Baking adventures with bananas, and wine!

Baking, is the one thing in this world I feel like I am really and truly good at. And older woman told me about these cookies she used to eat when she was little and gave me the recipe. I made them last night and today at work she just came in and told me "Those cookies brought back so many childhood memories, I felt like I was 10 years old again" really and truly made my day. Amazing how a little thing like a cookie can mean so much. 

On that note. Here are the cookies!

They are made with banana, oatmeal, and m&ms. They are SUPER tastey, soft and amazing. 

Along with that I made banana walnut muffins 

These were also super easy and delicious. Even the doctor next door said they are good! 

The other night I also made banana bread 

It came out so good! Soft gooey crust with a moist flavorful center. I do have to say I am quite proud of my banana adventures this week. 

Why all the bananas you ask? Well I had gotten on to a smoothie/juicing kick two weeks ago and bought a ton of fruit and veggies. Well, of course I forgot about the bananas and there I was with 10 brown bananas. So I figured the only logical thing to do was to bake them! 

And of course, while you bake, you need to drink! Found a copy cat recepie for the blackberry sangria from carrabbas and it was amazing! 

My inner Julia child coming out. 

I couldn't find the blackberry so I substituted it for blueberry and I add a splash of sprite (the bar tender at carrabbas told me that secret) it is killer! 

Happy baking everyone!!! 

DIY heating pad.

I was having a particularly crummy night on Monday, with a belly ache on top of it all. The only thing that seemed to be helping was warmth and pressure. And while I have a heating pad, it doesn't help in the way of heaviness. As usual I had been pinteresting earlier in the day and was reminded of the heating pads I used to make when I was younger. You can take many different things and see them up into fabric and it makes a great little warmer. 

I chose a soft plaid I had laying around and cut it into a kitty cat shape and sewed it up, leaving about a 2 inch hole in the side where I could stuff it. I had in my cupboard a few bags of different dried beans, and a ridiculous amount of white rice so I poured it all into the bag I had made, sewed up the hole, and threw it in the microwave for a few minutes and done! I now had a nice heavy kitty shaped heating pad. 

My cat approves since he wouldn't get his tail out of the pictures. 

There you have it! A quick simple DIY. 

You can use all kinds of things to stuff it and add herbs and oils to make it smell good if you use it for headaches and the like as well. 

Till next time!

Update:

I made another kitty last night for my sister and remembered to take a picture of it pre sewed 

Canada and then some.

The following events took place from 11/27-12/3 As I mentioned previously, the Hubby and I took a (notso) little road trip to Toronto, Canada back in November. Why? Well why not?! Calebs cousins, Laura and Jordan from California had asked us earlier in the year if we would be interested in going to Tornoto with them, and we saw no reason not to. So early Wednesday morning (which happened to be the 4 year anniversary of our first date fyi) we packed up my parents mini-van and hit the road, well, that is after we went to the bank and then back to our apartment because hubby forgot something. But we were in no rush so off we went.

Its about a 9 hour trip by car, so we loaded up on snacks, red bull and 5 hour energy bottles and made our way about 4-5 hours into New York and stopped at a cute little diner called Crazy Ottos Empire Diner.

We had an amazing breakfast and met a few cool people there and we were back on the road again. It had been raining all night into the morning so I was thrilled when it stopped and finally saw some snow. We were told we were going to be driving into a bad storm but we had nothing of the sort happen, which let me say, we were super happy about. When we were almost at the boarder we saw our first Tim Hortons of many and stopped by the Duty Free store to get some supplies.

While we were there we made our goodbye texts/calls because our phones would no longer work unless we had WIFI. We got ahold of his cousins who were supposed to be arriving at 6:30, turns out the airline messed up their flights and they wouldnt be arriving until 9:30, which was a bummer, since that also meant we couldn't get into our hotel until we had them. I was excited because I got to be the one to drive through into Canada and talk to the customs officer, who was super nice.

And we were there! MPH turned into KM/hr and I had to remember that 80 was really my 65. Our GPS took us some crazy coastal road into Toronto instead of the highway, it took us a whole lot longer to get there, but it was very beautiful I will say. Once we made it into the city we found our hotel, and double checked whether or not they would let us in, they would not, so we found a cute little place for dinner and some drinks to kill time until their flight arrived. This is where it starts to get good. My husband drives us to this airport in Toronto, and to me it looks a little small, but he tells me that the plains fly in on the island, and then all the passengers are brought over on a ferry, so i think nothing of it. The whole parking lot was under construction, so instead of paying $20 to park for a half hour we drove around. Whenever a flight landed the attendants would let you drive around this circle and pick people up. We did this about 10 times and still no cousins. I go inside to wait, and looking at the arrivals screen i notice there are only local flights coming in, so i go back to my husband as ask him, " Are you sure this is the airport?" "This is the Toronto airport babe" "Are you sure there isnt another one? Like an international airport?" Sure enough after a little investigation, we see that there is another airport, 20 min away from us, which is the one they came into. However at this point it was 11:30. I suggested going to the hotel to see if they were there, which is what we did, they had not come to the hotel, yet. While I am sitting in the car I manage to get WIFI and I have missed messages from them asking where we were. Meanwhile a crazy scary homeless man is knocking at my window and begging, a taxi pulls us behind us and he moves on to those poor souls. Caleb was about to drive away when I say let me go in and try calling them. When i get a message "We are at the hotel, where are you?" I reply with "At the hotel" I turn the corner and there they are! We explained the whole debaucal to them and after a drink or two we all have a laugh about it. The poor things had their luggage lost too! It was quite the crazy day, and after a random Pizza Pizza adventure from the boys we all went to bed and got ready for the next day. Thursday, We spent the day wandering   around the city looking for different cute places, coffee shops, pubs, stores and the like. Jordan was on the hunt for some good poutine, if you've never had or heard of poutine it is basically gravy and cheese on fries only way more involved,Caleb took us way off course, and we landed in a few places that were not so great, but eventually, after a half hour on yelp in a random Starbucks mooching off their WIFI we landed in a pub that I had chosen we we walked by it earlier. It was called Elephant & Castle, when we walked in they told us about their $4 shot specail called the Burt Reynolds, it was a special for Movember, made of Sailor Jerry and Butterscotch, and we were sold.

They had AMAZING poutine and great drinks and all in all it was a success. 

We stayed there until we had to go pick up the other couple who was staying with is Zach and Aubrey. I honestly don't remember what happened after they got there but it consisted of chillin in our hotel and having a few drinks. Also the boys went out to buy us poutine, when they came home full and empty handed none of us were surprised. We still yelled at them anyway.   Friday, The boys were so excited and half the reason behind going to Canada was to go to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

We got to see a lot of cool things in there and they had some virtural hockey to play and we all got a picture of us with the Stanley Cup.

From there we went to a fancy little restraunt for lunch where we got beer samplers and fondue and some delicious fries and sandwiches.

From there we ran into another pub and since there was no where to sit we had did an irish car bomb and went to the next place.

Another ICB and a pitcher of beer later, we were back at the hotel.

The boys went out to buy beer and the girls went to the rooftop hot tub, which was beautiful but we got chloriened to death in the hot tub. We spent the night playing hockey in the living room and we went to bed because the next day we were going to Niagara! Saturday, The 6 of us piled into the van and we were off to Niagara  Falls.

Made the hour and a half trip go by fast by playing catch phrase in the car. If you have never heard of it, here is the description "Think fast! The SCRABBLE Electronic CATCHPHRASE game challenges you to come up with words and then pass the game fast so you don’t get caught holding the bag! Give your teammates clues so they can guess the word or phrase on the game unit’s screen. But no rhyming, first letters or parts of the word, or the other team gets a point! Once your team has guessed it, pass the unit fast to the other team. When the buzzer goes off, whoever has the unit loses a point to the other side, so move fast! When your team gets to 7 points, you win!" Important information for later on. We got to Niagara Falls, and it was beautiful, it wasnt to stupidly cold outside so we all got to enjoy looking at all of the scenery.

From there we drove a little under an hour to Niagara on the Lake a adorable wine town. We got some snacks at a place that had crepes and flatbread pizzas which were amazing. Did a small wine tasting at a shop.

Found a fancy pub and had a few drinks and then on our walk back to the car found a cute shop full of jellys, jams, sauses, dips etc. Everything there was delicious. Aubry and I made a kitty friend, and then we drove back to Niagara to see it lit up, which was beautiful, then back to toronto, playing catch phrase the whole way.

It was early enough in the night that we went to find dinner. Jordan had had his heart set on going to this restraunt owned by an Iron Chef called Lee. Well the only problem was when we got there the power was out. Which worked out because people werent showing up to their reservations because of it, so were were able to get a table at 11:30. While we waited though, we found a neat pub that had guiness, jenga, and the best steamers i've ever eaten.

Lee was interesting, it was asian fusion and tapas style.

Sunday, our last day in Canada. We spent some time driving around, and then eventually parked and did a lot of walking around, again on the quest for food. We stopped at a place for a small lunch and then it all ended with Caleb, Laura and Jordan eating at a smelly Vietnamese sandwich place and Zach, Aubrey and I having shots and a beer back at Elephant & Castle before we had to bring them to their hotel. One last round of catch phrase and we said our goodbyes, and the rest of us were off to Buffalo,NY, on the hunt for the orignal buffalo wings. We stopped first at Anchor Bar, where the wings were invented, super sketchy place but decent wings.

The boys ordered wings at their rival bar, whose name i cannot rememeber and we back on the road, destination Cleveland. We arrived at our hotel around 2am, and quickly made friends with the valet and receptionist, and then finally made it to bed. Monday, We were up and out the door in search for coffee found a cute little hipster coffee shop and walked around some more and ended up at a pub (surprise surprise) the boys were happy to finally have affordable whiskey again. 

Side note, in Canada they only give you one ounce pours. So if you are a whiskey drinker it'll cost you a lot of money to get a decent drink. 

From there we walked to the rock and roll hall of fame which was the highlight of celevland for me.

I'm huge into music so this place was amazing for me. If you ever are in Ohio check it out. After we finished there we made our way to a little place for some more poutine to hold is over till dinner. Then we went back to the hotel and got dressed for another fancy dinner at a top chef restraunt named Lola.

My aunt and a coworker met us there and we had an amazing dinner. We all shared a few dishes and it was not disappointing. That night we toon out bottle of ciroc and catch phrase down to the lobby and ended up playing the game with the valet and receptionist from the night before. If you can just imagine that all of us jumping around and yelling in a ghost town lobby of a hotel at 1:30 am. It was amazing. It was 2 when we finally made it to bed. 

Tuesday, 

Again we found a little spot for coffee and a bagel and then drove around the surrounding area looking for a cute town that I don't think existed and then we went to a place called Melt. It's a restaurant that specializes in grilled cheese sandwhiches. It was SUPER good. Then we brought Laura and Jordan to the airport and said our goodbyes, and Caleb and I were off to Canton, Ohio to the football hall of fame.

I've never seen my hubby so happy. I really enjoyed myself as well. When we closed the place we headed down to Wooster, Ohio to have dinner with my aunt and uncle, two of my favorite people in this world. We ate a cute little place with great pasta! We said our goodbyes around 8 and we decided to drive through the night back home. It takes just about 12 hours to get from Wooster, Ohio  to Webster, MA, and while the first 5 hours went by fairly quickly the last 7 were rough. The roads were so painfully foggy you could barely see anything and the only other drivers on the road were truckers. But at 8 am we had safely made it back to my parents house to drop off the van and pick up our cat.

When we finally made it back to our aparetment we were zombies and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed the only problem was there was a large bump in my bed.

When we got brave enough to pull back the covers we descovered a giant teddy bear.

Later we found out it was my husbands sister and brother in law who did it. 

Finally after packing and shipping all my eBay items I passed out and so did the hubby. Vacation was over, and while we were sad we were too tired to notice.