Kitchen Cabinets Installed

My cabinets are stained, sealed and in place!!!!!

Love.

In goes a few hidden treasures.

Now, I just need to add hinges to the doors and my island cabinet is complete. Total price for the wood is $60. The stain was another $60 (yeah, it was expensive to color match what we currently had, but worth every penny). We do have ample supply of stain should I decide to go building crazy. Until then, I think my kitchen is complete. I'm just so elated at what could be created with a few pieces of wood, a table saw, and my dad at my side...best gift ever.

Fried Bananas

One of my all time favorite desserts is none other than fried bananas. I practically grew up on it. It's not that healthy so I don't make it that often, but what do you do when you have ripe bananas? You gotta make your favorite dish or the bananas simply go to waste, right? Just thinking about how it melts in my mouth, makes it worth the extra calories.

Fried Bananas

Vegetable Oil
Ice Water
Ripe Bananas
Tempura Mix
Sugar


Start out by heating some oil on high.

Partially fill a bowl with ice water (about a 1/4th filled). The ice is supposed to make the batter a tad more crispy.

Add enough tempura mix to make the batter the consistency of pancake mix. I used the tempura mix I normally use to make shrimp tempura.

Then, add about a tsp of sugar to the mix. Half the banana both length and width wise and add to batter.

Spoon the battered banana into hot oil.

Brown the bananas on both sides until crisp.

Dry on paper and serve hot.

Serve it simply as is...the way I like it.

Or add a little powder sugar like the French...

Or indulge a little by adding some melted chocolate. Either way, it is absolutely delicious and worth every bite.

Coconut Bread

Whenever my dad comes to visit, he always picks up some Vietnamese Coconut Bread at the Asian market. He simply loves anything with coconut in it as do I. Therefore, when I found this recipe for coconut bread on one of my favorite blogs, I knew I had to try it.

I was scared at first because I made my last dozen loaves using my trusted and well-loved bread-maker. Making bread from scratch brought me back to middle school when I made my first loaf of french bread. It looked absolutely beautiful. Did you notice what I said? I said, "it looked beautiful." It was hardly tasty. It was so hard, I could have used it as baseball bat. With that said, this recipe turned out fab-u-lous.

Coconut Bread
1/2 C. canola oil
1/2 C. unsweetened coconut cream (or coconut milk)
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1 1/4 C. flour
3/4 C. sugar
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/2 C sweetened flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease one 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 loaf pan

In a small bowl, whisk canola oil, coconut cream, eggs, and vanilla extract until blended.

In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and flaked coconut and mix well.

Add wet ingredients from small bowl, and mix just until combined

Do not overmix.

Pour batter into prepared pan, and bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, until golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool on baking rack

I took mine out of the pan after 10 minutes.

When completely cooled, cut into slices. Store in airtight container.

I love the sweet crispy crust. Yummy! This loaf didn't last long. I'm ready to bake another one!

Dollar Blinds

I can't resist clearance stickers. I saw these shades at Lowe's the other day.

I've been meaning to replace our window coverings in our garage. Since, it is the garage, I really don't want to spend an arm and a leg. Looking at the price, it's not that great of a deal, right?

That's not the price though. Look at my receipt.

For my three shades, I paid only $3.00! That's $1 a shade!!! The best part is that they'll cut the shades to fit my window for me. Now, that is a bargain that is too good to resist!

Staining Island Cabinet

Remember this?

Since I have been working like crazy, I decided to take a couple of days off. What did I decide to do? I decided to finally stain my island cabinet that my dad and I built during Christmas.

I found these triangles while I was at Lowe's and absolutely love them. I don't have to worry about lifting the legs to stain, getting stain all over the floor or having it stick to the cardboard.

One more layer of polyurethane and I should be able to bring it back into the house. I'm a little scared of screwing the hinges of the doors on so I may wait for my dad to come visit to finish it up. If I had painted the cabinet, then it would be no problem if I messed up, a little putty and paint could cover a mistake, but it is a little harder to cover a mistake with stain.

Free Tree from Lowe's

Lowe's is celebrating Earth Day by giving a million trees on April 23, 2011.

Food

I've been traveling like crazy the last two weeks. Therefore, I have been cooking like crazy for my family.

I try my best to be very accommodating, preparing everyone's favorites to eat while I am not home. Because of food allergies, I've had to label everything just to make sure.

Since Japanese food is not one of my kids' favorite choices, while I having been traveling, I've been eating a lot of Japanese food.

Yum!

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

For a sweet treat, try these Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups quick-cooking or regular rolled oats, uncooked
• 1-3/4 cups (11-oz. pkg.) Butterscotch Chips

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375°F.
   
   
2. Heat butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.
   
   
3. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in oats and butterscotch chips; mix well. Drop by heaping teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.
   
   
4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. About 4 dozen cookies.

Mushroom Tart

I love mushrooms and onions so when I found this recipe, I had to try it. It's been the perfect recipe to make whenever any of my vegetarian friends come over.

Ingredients

• Flour for rolling out puff pastry
• 1 (from a 17.3-ounce package) sheet frozen puff pastry thawed according to package instructions
• 1 medium onion halved and thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 2 packages (10 ounces each) white mushrooms trimmed and thinly sliced
• 1 packages (10 ounces) fresh baby spinach
• 2 ounces soft goat cheese crumbled

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a floured surface, roll the puff pastry out to a 16-by-10-inch rectangle. Trim uneven edges. Place the pastry on a baking sheet. With a sharp knife, lightly score dough to form a 1-inch border. Using a fork, prick dough inside the border every 1/2 inch.

Bake until golden, rotating pan once, about 15 minutes or until tender.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, toss onion with 1 tablespoon oil. Season with salt. Cover and cook over medium heat until onion begins to brown, about 5 minutes. Stir. Continue cooking with cover on for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. Set aside.

In a large saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, heat remaining oil. Add mushrooms; cover and cook until tender and all liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Fold in spinach; season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes more. Drain any liquid.

Top dough with mushroom-spinach mixture. Scatter onion and goat cheese on top. Bake until cheese is lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

There were no left-overs for our family.

I had to cut myself an edge piece because I love the puff-pastry crust.