Pineapple Banana Cake

So I had a bunch of bananas that were well past their prime. I did not feel like making banana bread (like I usually do). So what to do?

I have this awesome cake mix cookbook - 125 recipes to make starting with a package of cake mix. Surely THAT must have something that involves bananas! And lucky me, there was! It was Pineapple Banana Cake - and it sounded like something I would really like to eat on a cold winter day. I could be transported to a Carribean island, listening to the waves crash & watching the palm trees sway in the wind. All without leaving my toasty warm house!

Want some? This recipe is SO quick and easy - no excuses for you not to make it (unless you don't like bananas or pineapple)! So let's go!

Preheat your oven to 350*F, and grease a 9 x 13 pan. Or put paper cups in your muffin tin for cupcakes. Or use a bundt pan. Be adventurous!

Let's start with the (simple) ingredients:
1 box white cake mix
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1/2 cup crushed pineapple, well drained
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (3 or 4 bananas)

Mash the bananas:

Add in the eggs and oil. Give it a whirl (or a stir) until all mixed together. Then dump in the pineapple:

Dump in the box of white cake mix and whirl it all up until combined. The recipe said to mix it for 2 minutes on medium speed. I'm a rebel and mixed it for like 30 seconds because it looked good enough to me. Just don't tell anyone!

Pour the batter into your pan of choice! Make sure to use a spatula to get out all the yummy batter. Try not to let your kids see what you are doing. Unless you want this to happen to you:
Whoops... can't say I blame her though - the batter was mighty good (raw eggs and all). Good thing it's being baked!

Follow the baking directions for your box of cake. My recipe book said to bake it for 55 minutes. The cake box said to bake it for 27-33 minutes if using a 9" x 13" cake pan. I chose to put it in for 25 minutes and then have a peek. Good thing I did, because it was just about done! I threw it in for another 3 minutes (28 total) and it was perfect! I let my cake cool in the pan, on a wire rack, but you can turn yours out if you feel like it. Just let it cool for about 25 minutes before turning it out, unless you want Pineapple Banana Crumble instead of Cake. :)

Once the cake is cool - it's time to make frosting for it! My recipe called for pineapple frosting, which consisted of butter, crushed pineapple and icing sugar. I made it, and found it a) overwhelmingly sweet (and I LOVE sweet), and b) not pineapple-y enough and c) kinda yucky.

So I improvised. Now it's delicious! Here is how I made it (sorry, no pictures)!
1/4 cup soft butter (not room temp - softer - but not melty)
1/2 cup crushed pineapple
3 cups icing sugar
2-3 tbsp reserved pineapple juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup flaked coconut

*Side note: I used unsweetened coconut - this frosting does NOT need extra sugar*

Beat butter until smooth. Add drained pineapple and vanilla and beat until smooth. Start adding icing sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. If it gets too thick, use a bit of pineapple juice (don't just dump all of it, just a bit at a time). Keep doing this until all of your sugar is used up. Add in your coconut and mix it. Keep an eye on it's thickness - use more pineapple juice to keep your frosting a nice, spreadable consistency.

Spread your frosting on your cake. Lick your fingers. And the spatula. Maybe the bowl too. Then cut yourself a nice, big piece of cake, and enjoy your hard work!


Yum!

A Slight Obsession...

Cars. Vwoom. McQEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN! Doc! Go Keen Go!

Yay. We have a slight Cars obsession in our house right now. Avalynne is officially in love with Lightning McQueen and anything to do with the movie. She hugs her little McQueen notebook all through out the day, and heaven forbid she actually DRAW in it, lol. Nope.

Her day starts with her talking to herself in her crib. If I listen closely, I can hear her talking about "MKeen, blah blah blah, Doc, blah blah blah, GO KEEN GO!!". Kind of cute, yes. But it signals what the day is going to revolve around!

She will NOT stop talking about it until the Cars DVD gets popped in. And she will sit through the ENTIRE movie (with the exception of getting up to ask for a snack) and when it is done, ask for it again (ummm, how about NO?).

It was like this with Finding Nemo. And then the Aristocats. We're slowly trying to introduce a new movie, and we have Strawberry Shortcake rented from the video store... maybe a new obsession will take hold. I don't mind. I'm REALLY sick of listening to Cars!

Paper For Sale!

So I've made a decision to sell off almost all of my scrapbook supplies. I knew the day was coming, but I just could not bring myself to do it!! I really do love all my supplies but I have no desire to paper scrap anymore. I still scrap, but I've been fully converted to digital scrapping, and have no plans of turning back now!

So I spent a long afternoon sorting and pricing a bunch of my stuff (I still have lots - where did it all come from???), and I'm slowly going to add it here. Or maybe I'll just have an "in-house garage sale", lol. I'm not looking forward to posting everything. Its seriously scary!

Well, I guess I have to start somewhere, so here's the paper...


My Mind's Eye (Tres Jolie) - $2.00


Crate Paper (Avenue Collection) - $4.00


Crate Paper (Baby Bee) - $2.00


Crate Paper (3 misc sheets) - $1.50


Pebbles Inc (Loverly) - $1.00


Cosmo Cricket (Dutch Girl) - $1.25


Piggy Tails - $3.50


My Mind's Eye (Everyday Tango) - $2.50


American Crafts (A La Carte & A La Mode) - $4.00


American Crafts (The Goods & Sixth Avenue) - $2.00


KI Memories - $3.00


Chatterbox - $8.00


Basic Grey (Scarlett's Letter & Color Me Silly) - $3.00


Basic Grey (Sophie) - $2.50


Basic Grey (Dawson) - $5.00


Sweetwater (Fresh) - $3.25


Sweetwater (In Love) - $3.00


Sweetwater (Misc) - $1.50


Sandylion (Kelly Panacci) - $2.50


Around The Block - $4.50


Hambly Screen Prints - $3.00


8x8 Slab - Christina Cole - $5.00

I also have all my miscellaneous paper which includes mostly brand names, but they were all sorted by color, and I just didn't feel like sorting them by name, lol. That stack is about 1" tall and I will sell the whole thing for $20.00!

If you want any of the above, please just email me and I will put your name on it. As I add other things to my blog, feel free to add to your "cart" by emailing me any other things you'd like to order. When you are done, I will box it up, get a shipping price, confirm it with you (you must agree to pay shipping) and I will mail it as soon as I receive payment. Please email me here: jaedyn_f AT yahoo DOT ca. Thanks much!!

Skinny Jeans Experiment...

Well - it's begun... AGAIN. I'm once again trying to lose some of this stupid weight that keeps finding (and following) me! I nearly freaked out when I stepped on the scale one day after I noticed my "fat" clothes were getting snug and I can barely get into my Spanx (!!) and I saw, much to my horror that my weight had crept up to 198.8 lbs!!!! Not only that, but my 16's are much too snug and I *know* I am really an 18! I am so disgusted with myself!

So, when over at Sweet Shoppe some of the girls were talking about reviving the Skinny Jeans Experiment, I was so excited! I did the first one, and while I didn't stick to it very well, I really enjoyed the experience. So I signed up before the official sign-ups had started, haha! I am so ready to get this excess weight off!

Here are my BEFORE (October 25, 2009) photos. Try not to cringe, laugh or throw up. They aren't pretty. Trust me - I know. I reacted all 3 ways when I saw them, so I don't blame anyone for doing the same. BUT this is me. Right now. In my favorite pair of jeans that I want to fit again (hopefully they will be too big in not too long!!).

Wow - its been over 2 months since I updated! Apparently I don't lead a very interesting life, and have nothing to tell anybody. Strange - because I can get on the phone and blab for hours. Very strange indeed.

So what's been happening in the last 2 months?? Not a whole heck of a lot. Ava is getting so big though :). She's walking like a pro now, and pretty much runs everywhere she goes. I have to chase her all over the place. I have a love/hate relationship with that, haha. A couple weeks ago she had the flu, and that was horrible. I didn't realize a baby could throw up as many times in a day as she did. We even ended up taking her to the hospital because she had a fever and couldn't hold down Tylenol. Poor baby girl. She was pretty clingy for about a week after as well, and I thought I might just lose my mind. Didn't help that she was breaking through a molar at the same time as having the flu!! But yes, she now is the proud owner of a brand new molar! She finally popped another front one (on the bottom) on the same day as well. That makes 6 teeth for her now.

Brad is finally busy working at the condo. He should be swamped until the end of July. Which is good. Keeps him out of my hair (haha, just kidding!). I also have a job that I'm looking forward to. A good friend of mine from the congregation is going back to work and I'm going to be looking after her 3 munchkins a few times a month, whenever her parents are not able to. I'm really excited about it. I have all sorts of things planned out in my mind to do with them. I'm so nervous that they will hate coming here though!

I've also started my own little Etsy shop! I was really excited about it a couple weeks ago when I started it, but the excitement wore off when I realized how much work is really involved behind the scenes! I do like it though, and my store has about 27 hearts (or people who have bookmarked my store), and I'm working on getting more and trying to promote my products, hoping to generate more sales. If anyone cares to have a peek, CLICK HERE.

Hmmm, not sure what else... I'm getting excited about going to BC next week. I have lots to do before that. Like housework and laundry (blah). I think my laundry pile is breeding again, because I swear I have a lot more than I did yesterday!!! Blah!

Some Days I Wonder...

Some days I really hate living in a small town! Okay, thats most days, but ESPECIALLY on shopping days!

I get the flyers on Fridays, and sales start Saturday. I faithfully sit down, browse the flyers and make out my list for each of the 3 stores. I even write down the prices on my list because half the time the item rings up at its usual overpriced price, not the sale price. Then I have the sale price handy so they can adjust at the till. Super annoying, but hey... life in a small town.

Okay, so today I went shopping and I had 13 items on my list. I stopped at the first store, which is ready to go out of business, so the shelves are pretty much bare, the produce is wilty & moldy, but I lucked out. The apples that were on sale were in stock AND looked good. So I bought a bag! BUT they didn't have the other item on my list, but no biggie. At least they had 50% of the items on my list :).

Store #2. I had 5 items on my list. Pork kabobs, creamo, coffee, and a couple of not good for me things that I won't mention (cough, cheesecake and Hershey's Hugs, cough cough). But as per USUAL, they didn't have most everything. No kabobs, no cheesecake, no Hugs. They didn't even STOCK them. Nice. Okay, so they had only 20% of the stuff on my list. I'm annoyed.

Store #3. I also had 5 items here. Honey, jam, pork chops, apples, and applesauce. They only carried 1 thing. Porkchops... which I should mention had a 1 inch layer of FAT surrounding it. Yum. Sorry, not paying for fat, thankyouverymuch! Now I'm REALLY annoyed and making snarky comments in the store to my mom who was with me.

So after almost an hour of shopping, I came home with 1 bag of groceries. In my bag were 3 (yes, count them, 1-2-3) items from my 13 item shopping list. Nice. I got coffee, creamo and apples. Anybody care to tell me what I can make for supper with that? Hmmm... I could maybe eat an APPLE, and have a cup of COFFEE with CREAM in it. Woot! Don't think Brad will be impressed with supper tonight :).

I really hate shopping for groceries here. Like I mentioned, half the time stuff doesn't ring up at the sale price, so I have to look over EVERY receipt when I get home. If its on sale, a) they are sold out by Saturday because they didn't bring enough in, b) they don't carry it or c) they slap a freaking sign on the really good sales with "WITH FAMILY PURCHASE", meaning you have to spend $25 before you can get the sale item!!! It doesn't say that in the flyer, its something the particular managers put on there because they are greedy and stupid!

Sheesh. Then people ask me why I'd travel to Saskatoon for groceries! Hmmmmmm. Because I can GET groceries in Saskatoon?? Maybe??

Blah Monday

So... what do you think? I've got myself a pretty new blog! Not sure if I'll end up updating it or not, but at least it's nice to look at, haha!

My day today started out as a typical Monday, with Avalynne waking up 3 times since 12:30 am! She NEVER does that. I think she's finally feeling the effects of her 1 year immunizations. The nurse told us that it can take 10-30 days to react to the MMR & Chicken Pox vaccines, so that puts us right about now. And she's been moody & warmer than usual, so that's probably what it is. I'm just not used to it anymore! I can't even fathom how I managed to get up 5 times a night when she was a newborn. So I'm tired today!

We had a slow day though, so its all right! Ava had a good morning nap (2.5 hours), and a short afternoon nap, and was generally happy through-out the day. Right now she's standing (by herself), holding onto a huge bucket with her face in it, and babbling away, haha! She does a lot of that lately (the babbling I mean, but also the standing by herself). She's a lot more confident lately... like she FINALLY realized that she CAN stand without holding onto the couch! She's also walking now! It's a bit stiff legged, but she's doing really well. She can walk the entire length of the house, and even step up/down over the ledge between the living room & kitchen without falling!

We just finished supper, which was really yummy! I really wanted chicken strips, but we didn't have any, so I made some from scratch using a ranch italian chicken strip recipe I found on allrecipes.com. We'll definately be making it again! Now that the kitchen is all cleaned up, we can sit back & relax... put Ava to bed and watch another few episodes of The Office (we are totally addicted to it!)!!