I have a new site and I hope you can follow me there.

When bananas turn too ripe, it is time for banana bread. It may look rotten but I prefer using overripe bananas for my banana bread or banana muffin because it just gives this nice natural dark color to the baked bread.

For a moist banana bread, Saveur’s Mom’s Banana Bread is my go to recipe. It never fails me and it is easy to prepare. This is the reason why it’s one of my favorite food to share as gift.

Blogging Mama’s Tip: You can freeze your overripe banana and thaw it at room temperature when ready to use.

Mom’s Banana Bread

Ingredients:

Butter, for greasing pan
1 cup flour, plus more for pan
3⁄4 tsp. baking soda
1⁄4 tsp. kosher salt
1 cup sugar
1⁄2 cup canola oil
1⁄3 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
2⁄3 cup chopped pecans
3 very ripe bananas, mashed

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°. Grease a 9″ x 5″ x 
2 3⁄4″ loaf pan with butter and dust with flour; set pan aside.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

3. Whisk together sugar, oil, buttermilk, vanilla, egg, and egg yolk in a medium bowl until smooth. Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients and whisk until just combined. Add pecans and mashed bananas and whisk gently to combine. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean, 60–65 minutes. Let cool for 30 minutes before slicing and serving.

Serves 6 – 8

Banana Bread as part of my last holiday season's gifts to friends.

My family just love anything grilled, period. Meat tops the list. When time is short, and the appetite just cannot wait, I always resort to whatever is the easiest way for my marinade. I do not see anything wrong with semi-homemade recipes if not done frequently. What is important is you feed your loved ones with the best tasting food always (or should I say with the best tasting and healthy food). Grilling meat is not a regular thing in the house so please forgive me on this one.

For grilling or barbecue marinade, I would add freshly minced garlic, any souring ingredients like lemon juice or calamansi juice, a teaspoon or two of brown sugar and a dash of hot sauce for heat to a bottled barbecue sauce.

We also add Sprite to our marinade. A friend also suggested adding Coke to a bottle of barbecue sauce. Soak the meat for at least 30 minutes just to absorb the flavor. I usually let this stay over night. I don’t know what’s with the soda that adds a new layer of irresistible taste.

Today is Memorial Day. This day has been associated to the start of barbecue and grilling season. Let us keep in mind though that this day is about being grateful to the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Click here to read more »

I am sure I am not the only working mom who is complaining that 24/7 is not enough to fit all the things that you want to do.

Take the case of my plan of organizing our apartment. It’s still an ongoing process, 9 years after and I do not think it will ever stop. Though some clutter have their own places now, I still have tons of things to do from filing my kids’ favorite artwork, sorting pictures, paintings and posters that need frames, crafts to make, recipes to be tested, movies that I need to watch and books that I want to read, just to name a few.

But I guess, not having enough time to do everything is nothing but an excuse. It’s a matter of finding time and making sure to prioritize to be more productive. One project that I would really like to find time is to make more plushy dolls. I started making these about three years ago, giving them away as gifts. I have all the materials just waiting for me. One of these days.

One thing that I like with Mother’s Day is that I get to spend my ‘me’ time. I took advantage of that time by preparing a simple sweet treat for my friends who are moms themselves. I made Polvoron, a crumbly cookie/candy made from toasted flour, sugar and butter.

My sister from the Philippines shared her no-fail recipe for polvoron. Though the recipe is easy to follow, the most important material in making this treat is to have this contraption called polvoron moulder. Good thing my sister sent me a moulder to save me from going crazy in shaping each one. This moulder is also available in most Filipino stores.

Polvoron

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup powdered milk
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup confectioner sugar

Directions:

1. Toast the flour in medium heat until golden brown, stirring constantly.
2. Transfer the toasted flour in a big bowl. While the flour is still warm, mix in the powdered milk, confectioner sugar and the melted butter.
3. Shape into rounds or ovals using the polvoron moulder.
4. Wrap individually in a waxed paper or cellophane.

It was not supposed to happen. I was in Marshalls simply to return something that I bought and regretted. It happens. You buy something. You return it shortly after. As I was about to leave the store, I found love in one of the shelves, stashed away from everyone’s view. Love, the cookie cutter, is mine for only $4.99. Original price is $10.00.

This is an eye opener short talk at TEDx from Joe Smith. Consider this: Americans use 13 billion lbs of paper towels every year. If we can reduce by 1 paper towel per person per day, that would be equivalent to 571,230,000 million lbs of papers not used. That’s a lot of trees that we can potentially save.

Tip: At home we use those micro fiber detailing cloths. It’s absorbent, reusable and washable.

You use paper towels to dry your hands every day, but chances are, you’re doing it wrong. In this enlightening and funny short talk at TEDxConcordiaUPortland, Joe Smith reveals the trick to perfect paper towel technique.

R. P. Joe Smith served as a District Attorney in Umatilla County and nearly won a race for Oregon Attorney General without taking a single contribution over $99.99. He is a former chair of the Oregon Democratic Party and is active with several local nonprofits.

Click here to read more »

My daughter and I decided to make our own Mother’s Day Pop-up card. We got the idea from Martha Stewart through this video guide. You may also want to check this step-by-step instructions. We also used our rubber stamp for simple text.

I should say that it was an easy to follow project, plus the fact that I have the materials readily available at home. We had fun making it and is now looking forward to making more pop-up cards for other special occasions.

By the way, my mom was impressed and appreciated the effort we gave to her unique card. It’s always special and you feel the warmth on anything created by hand.

Click here to read more »

I apologize for the long silence here.

There has been a difficult health scare in my family. When someone is sick, especially in the family, it becomes difficult to go through with the normal routine in life. My 74-year old dad, who lives with me, was not in good health. A year ago he had to go through biopsy on his left lung because of some nodules that his doctors found to be suspicious of cancer. It was benign. Last month, he went through the same process for his right lung.

When dad came back from two weeks in the hospital, he seemed to have lost his drive not only to eat but to live as well. We had a hard time convincing him to eat. He fell silent despite his doctor’s assurances that he can go back to his normal routine. Everyone in the family, especially my mom, was affected over my dad’s condition. His sickness and regular visit to the hospital took a toil on his frail body. He lost a lot of weight. He was not eating well.

With his attitude, recovery obviously became slow. To make matters worse, he went through another week of hospital confinement even before the result of the latest biopsy came out. With prayers from everyone, the result came out favorably. Just like the first one, it was also benign. He was diagnosed with non-infectious organizing pneumonia. With that settled, our goal is to bring him back to full recovery. My father is a picky eater. He loves meat more than vegetables. His nurse noticed this too and suggested to us to give him a “green drink.”

Simply blend green vegetables (especially spinach) with other fruits like strawberry, banana, pear, apple, orange, or whatever fruits that are in season. He now drinks his vegetable.

For someone who has been blogging about food, it pains me to see my father not eating well. I hope this “green drink” can do the trick and we can all go back to our routine… like blogging.

Dollar store is a good source for cheap seasonal supplies. I was lucky to find cute cupcake liners and toppers, and a cookie cutter at Jack’s 99 Cent Store in the city. The good deal is that it just cost me only 99 cents for a Wilton brand. I can’t wait to use them for my vanilla cupcakes as dessert for our Easter lunch.