken Noodle Soup,Rotisserie Chicken