Rich Chocolate Banana Ice Cream

I don't know about you but I think bananas are pretty much the greatest ever.  When bananas are ripe, they are just phenomenal.  They give smoothies the best creamy texture without adding dairy.  You can sub half a banana for an egg in so many recipes.  Do I even need to mention peanut butter banana sandwiches?

The Easiest Homemade Donuts Ever

Honestly?  Valentine's Day stunk.  Hard.  Paul and I both had plans to do something for each other but the weather didn't cooperate.  What did we do?  Well, not really anything, which was horribly disappointing for both of us.  Living in the social media age means that we're surrounded by pictures of the meals people made for their partner, the flowers, the cards, the chocolate, the [insert annoyingly romantic/gushy thing here].  It hurts.

How do we fix this?

Lentil-Walnut Burgers

In this installment of Adventures in Housesitting...

I keep getting locked in the bathroom.  Seriously.  It's kind of embarrassing but there it is.  Every night after I wash my face and brush my teeth I have to call to Paul to help free me from the outside.  One of these days...

Chocolate Covered Gingerbread

Housesitting is an interesting business.  There are varying levels of comfort depending on whose house you are temporarily living in.  I often get to stay in the houses of friends and look after their dogs when they go away for a weekend or longer, but this time I'm in the house of people I don't know all too well.  With their cat.  I don't know much about cats but we're getting along pretty well so far.

Make Your Own Naan

I love curry.  I love to make curry popcorn, curry noodles, curry beans and potatoes...  I really love the curry dish that I posted back in early December and I still make it all the time.  It's really inexpensive, it's healthy, delicious, and it's quick to make.

I made curry the other night and I knew I would really want some hot naan to go with it.  I love swirling pieces of naan in the curry and sopping up the flavorful sauce.  The problem?  Paul and I can never agree on store bought naan.  I love super fragrant garlic naan and he want's his plain so it doesn't interfere with the flavor of the curry.

Why not try making it at home?  How hard could it really be?  As it turns out, not hard at all.

Peanut Butter Banana Cookies

There are two questions you get all the time as a newly married couple:

1) How's married life?

2) When are you having kids?

Well I can tell you that married life is great.  I feel incredibly blessed that things are going so well for us.  All of the things you hear about being the biggest challenges in the first year of marriage haven't hurt us.  And with that I just showed you that there isn't a truthful way to give a non-boring answer to that question.

My answer to the second question is that I have 104 kids and counting and am not ready to add any of my own.

A mystical classmate of ours told us that we would have twins by the end of 2014.  (I think he was messing with us...)  Today one of my coworkers told me my hair was looking full and fantastic, was I pregnant?  (She was teasing and I ended up selling her the Pantene Thickening Treatment I'm in love with... She better have been teasing...)  And then there is my recent repeated strong need for a cookie.  It all makes me nervous.

I got home from work today and I HAD to have a cookie.  We have almost nothing with which to make cookies and my car is buried in ice.  Necessity is the mother of invention.  I whipped up these bad boys and my cookie craving has been quashed.  I would like to say that I waited for them to cool even a little bit before digging in, but I did not...

These incredibly simple cookies have very little sugar and no flour.  You could easily make them 100% sugar free by leaving out the chocolate chips, but don't because chocolate is wonderful.  

This recipe is a blend of two great recipes - one is from Shauna Niequist's book "Bread & Wine" and the other is from blogger Shannon Lim.

Peanut Butter Banana Cookies

by New to the Table

Yield: 12 cookies / Total Time: less than 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup quick oats
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 large very ripe banana
• 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350º and line a baking sheet with parchment or silicone baking mat.

In a medium bowl, mash the banana with a fork.  Add peanut butter and stir until well combined.  Stir in vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine oats and baking soda.

Add oats to peanut butter and combine well.  Fold in chocolate chips.

Use cookie scoop or soup spoon to drop large rounds of dough onto prepared sheet.  Do not flatten dough.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until cookies are golden brown.  Transfer immediately from cookie sheet to rack to cool.

I hope you enjoy these!  I certainly have a much happier tum and am ready to dive head first into more homework.  

If you're a newlywed (or not so newly), what is/was your best response to the frequently asked question "How's married life?"  (One of my pastors suggested "We're just exhausted...")  (;

Turkey Sausage and Spinach Pasta

I love Saturday mornings.

I get to enjoy the sunshine that is finally shining through our living room window.
Paul is making breakfast. There is a big pot of freshly brewed Costa Rican coffee in the corner making the room smell amazing. We're watching football. You know, real football.
(Did I mention Paul is English? I've willingly been converted.  Go Spurs!) After the football we're going to go for a hike in our favorite park where we got engaged. It's total marital harmony.

You know what doesn't make for marital harmony?  Figuring out what to eat that will make both of us happy. Paul is a meat and potatoes man. I want veggies in pretty much everything and eat meat sparingly. I know that after a week of black beans, white beans, split peas, and lentils for dinner I need to work harder to compromise.