Frosted Banana Bars

Frosted Banana Bars from Taste of Home.

I made these delicious bars from the 2000 Taste of Home Annual Recipes cookbook.  I hadn't made them for years and I had forgotten how good they are.  I served them to our Small Group and sent a bunch of them to work with Mr. SBQ.  Some of the responses were - "Oh my gosh - those are awesome"; "what a treat"; "delicious"; "YUM"; "so awesome, so awesome".  And, Little C said the banana flavor was really good.   :)

The nice thing is that they are pretty easy and serve a lot of people!

Frosted Banana Bars

I have included the link to the recipe, and the recipe straight from Taste of Home's website.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1-1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 cup)
• FROSTING:
• 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3-3/4 to 4 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions

• In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Stir in bananas.
• Spread into a greased 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (do not overbake). Cool.
• For frosting, in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla until fluffy. Gradually beat in enough confectioners' sugar to achieve desired consistency. Frost bars. Store in the refrigerator. Yield: 3-4 dozen.

Nutritional Facts1 serving (1 each) equals 148 calories, 7 g fat (4 g saturated fat), 28 mg cholesterol, 96 mg sodium, 21 g carbohydrate, trace fiber, 1 g protein.

Originally published as Frosted Banana Bars in Taste of Home June/July 2000, p33

Chocolate + Chocolate + Vegetable = A Perfect Muffin

The Chocolate Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread won out!

I grated the zucchini that I had and it was exactly 3 cups which is what I needed for this recipe, so that made the decision for which recipe to make.
I made 12 muffins and 1 small bunt cake.  Next time I will make all muffins.  18 minutes was a perfect baking time for the muffins.  They are not overly sweet, but have a nice flavor.  They are very moist because of the zucchini, Greek yogurt and extra light olive oil.  Little C said she doesn't like them, she LOVES them! :)

Click Here for the recipe.  You can also click the name of the recipe if it is hi-lighted and I will have a link attached.

I think that may be it for new zucchini recipes I am trying this year.  If I can get some nice farm zucchini, I want to make another cake.  Today I am planning to make a batch of brownies and frosted banana bars for my small group.  Hope I have lots of hungry guests!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins

Markers and Papers - A Few of My Favorite Things

Here are some recent cards I made for a friend who was sick, birthdays, and hello's.

I have started using the Tim Holtz Distress Markers for my stamping and I love them!  It is so much easier to match the ink to the papers, and they have really nice coverage.

At the moment I am getting ready to work on some albums; and I am debating making another zucchini cake, or trying the chocolate chocolate chip zucchini bread - tough decision!  I will try to report back on that in the next few days. :)

Thinking of You Card - Pink

Happy Birthday Card - Polka Dot

Happy Birthday Card - Green

Hi Card - Dog Bone Times

Hi Card - Dog Bone Times

Fall's Almost Here

Temperatures in the high 80's won't keep me from decorating for Fall!

I am pretty sure this is my first ever front door wreath!
I wanted to make a pretty Fall wreath and found all my items with only two stops at craft stores!  (This might be a project record for me)   I was not going to have a scarecrow, but this little guy literally fell out of the box at me and I thought he was too cute not to add.  It took more time to find the wreath items than it did to put it all together.  It's all pretty simple and adds a nice splash of color to the front door!

Enjoy the first weekend of Autumn!

Fall Wreath

Fall Wreath

Zucchini Mania

I don't grow my own zucchini, so I don't have the problem of tons of zucchini to use up at once, but I do love zucchini and buy a lot of it.  I had two medium zucchinis I needed to use yesterday and this recipe looked really good.  It is!  I made one loaf in a bundt pan and it took about 40 minutes; the other was larger in a loaf pan and it took about 65 minutes.

I had 1 1/2 cups of shredded zucchini left and I almost made cookies, but I didn't want to get carried away, so I added it to a gnocchi & vegetable dish I made for dinner last night.   One of my new favorite things to do with zucchini is to cut it in sticks (like french fries) and bake on parchment paper for 20-25 minutes at 425.  I don't add any oil or anything and it quite tasty, especially with enchiladas and fajitas.

In my searching for recipes yesterday, I found a chocolate zucchini bread I will have to make next week, and some interesting cookie recipes.  As long as I can get my hands on good zucchini, I will be trying out more recipes.  Then it's time for some fall apple and pumpkin recipes!

Zucchini Bread

Birthday Cards

Last week I was trying to make some cards and felt like I had zero creativity!
Sometimes I get a ton of ideas for cards and other times it's a struggle to put anything together.
I like to be inspired by something and come up with my own creations.

Birthday cards are always a problem for me, probably since I want them to reflect perfect birthday happiness.   With these I tried to be simple, using an embossing folder, pretty papers, and the birthday number.

Below are Birthday cards I made last week for our neighbor who likes pink, and my niece who at the moment likes camo/army green.

Happy Birthday to my brother, who I am pretty sure will not see this! :)
Have a happy day, even if it's not your birthday!

7 Birthday Card - pink

10 Birthday Card - green and blue