I was sitting with a group of mom friends and one of them was mentioning how they wished the housing market was better right now (who doesn’t?). Come to find out she wants to sell her four bedroom home and upgrade. I asked why the heck would she do that? Well we might want another child. I said, okay? You have two. Why do you need a 5 bedroom home? And she went in to how ideally she would really like a 6 bedroom home or at least 5 bedroom and a den. A master bedroom, a room for each kid, a playroom (what are bedrooms for?), and guest bedroom.

Growing up we never lived in anything larger than a 3 bedroom home. My parents now retired live in a two bedroom home (with a tiny, and I mean tiny loft up top…it’s an A frame). There were 5 of us. My mom, my dad, me, my two brothers, and our various dogs and random animals I would beg to have from a turtle to rabbits. My parents had their room. I had mine (I was the only girl…if I had a sister I am quite sure we would have shared a room). My brothers shared a room (and not just as kids…as teenagers as well). They had extra-long twin beds (they were tall boys). The “guest” bedroom was my room when people would come and I would get kicked to the couch. My parents did this because they did this thing called live within your means. You might have heard of it?

Not saying that my friend can’t probably afford a 6 bedroom house, both her and her spouse make good money, I just don’t see why you want to add more finical burden to yourself in today’s economy. I’m not sure when the idea of each child should have their own room. Sharing? Ever hear of that? It’s a good lesson to teach kids.

One thing you will definitely want to share are these caramel apples. This is the first time I have ever made a caramel that used sweetened condensed milk and I LOVE it. It gives it a little dulce de leche flavor as well. So nice. Yes, it’s harder than just melting the Kraft caramels down like we did as a kid with some milk…but it’s worth it. If you have any leftover (I did) you can simply spray a pan with baking spray and pour it in. They set up nicely as just plain caramels!

Mini Caramel Apples

25 mini apples (this is a guess) or 12 big apples (also a guess) as I did a mix of both big and small
2 C brown sugar
1 C corn syrup
1/2 C butter
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine the first 3 ingredients. After butter is melted stir in the milk.

Cook to soft ball (230 F degrees). Stir constantly.

Stir in 1 tsp. vanilla.

Remove from heat. Dip apples into the caramel, and then roll in nuts if desired, I used mini chocolate chips.

Let set up on a cookie sheet. Place in refrigerator if needed.

From Your Home-based Mom.com

This was not only a good cake but a good post so we will revisit both. Sixteen Candles is one of the best movies ever.

Oh the movie that gave every teenage girl hope. Hope that the hottest guy in school would leave his well endowed, hot girlfriend for geeky, no body you. Did I mention he is not only hot, but rich and drives a Porsche? Oh yes, this was the modern day Cinderella story that every female teeny bop was waiting to happen. Unless of course, you were the well endowed, hot chic at school…then it was already happening to you (bitch).

That being said, I would never give my undies to a geek. Or anyone for that matter. Now perhaps back then, when my undies were bought by my mother and were ugly (probably the 20 pack from Costco) I might not have cared as much. But gosh darn it, now a days, good looking undies just cost too much to be giving away. Or ripped off for that matter. Granted this did not happen in Sixteen Candles, but it happens in a lot of movies. Sure it isn’t sexy to have to stop to take off your undies, but really, it probably hurts to have them ripped off. And hurts even more if they are La Perla and you paid $45 for them. Now, that hurts. So girls, keep your undies. Or if you do give them to a geek, work out a payment plan with them, and charge interest.

Boobs. Now I am a reasonable person. But for whatever reason, I thought for sure I would wake up on my 13th birthday with boobs. When that didn’t happen, I knew for sure it would be my 16th. For sure. There is a part in the movie where the main character Sam is standing in front of the mirror checking out her lack of bod. Oh how I related to this. When I woke up on my 16th birthday rationally knowing boobs did not grow over night, I still had to look. And look I did, all day. Thank goodness my birthday is in the summer, I would have hate to have been caught starring at my own chest in school. That would have been cool. Not.

Alas I am still waiting on my boobs. Oh sure, from time to time if I gain enough weight I can get some bigger boobs, but then I just get bigger me and so they don’t really look all that hot. So in honor of the boobs I never got and only get when I gain pounds…I made pound cake.

This Brown Sugar Almond Pound Cake is nice and simple…and loaded with calories…3 sticks of butter and 3 cups of sugar. Surely you can pack on some boobs (and stomach, thigh and butt) with this yummy treat….after all “the Donger needs food”.

Brown Sugar Almond Pound Cake with Sauted Spiced Apples

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ cup almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
8 ounce cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 TBSP pure vanilla extract
1 tsp pure almond extract
6 large eggs, at room temperature

Spray a Bundt pan, 10-inch tube pan, or two 8 ½ by 4 ½ inch loaf pans with non stick cooking spray (I used a loaf pan spring form and two mini loaf pans).
Preheat oven to 325F.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, almond meal, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer set on medium speed, cream together the butter and cream cheese, about 3 minutes. Gradually beat in the brown sugar and powdered sugar and continue beating until pale and fluffy.

Beat in the vanilla and almond extract.

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

Switch over to using your hand and a spatula. Add the flour mixture and fold into the batter. Do this until no flour can be seen and batter is smooth.

Spoon batter into prepared pans. Bake until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 75-90 minutes. For my mini loaves, it took 55 minutes. For the spring form loaf pan it took 70 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Cake recipe from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Conner (if you don’t own this yet, you should!)

While cooling, make the apples.

Sauted Spiced Apples

½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground nutmeg
3 large apples, I used Pink Ladies, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 TBSP unsalted butter

Place the sugar and spices into a medium sized bowl and mix till completely combined.

Dredge the apples in the sugar mixture, turning to make sure they are coated well.

Heat butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Place apples in saute pan and cook until apples become soft.

To prepare:
Slice piece of pound cake. Top with spiced apples. Spoon homemade or store bought caramel sauce.

So you probably thought I took another vacation! Nope, just recovering from my vacation. Seems like for every day I am gone, I need two days to recover. But the laundry is finally done.

My family birthdays always seem to fall around major holidays. My mother’s is around Mother’s Day and often falls on it from time to time. My brother is the day before Halloween. Mine sits between Canada Day and 4th of July and my dad’s falls around Canadian Thanksgiving and Columbus Day. Luckily for us, only my mom gets screwed with the double gift. The Happy Birthday/Mother’s Day combo package.

My dad’s birthday is Wednesday. As you can tell from the photo bellow my dad is withering away in his old age and spending his time in his rocking chair. Well he does do some of that. He certainly naps a little more these days…but then again so do I. It’s weird when your parents get older. They always seem to be a certain age to me or when I think of them I think of them at a certain age in my mind. My mother is forever 54 in my head. For years I told people that is how old she was. My mother most likely appreciates this right up until someone does that math and realizes that if my mom was 54 and I am my age she was kind of a raging slut.

This is a very simple banana cake. I spent part of the weekend looking for banana costumes (not for me) and it got me thinking about bananas. The original cake came with what sounded like a lovely frosting of espresso and caramel. But I knew kids would be eating it and I knew that they would much prefer good ol’ cream cheese frosting. My dad would prefer that too!

Everyone have a good Thanksgiving and dad have yourself a good birthday!

Banana Cake

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tap. Salt
1 ½ cups pureed or well mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 large bananas)
½ cup sour cream
11 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 TBSP vegetable oil
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract

Grease and flour two 9-inch round (2-inch high) cake pans. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine and set aside.

Combine the bananas with the sour cream and set aside.

Using an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium-high speed until creamy, about 30 seconds. Add the safflower oil, granulated sugar, and brown sugar and beat at high speed until creamy and light, about 3 minutes. At medium speed, add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the vanilla extract. At low speed, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating it with the banana mixture in two additions and mixing just until blended.

Bake the cake for 25 to 30 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cakes in the pans on wire racks for 10 minutes.

Invert the cakes onto the racks and let cool completely.

Frost Cakes when completely cool with frosting of your choice. I went with Cream Cheese Frosting. I do not like to make a layer cake so I made two single layer cakes…I find you get more frosting that way.

Adapted from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle

So I know people on Facebook are upset about the new changes. I’m not here to discuss those changes. I’m here to discuss the phenomenon that is couples as one person on FB. I hate this. Because usually I’m not friends with the couple, I’m friends with one of the two people. So half the time when they post I don’t know who is actually posting. And then when you comment and it’s the other person and you thought that it was your friend they ask who are you? I’m C’s friend. Oh.

Yes, oh. If you are going to make a joint account maybe only friend the people who you know together as a couple. Maybe only friend other people that are on joint couple accounts.

Interestingly enough, most of the people I know that have these joint accounts usually have them because the significant other wants to make sure that nothing is going on behind their back. If you are at the point where you don’t trust what your spouse is doing on Facebook, maybe you should spend less time on Facebook and more time with your spouse/significant other working on your relationship. In person. Just a thought.

Maybe reconnect with your spouse/significant other by cooking/baking together. If you are like me you have over ripe bananas somewhere on your counter right now. Work on your relationship and bake banana bread all at the same time. Win-win. This of course is not your typical banana bread. I’ve added some peanut butter as well as peanut butter chips. Spread a little marshmallow fluff on there and dead Elvis might come by to visit you.

Peanut Butter Banana Peanut Butter Chip Bread

6 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 cup granulated sugar
½ tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
3 medium, super ripe (like the color scares you ripe) bananas
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 325F.
Sift all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, peanut butter, and sugar on medium-high for 3 minutes, it should be light and fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time and beat for 30 seconds after each egg addition. Add vanilla and beat another 30 seconds.

Add bananas and mix until incorporated.

With the mixer on low speed add the dry ingredients and mix until everything is just incorporated. Don’t over mix. Remove from mixer and fold in peanut butter chips with a spatula. This will also help the rest of the ingredients mix in.

If making mini loaves (makes three) these bake about 30-40 minutes. If you are doing a full size loaf it will take about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. As always, just watch it because each oven is different.