lifeofyablon.com

by yablon | September 27, 2013

banana bread is the new cupcake

Mini turns 9 next week and I hear from her authoritative voice that cupcakes are SO out. Yes – my friends – the world is finally waking up to the fact that most cupcakes, despite looking incredible, are sickly levitra sales uk sweet and awfully disappointing. Bearing this in mind, Mini has decided her birthday treat for the class will be Birthday Banana Bread but – she advises – it MUST include chocolate chips.

those crucial chocolate chips

Now, as you know, I am a little powerless in my right arm, at least for another week or so. So I set about trying to find a banana bread recipe which doesn’t involve any hand beating or mixing.

And, once I had found one, I bought a big bunch of perfectly ripe bananas.

Only to find that the next morning, there was only ONE lonely banana in the fruit bowl.

Clearly I live with a barrel of monkeys.

So, I bought another bunch but this time some of my curved friends were a little on the green side. And that’s when I learnt how to ripen a banana.

let’s (ethylene) gas those bananas!

All you have to do is place the banana you want to ripen in a paper or plastic bag with an unpeeled apple. The apple emits ethylene gas as it ripens. Trapped inside the bag, the gas accelerates the bananas’ ripening process, allowing me to make this loaf.

Here is the recipe – adjusted to include those chocolate chips:

my magimix does all the hard work

Ingredients

225g self-raising flour

100g butter

150g caster sugar

450g bananas (under lock and key)

½ tsp salt

2 eggs

100g M&S juicy raisons/cranberries

100g chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Mix all the ingredients (except for the dried fruit and choc chips) in your food processor. When the ingredients are all thoroughly combined, pulse in the dried fruit and choc chips. Spoon the batter mixture into a 1k non-stick loaf tin. Bake for 1/1.5 hrs until the banana bread has risen and is golden-brown on top.

pre monkey invasion

enter monkeys

the new cupcake is BBB (birthday banana bread)

Let’s hope Mini and her friends still consider banana bread to be ‘in’ next year.

Queen’s Park: Ostuni

After one week of doing very little while ONLY wearing a tracksuit, I started to feel myself climb the walls. He – on the other hand – was dying for a night in. Moonlighting as my male Florence Nightingale at both ends of the day while maintaining corporate slogger during the day, He could think of nothing worse than a date night.

‘Just look at your face’ he exclaimed. ‘I can see you NEED to go out’. And out we went, just for an hour or so, to eat at Queen’s Park’s new eaterie, Ostuni.

Ostuni in Queen’s Park

Bearing in mind we share a postcode with Queen’s Park, I must admit I don’t visit enough. Ostuni is on charmingly cobbled no-through Lonsdale Road, just off Salusbury Road. Full of cross-generational locals, the atmosphere in this very new 170-cover restaurant was definitely buzzy. The manager suggested that He and I sat at the bar so that we could watch the chefs russling up their Puglia regional cuisine. (To be honest, bar seats work best for date nights – less pressure, more fun and less chance of a heavy debate.)

sat at the bar in Ostuni

We visited Puglia a couple of years ago so knew that – if Ostuni was true to its claim – we’d be in for a treat. We ordered two antipasto pugliese (£9 per person) to start, before sharing the cavatelli crudaiola pasta (cherry tomatoes, baisl and salted ricotta £11) and purple sprout broccoli with chilli and garlic (£4).

date nights work at the bar

a huge selection of local cheeses from Puglia in Ostuni

a huge selection of local cheeses and meats from Puglia in Ostuni

My pain killers prevented me from even a sip of anything alcoholic but He REALLY enjoyed his little jug of Primitivo 175 – which at £5.50 shouldn’t be sneezed at!

food envy as our eye catches the salt baked bream

our fresh (typically Pugliese ear-shaped) orechiette pasta

Our food was properly delicious but we still had continuous food envy as we watched the cooking and assembly of some serious Pugliese plates. The restaurant was packed, full of Queen’s Park’s finest: trendy, foodie locals. But I soon got tired and started to crave my tracksuit and the comfort of the sofa. Mission accomplished I saw Him think. Especially when the cool-but-not-too-cool manager sent us home with a generous slice of his lemon tart.

the going home present of lemon tart was devoured on the sofa while we watched Breaking Bad

OSTUNI BAR RISTORANTE 43-45 Lonsdale Road NW6 020 76248035

Sponsored Post: Mulberry Cottages – holiday homes and homes for holidays.

Despite the idea of big, white, fluffy towels, 24-hour room service and an enormous flat screen TV facing a 4-poster bed, hotels can only too often disappoint. Maybe it’s the expectation of heavenly comfort or maybe they just aren’t as comfortable as home? Either way, some of our best family holidays have been in someone else’s home. I mean, let’s face it. We read all those home magazines, obsessing over the fantasy of cooking in that designer kitchen or lounging in that Scandinavian den… so, why wouldn’t we want to pretend we actually live in someone else’s dreamy home – even if only for a week/weekend?

The Treasury – the amazing house we rented for a long weekend

As many of you may have read, last May we lived in one such house for a weekend. Booked through Mulberry Cottages, He and I slept much as Brad and Angelina had done in the sleepy Kent village of Ickham. And now that term has started, my thoughts are already turning to half-term. These city Smalls need a breath of fresh air and so I’ve been digging deep into the countryside (via Mulberry Cottages‘ site) to find another of their homes which we can ‘borrow’.

first I found Hapsford Farm Cottage

First I found Hapsford Farm Cottage, a traditional stone cottage in Frome, Somerset. With table tennis, pool table, table football and its converted cowshed equipped with proper wood fire stove pizza oven, I quickly added it to my list of things to talk to Him about that evening. It’s close to Babington House too so I thought we could cunningly invite Lord and Lady Y (it sleeps 6) so that He and I can escape for dinner one night.

then I noticed Sunshine in Norman’s Bay… (LOVE a bedroom with a beach view!)

… located on an East Sussex shingle beach

But then I clicked through to a house called Sunshine in Norman’s Bay. Tucked away at the end of a single-track road, this beautifully renovated house sleeps 10. It’s located on the stretch of East Sussex shingle beach between Bexhill and Pevensey, in the beautiful South Downs. My cricket-obsessed housemates would give the large garden a massive thumbs up and if the weather isn’t good (always a consideration), a visit to The Herstmonceux Observatory and Science Centre would be a good plan.

I think I’ll let Him choose – because they would both suit me just fine. If you too are looking for a half-term getaway, check out Mulberry Cottages‘ site and – once you’ve found your dream holiday home – quote LIF for a 10% discount (for both weeks of half-term).

Mulberry Cottages specialises in 4 and 5 star quality holiday cottages, all of which offer style, comfort and a certain uniqueness.

This is a sponsored post but I really am looking for somewhere to escape to at half term.

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by yablon | September 24, 2013

adding Method to my cleaning madness

‘A clean and tidy home allows for a clear head’. I don’t know who said that but I wholeheartedly agree. I quite simply can’t function at all with a dirty kitchen, the hallway littered with odd shoes and half a games kit while His socks are lying on the bedroom floor. I feel all uneasy.

So I tidy. All the time. Compulsively… until my house is tidy and my head is clear.

Then I clean. I realise that I now sound like an utter OCD nutter. I don’t actually clean all the time. Instead, I do the bare minimum in between visits from our lovely cleaner. But this surface cleaning is done with the most divine smelling, environmentally-friendly products that exist on this planet.

Method handwash and toilet cleaner

If you don’t use Method, change your Ocado shopping list today. Effective, pretty, safe and pleasantly fragranced (forget that toxic stink of Cif or Flash toilet cleaner)… it’s no wonder Method was acquired for an undisclosed price last September by the Belgian company Ecover.

As always, there’s a great story behind the brand. Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry were childhood friends from Detroit. In 2001, living in what they called a “dirty little flat” in San Francisco, they plotted to disrupt the all-but-impenetrable cleaning products industry which has been long dominated by giants such SC Johnson and Procter & Gamble.

Since then cleaning supplies have taken on a new role in our home. Where these Method bottles are lacking in chemicals, they are – on the other hand – loaded with responsibility and make that quick clean a much more enjoyable task.

my favourite Method friends

Thanks to Big Green Smile for completing my range of Method goodies.

lifeofyablon.com

banana bread is the new cupcake

Queen’s Park: Ostuni

Sponsored Post: Mulberry Cottages – holiday homes and homes for holidays.

adding Method to my cleaning madness

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