Home Maid Simple

Day: April 1, 2011

  • Ultimate Blog Party 2011

    Ultimate Blog Party 2011

    Ultimate Blog Party 2011
     Head over to 5 Minutes for Mom to join in the fun, and win some prizes!!!
    A little about me – I’m a stay at home mom to 3 adorable little Princess’ (you can read about our adventures HERE).  
    I am married to handsome, wonderful, amazing High School Band Director
    I started Home Maid Simple as a way to get my personal life and home in order.  I felt I was living in chaos and couldn’t enjoy my family or my home (apartment living here) if I didn’t get it organized. I also thought if I had people reading about and seeing my messy home I’d have more motivation (it worked!).  Little did I know I would make some great friends through blogging.  
    So what exactly do I blog about? Just about anything and everything around the home.  If I do something that makes my home feel more like a Home, I post about it.  Topics range from cleaning, organizing, cooking, exercise, and soon gardening!  In just a short time I’ve ventured out to also include reviews and giveaways.  Although they are periodic and just a side to the blog, it’s been a lot of fun.  I’ve got to “meet” a lot of great people with home owned businesses, and work with some larger companies.  In fact, make sure you stop by later today to enter our first giveaway for The Big Moving Event! (you can find the first giveaway HERE!)
    The Big Moving Event is a month long event you do not want to miss!  I’ll have featured etsy shops, giveaways, and pictures as we move into our first home! Which by the way, we closed on Tuesday and are very proud first time home owners!
    I love comments and followers, but I only want you here, if YOU want to be here (and I hope you do). 
    And I guess I’ll leave you with a picture of me…so you feel like you know me too, and not just my family : P
    Sorry you just can’t get a picture of me without some family!

  • Whole Wheat Banana Mango Bread

    Originally this would’ve been my Tuesday tip, but it’s now thursday. Life gets busy when you’re trying to move!  
    I went late night shopping with my neighbor yesterday.  She shops sales, and pretty much has prices memorized. So she KNOWS what a good deal is.  We left the kids at home with the dads, which really made for a peaceful shopping trip.  Whoa, little ramble there. Back to the point!
    There was a basket of overripe bananas on sale (ok apparently ripe bananas are cheaper elsewhere, but that didn’t stop me).  I love buying overripe bananas! It means instant banana bread, no waiting and hoping no one eats the ripe bananas before I can make the bread.  Now I purposely bought one less banana, because I wanted to experiment! 
    Here is the recipe I created, with my mom’s recipe as a base. See if you can find my cooking tip!

    Whole Wheat Banana Mango Bread
    Ingredients
    – 1 cup shortening
    – 2 cups sugar
    – 4 overripe bananas
    -4 eggs
    – 3.5oz banana mango baby food
    – 3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
    – not quite 2 tsp baking soda
    -1 tsp salt
    Directions
    1. Mix the first 5 ingredients together.
    2. In a separate bowl mix the last 3 ingredients.
    3. Add the dry to the wet, and mix well
    4. Grease 2 loaf pans. Pour batter in. Bake at 350 F for 75 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean
    Did you find the tip? It was an ingredient in the wet mixture.  That’s right, baby food!  We have an 11 month old who has decided to stop eating most baby foods.  She much prefers “real” food.  Last fall we stocked up, and I mean stocked up on baby food.  So what in the world was I going to do with all this baby food? Cook with it of course.  It will add some extra nutrients to our food, and works great when missing a simple ingredient (like one banana).  The plus side, I couldn’t taste the mango, but the banana flavor popped out more.