Banana-Chocolate Bread and a Book Review

In the March issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine, there was a Recipe for Banana-Chocolate Bread that I thought I'd try and it was good.

Banana-Chocolate Bread

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 2/3 cups all purpose/plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed overripe bananas ( 3 or 4 )
2 tbsp sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate chopped, or chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 oF.  Butter and flour 5 x 9 inch loaf pan.  In a bowl sieve together flour, baking soda and salt, set aside.

2. In a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add  eggs one at a time, making sure you scrape down the side of the bowl each time.  Beat in bananas, sour cream an vanilla.  Beat in flour mixture and then stir in chocolate.  Pour batter in the prepared pan and bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted in centre of loaf comes out clean.

3. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes,  Remove bread from pan and let cool completely on wire rack.  Will freeze.

Okay so here are my thoughts and changes to the recipe.  I doubled the recipe to justify putting the oven on in the first place.  I didn't have sour cream so used plain yogurt instead.  Despite me having my glasses on to read the recipe I used baking powder instead of soda.....time to get my eyes tested again I guess?

I have a sweet tooth, but even for me this was pretty sweet, so would cut down the sugar a little bit.  It took an hour an ten minutes to cook mine, but I didn't measure my bananas, I just put in four per loaf, so my batter was probably a bit wetter than it should have been.  I used milk chocolate chips so that maybe added to the sweetness a bit.

It's a keeper though, as it is a very moist loaf.

"Sarai," by Jill Eillen Smith

When Abram finally requests the hand of his beautiful half sister Sarai, she asks one thing--that he promise never to take another wife as long as she lives. Even Sarai's father thinks the demand is restrictive and agrees to the union only if she makes a promise in return--to give Abram a son and heir. Certain she can easily do that, Sarai agrees.


But as the years stretch on and Sarai's womb remains empty, she becomes desperate to fulfill her end of the bargain, lest Abram decide that he will not fulfill his. To what lengths will Sarai go in her quest to bear a son? And how long will Abram's patience last?


Combining in-depth research and vivid storytelling, Jill Eileen Smith brings to life the beautiful and inscrutable Sarai in this remarkable story of love, jealousy, and undaunted faith.


This book is not for everyone.  If you have a deep Christian Faith and you enjoy reading about the beginnings of Christianity, then this is a book for you.  If not, I would pass on this book.  I found it very slow going until they reached Egypt then the story picked up.  However by then you have probably read a third of the book, so that is a lot to ask of a reader. 


I also found it hard to swallow this story, and I am finding it difficult to put into words my thoughts on it.  Which believe you me, I am never lost for words.  I think this book didn't "settle in my gut," the way it should have and left me with a lot of unanswered questions.


I would love other people to read this book for their reactions though, as maybe I missed the point to this book?.


Stars out of 5 : 2 Confusing at times and took me way to long to really capture my attention.






'Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.


Available at your favourite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group".

A whine about the hydro/electric bill, a question and other stuff........

I got our hydro bill in the mail yesterday and it was $140.38 for the month.  So what you ask.......well of that $140.38, the actual hydro we used was only $54, that's it, the rest were miscellaneous charges.......it cost us $59.35 just to get it "delivered" to us.......what the heck.......


It wouldn't be so bad if we were frivolous with it, but I don't use our electric dryer to dry the clothes.  I switch lights off whenever possible.  There is only the two of us in the house.  If I use the dish washer once a month, I do well.  Obviously the a/c wasn't on.  I'm not sure what else to do to bring it down.  When we lived at the other house it was generally around $75 a month, but the "delivery" charges were a lot less and we were taxed less.  And now as per this news report, by 2030 our hydro bills will be twice as much as we pay now????


Is it as bad where you live?

I went to the post office on Wednesday to mail my Christmas cards to Britain........just under $60 later..........now granted $24 of that was for a couple of parcels, and there was one card to the US, but even so that is just crazy.  So there is going to be a different plan of action for next year.  I still have the Canadian cards to mail.  It is $1.70 plus tax per card to Britain now.  I will mail the Canadian cards next week.

I have been busy reading a book over these past couple of days: Sandra Dallas "Alice's Tulip."  It was about two of my favourite subjects quilting and history.  The book is in the form of letters from Alice to her sister, so a bit of a different way of story telling.  It was still really interesting and there was a little "blurb" about different quilt blocks at the start of each chapter.

Finally the question.  Do any of you have a Wii.  If so do any of you have Just Dance or Just Dance 2?  Are they worth getting?  Also are any of you getting Michael Jackson, The Experience?  They look like fun and thought I may use some of my Swagbucks to buy one.........

Lazy day on Sunday

I did do laundry and a couple of other things, and went to church, but after that nothing. I was given a book to read, The Grave Tattoo," by Val McDermid. I have never read anything of hers, I'm not a crime novel type of person. However after reading this book I have changed my mind.


This book is set in both London and the Lake District; so a place (the Lake District) I was familiar with.  It's a bit of mystery, a bit of history, some murder's, peppered with a little romance here and there.  I did wonder at first how all the characters would mesh together, but they did wonderfully.  It was one of those books I didn't want to put down as I wanted to know what happens next.  I learned some new things from the book about William Wordsworth and Fletcher Christian; and it has made me want to read more of Val's books.

By the way, it looks as though different countries had different covers on their books, as the one I read had a different cover entirely.