Banana Nut Bread

A guest post from Katie...

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups cake flour we used 1 cup white flour and 1 cup wheat flour
1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup milk
3 small or 2 large bananas mashed
1 cup chopped pecans

LETS GET STARTED!

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar. then add the eggs and vanilla.

beat until fluffy. mix together flour, salt,and baking soda.

add dry ingredients to the sugar mixture alternately with the milk, bananas,and nuts, beating well after each addition.

preheat oven to 350 degrees. pour the batter into a
bread pan. bake for 50 min. or until brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

then wait when its done its a great treat for the whole family!

HAVE FUN!

And the babies have the most fun licking the spatulas!

Housekeeping Printables

Time-Warp Wife has some adorable housekeeping printables available here. Choose from her June or July housekeeping calendar and her weekly meal planner. So cute!

Save Money Monday

This saving money tip is so easy. Anyone can do it!

Drink Water.

That's right, Drink Water!! By drinking water with 2 meals and snacks each day we save an average of $11.50 each week. This doesn't even include the money saved on doctor visits and dental fillings that are prevented by our extra water consumption.

Money Saved Example
Before water diet:
Milk~ 3 gallons a week, $10.50
Apple Juice~ $4
Sweet Tea~ $2, making it 3-4 times each week.
Soda~ $0 (We don't buy soda. We get our soda fix at Nana's house on the week-ends)  ;)
Total: $16.50

After water diet:
Milk~ 1 gallon a week, $3.50
Coconut/almond milk~ 1/2 gallon a week, $1
Apple Juice~ $0 (I only buy %100 juice when it's free with coupons)
Sweet Tea~ $.50, making it once per week
Soda~ $0
Total: $5.00

Savings: $11.50

I know drinking water can be especially unpleasant for some children. My kids would like to drink soda with every meal. They would probably put it in cereal if they had their way. Thankfully, they have not thrown any fits or even complained much about our water drinking habits.
Do you have any tips for getting kids to drink more water?

Basic Green Smoothie Recipe

1 cup coconut milk
1 cup spinach
(I don't know how to properly measure spinach. I just crammed it in a 1 cup measuring cup.)
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 frozen banana
2 Tbsp. honey

Begin by adding the coconut milk and spinach in the blender. Blend these together until smooth. Add in remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. Add more coconut milk or a little water if your smoothie is too thick. All ingredients can be adjusted to suit your taste.
Enjoy!


You might also like to try this Kale Smoothie Recipe.

This post is linked to:

Save Money Monday

I'm going to *try* to do a series on saving money. I can't promise I will have a new Save Money Monday post every week, but I'll try. :)

One of the ways we save A LOT of money is by using coupons. Some people think if you use coupons on groceries you are eating hamburger helper and frozen dinners, but you can eat a healthy food and use coupons. Did you hear that? You can use coupons and eat healthy! One way to do this is to use coupons for your personal care items. I bought 9 toothbrushes, 6 packs of floss, and two sticks of deodarent at Kroger (pictured below) and they were FREE after coupons. This frees up money for you to spend on items where coupons are not available, usually fresh produce. Occasionally there are coupons available for natural food items. See the chips in the picture? They are all natural, from the healthy food section at Kroger and they were FREE after coupons. I used this opportunity to stock up on chips. I bought 6 bags. I'm not saying chips are healthy, but these are a better choice than Doritos. The whole wheat and veggie pasta was also FREE after coupons. I only bought 6 because I still have a good stock in my pantry from the last sale. I paid $2.25 total for the 3 almond milks and 1 coconut milk after coupons. The Mom's Best Cereal was $.24 each after coupons. If you stock up on items when they are well below retail price you will rarely have to pay full price again. If you'd like to start using coupons, go to moneysavingmom.com and click on 'store deals' to find out the best deals at your local grocery store each week.

My total for these groceries was just over $19 and about $6 of that was sales tax!

This post is link to:

How does your garden grow? Week 5 update

I am excited to see little tomatoes on all the tomato plants!

Here is my little helper and the herb garden. The big plant is sage. The parsley, basil, and cilantro are all coming up, but are still quite small.

We decided to make use of some extra space around the raised beds so my wonderful hubby tilled up this spot and one behind the beds. We planted pie pumpkins and watermelons on the side and popcorn on the back.

We have a bit of lemon balm growing at the base of a tree. I don't know what to do with it. Can someone give me some suggested uses for it?

Here's a look at how the whole garden is growing.

This post is linked to Smockity Frocks Frugal Gardening 101.