Tinkerblue

Frozen Bananas = Soft Serve

If you don't like bananas, stop reading now.

For the last week or so I've been woken up at night by cramp in right calf. Apparently I'm lacking potassium.

So I've been eating a lot of bananas. I was getting bored with them. I've had plain bananas, banana smoothies and banana bread. Today it was about 30 degrees out, and I had frozen bananas in the freezer so I made banana soft serve.

It's easy. Put frozen bananas (without the peel) in a food processor. Blend for 5 minutes. Serve.

I served mine over a chocolate raspberry protein bar. The banana soft serve felt good on my still inflamed and tender gum. It doesn't replace ice cream and it's still high in sugar (I used three bananas) but it'll do in a push.

Would be better with chocolate chips and/or peanut butter blended in too.

Unofficial London 2012 Olympic Souvenirs

Mmmm, as someone who has worked in licensing and merchandising for an Olympics I am well aware of the restrictions around who can produce Official Retail Merchandise. That means I shouldn't even be giving the products below a second glance, but... they make me smile.

 

Dieter Braun London Print

 

Olympic Flame Print

 

London Calling Print

 

Tote Bag

 

Not quite sure what to call this headpiece, it won't give you much protection from the sun.

How about some biscuits? You can have either a sports tin or a London icon tin.

 

How about some regal egg cups?  The directors of the company are in court trying to keep the egg cups for sale, so you should buy them soon.

 

A double decker London bus for my Pandora charm bracelet.

 

Olympic Smurfs. There are 10 in total.  Swimmer, weightlifter, beach volleyball player, rider, gymnast, relay runner, winner, sprinter, shotputter, and javelin thrower.

The winner is cute, look at him gazing at his medal.

 

My favourite has to be the javelin thrower with his eyebrows scrunched and his tongue hanging out.

 

Simple Banana Bread

There was an ever growing supply of brown squishy bananas in the house this week. I couldn't eat them quick enough. So they become Banana Bread #2.

Last time I made Barb's Black Banana Bread, which was very good. I didn't have any buttermilk in the fridge, nor did I have 4 eggs. So I needed a simpler recipe.

 

I used this one from www.simplyrecipes.com

• 4 bananas
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 and 1/2 cups of flour

 

• Preheat oven to 350F (175C)
• Smoosh the bananas
• Add melted butter
• Stir in egg, sugar and vanilla
• Sprinkle baking soda and salt over top and stir in
• Add flour last
• Pour mixture into a greased baking pan
• Bake for one hour

 

I added a cup of chopped walnuts before the flour. I also sprinked chopped walnuts on top of the loaf before putting it in the oven.

 

I had the oven on the wrong setting. My boss has a fancy dancy oven, and I forgot it has a convection oven setting, which is what I should have used. So it was darker around the edges and just a little gooey in the middle. The boss said it was really good. I've not yet met a banana bread I didn't like, but this one is really moist and I like the added crunch of the walnuts. I'll be making this again.