BANANARAMA

I spent most of the weekend in the kitchen. I made chicken parmesan, lasagna, chili, and tuna casserole. I am freezing everything so when baby comes we won't have to worry about dinner. On top of the real food, I made banana cupcakes.

Normally banana anything never works for me...until I found this recipe from Martha Stewart (I LOVE MARTHA). The recipe is pretty easy and very forgiving. I made a dozen a few hours ago and there are only 6 left. Martha garnishes each finished cupcake with a banana slice but I think it looks kind of lame, so I leave it out.

Banana Cupcakes with Honey Cinnamon Frosting (Paraphrased)

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter (melted)

1 1/2 cups mashed banana

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Pre-heat oven to 350 and line a muffin pan with paper liners. In a bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and add remaining ingredients mixing until incorporated (do not overmix).

Fill muffin cups and bake about 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove cupcakes from pan and let cool completely on wire racks before finishing with frosting.

Honey Cinnamon Frosting

1 1/4 cup icing sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 tablespoon honey

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Beat all ingredients in a mixer until smooth.

I think I might make a second batch this week...

Birthday Dreams

So lets be serious for a minute, how old does a kid have to be before they have a birthday party that they will remember? Everyone says the first few are just for the parents since the kids don't know whats going on and won't remember anyway...2?...3? even 4?
Just in case you are wondering, I've probably been planning my baby's first birthday since I was 17. I love parties, I love themes and I LOVE PLANNING.
I think I am settled on age 2. For baby's first birthday (BTW we decided not to find out the gender) we can do something simple like shapes and colours. For their second, IT WILL BE AMAZING. I'm thinking garden party. This will work for a girl or a boy.
If we have a boy, we can dig in the dirt for bugs, make creepy crawlers and eat mud pie.
AND it fits for a girl too. We can make flower pots and plant fun flowers, play games with ladybugs and butterflies and still eat mud pie.
We can make bug and flower cut outs to decorate and serve pinwheel sandwiches and call them snails.
Baby is moving around a lot, I think they like the idea too!