Just remember that when you think you have it bad, someone has it worse. Case in point, my friend J has a 17 year old daughter. Never really gets into trouble (occasionally breaks curfew by a couple minutes…but calls to say she is running late). Honor roll student. Involved in lots of school sports and activities. So imagine my friends surprise when her daughter came home with tattoos on her KNEES! And if that was not bad enough, one of the tattoos is their street address.

“Great, now I have to chop off her knees when I kill her, otherwise they will know where to find me” was the response from my friend who is trying to keep her sense of humor about it so that CPS won’t be paying a visit to the home. Though in all seriousness the child might not be seeing the light of day for about a few months and an appointment to have the tattoos removed has already been made.

Why would one do this you ask? The daughter has no actual answer. Which is driving my friend insane of course(this also used to drive my dad insane). Oh sure it can be useful in your drunk college days in making sure you get home and all, but at 17 doesn’t seem that useful. I of course question what happens if they move? I guess the tattoo then becomes a memorial of sorts. Though it could come in handy when you have to apply for things. I hated when trying to find out my credit score when they did things like did you live at this address between the following year? Yikes, I’m old, I don’t remember. But maybe if I had it tattooed on my knees I would remember.

Makes me appreciate that other than the entire household, me, roommate, and dog all on antibiotics for completely separate things, the only other problem this week so far was to use up my bananas before they went bad. So enter the banana cake. It’s been a long time since I made an actual full size cake, I fear I almost forgot how. Okay, not really, but it felt like it. The cake is moist, as are most banana cakes, and studded with butterscotch chips. Topped with a nice brown sugar frosting. Yum, yum. As usual, I can not decorate a cake to save my life, which is why I like cupcakes better.

I’m off to enjoy another piece as well as thank my dog for eating used Kleenex being the worst thing she has done this week.

Banana Butterscotch Chip Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs, at room temperature
6 TBSP plain yogurt
3 large VERY ripe bananas, smashed
1 cup butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350F.

Prepare two 9-inch round cake pans with baking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add vanilla and beat an additional 30 seconds.

Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition.

Mix in half of the flour mixture on low speed.

Add in the smashed bananas and yogurt.

Add in the remaining flour mixture on low speed, just until incorporated.

Fold in butterscotch chips.

Divide batter evenly among two pans. Bake until golden brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool completely on a wire rack. Frost when cool.

Brown Sugar Frosing

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup milk
2 cups powdered sugar, more or less depending on how thick you want it

In a saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter.

Add the brown sugar. Bring to a boil and lower heat to medium low and continue to boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Add the milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

Cool to lukewarm. Gradually add sifted powdered sugar.

Using a stand mixer with whisk attachment beat until thick enough to spread. If too thick, add a little hot water.

I posted on Twitter that “A clean house is the sign of a boring life…my life must be pretty exciting then.” Which of course it’s not. I have a dirty house because I am lazy and folding laundry sucks, it’s far more fun to throw it on the floor and have a scavenger hunt for something to wear…especially when in a hurry.

But in a way it got me thinking, I’m really not doing anything very interesting with my life as of late? I seem to have zero drive. Now I will admit that my health has played into it but I feel that I’m using that excuse, as well as complete lack of funding for fun stuff, to just kind of wander around. I really feel like I am just floating through life right now. Do you ever feel like that? Like you are just going through the motions day in and day out as each day goes passing by. I blink and half of April is gone. Half! And then that gets me thinking, stop wasting life! I just lost several people in my life who would be more than happy to have an extra day to do something with.

So with that, I am going to do my best to spend more time with my friends. I pretty much stopped after the divorce, as I had no money to go do stuff. I still don’t but I could still invite them over, we could all sit in our sweatpants eating crappy food and drinking beer and vodka just as easily while watching sensationalized television. Right? And be nicer to my bff as he is going through a rough time right now and the next few months will be less than awesome for him.

I want to go to the zoo and the aquarium. Granted these things do cost money but I sooo love the aquarium and the zoo is fun too. They have many more animals since I was there last. I can’t resist the sharks and otters I could watch them for hours…and probably will.

I’m going to build an eclectic but awesome garden this summer.

I’m going to add more weight lifting back into my routine. I’ve been way too much into the cardio and yoga as of late. And you know what? I hate yoga. I really do. I keep trying to like it, but most of the time I just feel all squished and weird. My friends love it. The constantly post about how they are just back from it…blah, blah, blah. I have no spiritual connection to it whatsoever that my friends seem to get from it…these are the same people who say that about running. Mostly I just want to kill the instructor who always wants me breathing (I sort of already need to do this woman), to extend (I’d like to extend my middle finger), and to make the connection (what am I the Internet?). Anyway, more weights, I get much more toner with weights than with bendy positions.

And of course, figure out yummy things to go on this blog. It becomes far trickier come summer as I hate heat as most people know, and turning on the oven is no fun. Hopefully I can come up with something…I’m sure I can. Since I have been all focused on my container farm I have been on fruit and veggie over load. I decided to make a little freezer jam with some strawberries and rhubarb. The rhubarb is in honor of my mother. Personally, I can take it or leave it…but since mother’s day is coming up I thought I would be nice. These are super simple to make and can be made in any size. I of course like the mini.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend…and please, don’t clean your house.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Freezer Jam Meringue Tart

Okay so this is a lazy recipe as I don’t have time to write it all out and I followed other people’s recipes so we are just going to link.

This tart dough, plus this freezer jam, plus this meringue top makes my tart. Bake off the tart dough, fill it with jam, top with meringue and either torch it or put under broiler. I dusted with powdered sugar and garnish with a piece of berry. Very simple.

Dear Victoria Secret,
First off, thank you so much for caring and taking the time to write me every day (sometimes twice a day) it really does mean a lot to me that you care so much about me and my undergarment choices. That being said, you clearly have not seen a photo of me as of late. Because if you did you would know that the pink dental floss you are calling underwear would look insanely horrid on me. For I am on 120mg of Prednisone a day which is not kind to the body. And even before that I was not what one might call model shape.

Let me let you in on a little secret of my own Victoria…I eat food. I know your models have learned to live on Sugar Free Red Bull, cigarettes, coke, and air, but that bandwagon is not for me. And therefore sending me photos day in and day out of barely clothed women isn’t going to inspire me to run and buy your clothing. And though it should probably inspire me to not eat for the next six months that isn’t going to happen either as I know their bodies are ridiculous and non-attainable to most women (without extreme measures). Super models never seem happy anyway. Well, when they are photographed high or drunk sure. And they suck in bed, or at least that’s what this study says.

So kindly remove me from your mailing list. I keep asking. I moved you to spam but still have to clear that out. And there you are next to the Sur La Table spam, which I don’t mind but my pocket book does.

Yours truly,
Peabody

Another reason my body will never be in shape for barely there wear….this pie. Though you would think this pie would be super sweet or rich, it surprisingly isn’t…well at least to me. Yes, it’s a little ghetto. My oh so nice best friend was more than happy to comment “aren’t you a pastry chef?” which I replied that I was NOT and to shut up and just try it. Which he did. And ate the piece quickly. Followed by a much larger piece and my point was proven.

You will want to use the mini ones on this. If you use the big ones you will have more fondant flavor than chocolate. Which you may want. But if you don’t then I would maybe add more milk chocolate if you can only find the large ones.

If you missed the post earlier today you should know that I’m spending my summer trying to grow a farm on my patio…should be fun and probably full of mishaps. You can of course follow my progress on this blog but also know I am in competition with two other bloggers for best farm. Did I mention they live in farm country…and I live in the land of no sun…oh and we are supposed to get snow on Thursday. Sigh. Just in time for planting. Oh and to the person who asked, yes the girl in the photo with the tomato is me. And yes, my parents were cleraly horrible parents as I am allergic to raw tomatoes.

Cadbury Cream Egg Pie

1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1 cup cold water, divided
1 tsp. vanilla extract
10 ounces Mini Cadbury Cream Eggs (this was about 22 of the small version), melted over a double boiler
1 cup Marshmallow Cream (Fluff)
2 cup heavy whipping cream, whipped
1 Chocolate Crumb Crust (mine were on sale for $.79 so I didn’t bother to make one)

In medium saucepan combine ½ cup cold water and gelatin; let stand 1 minute.

Cook stirring constantly, until gelatin is completely dissolved. Remove from heat.

Stir in vanilla and remaining water.

Beat in melted Cadbury Eggs and marshmallow cream.

Chill until mixture mounds when dropped from spoon (this was about 2o minutes).

Fold in whipped cream. Mix until fully incorporated.

Turn into crust. Spread evenly and top with extra Cadbury Cream Eggs if desired.

Refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Serve cold.

In Arizona, at least the districts I worked at, the teachers had to do the duties: Morning playground duty, bus duty, lunch duty, afterschool duty, and after school bus duty. Which for the record blows. So many parents come to you at this time and want to ask questions and you can’t answer them because you have duty. Of course I usually just told the parent to walk and talk with me, but some didn’t want to. Nor did they want to stand in 112F weather for afternoon duty for 15 minutes…wimps. But playground duty in the morning was my favorite. It was my favorite for the fact that it was all age kids, so you got to interact with students you might not ever see normally. They older kids at K-8 schools are usually way in the back…they like to hide us, for good reason.

One day a fourth grader comes up to me looking a little down. Normally the kids who came up to you were the ones with few friends. His one and only friend at school wasn’t coming to school that day so he had no one to play with. We stood there talking and then he said something that has stuck with me to this day , “I sure hope this isn’t one of my snap shots”. I looked perplexed at him and asked what he meant by that. He went on to tell me that his mom had told him that someone took a snap shot (picture for those who are hockey fans and thinking something else) each day of their life. And that you never knew what moment they were taking the picture, so you always needed to be on your best behavior or doing something interesting so that when you die and they hand you your life scrap book you had nothing to be embarrassed about, always be proud. I asked him if he thought he wasn’t being on his best behavior and sadly he said that his behavior was fine but if this were his snap shot of the day he was pretty lame having no friends a recess. I told him that I begged to differ. I told him that if this was his snap shot of the day that he should look back on it with nothing but pride. This time he was the one that looked confused. I told him that here I was kind of having a bad day, feeling bad that I had no one to talk to and he came over and did me a favor by talking to me and cheering me up. Right away he smiled and said, “Really?” I of course told him yes and smiled back. “Then I do hope this is my snap shot of the day. Thanks Ms. G” and off he went.

First off, how clever is that mom? For the record that student ended up being one of my junior high students and the mom is pretty clever all around. And that kid is a really awesome kid who became a really awesome adult and I hope is collecting a lot of wonderful snap shots. Sometimes when I am sitting around in my sweats and eating cereal looking less than awesome I think, gosh I hope this isn’t one of my snap shots. I think of that a lot. No, not like gosh I hope I don’t get caught on the toilet for one of my snap shot kind of things. More like I sometimes wake up and think, I hope this day has something snap shot worthy in it. And then I realize, that’s really up to me.

If you are a traditionalist you will not love my dessert today. It’s banana pudding…that I messed with. I made banana pudding, added a little more milk to it and some gelatin and made panna cotta. Topped it on some vanilla wafer crushed cookie crust and topped it with Nutella whipped cream (because somehow I missed World Nutella Day…how did that happen). If you love the flavors of banana pudding, then you will enjoy this. I actually infuse the banana into the milk overnight so their aren’t actual pieces of banana in the pudding, makes for a smoother panna cotta.

Hope you all have a wonderful week. I am not sure how much blogging I will be getting to as I am feeling better (yay!) and have a busy week. Hopefully I will collect some really good snap shots this week…I hope you do too!

Banana Pudding Panna Cotta with Vanilla Wafer Crust and Nutella Whipped Cream

For the Vanilla Wafer Crust:
2 cups crushed Vanilla Wafer Cookies
¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
¼ cup granulated sugar <p>

Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix all the ingredients together.
Equally divide among  4 (4-inch diameter) mini spring form pans. Press to form a crust on the bottom of each pan.
Bake for 10 minutes, set aside to cool.

For the Panna Cotta:
2 eggs, beaten
2 ½ cups whole milk, divided
2 SUPER ripe bananas (like the kind you would use for banana bread)
½  cup granulated sugar
1 heaping TBSP cornstarch
Pinch of salt
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 TBSP unsalted butter
2 tsp. unflavored gelatin

The night before you make this smash bananas and place them in an air tight container along with 2 cups of milk. Let sit for at least 12 hours. Remove banana pieces from milk, and strain into a measuring cup. Yes, the bananas will be brown, that’s okay, get over it.
In a double boiler over simmering water, combine eggs, banana infused milk, sugar, cornstarch and salt.
Stir constantly and cook until thick, 10 to 15 minutes
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and butter.
Stir in the extra ½ cup of milk and gelatin. Whisk until fully incorporated and gelatin has dissolved.
Evenly distribute the panna cotta among the 4 (4-inch diameter) prepared crusts. 
Let set up in refrigerator for at least 6 hours, covered with plastic wrap.

Nutella Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 TBSP Nutella
2 TBSP powdered sugar.
Whip the cream on high using beaters or a stand mixer. Once it starts to form stiff peaks add the sugar and the Nutella. Beat until fully combined.
Pipe Nutella Whipped Cream on top of dessert and add a banana for flair.