Create a gorgeous mini-greenhouse indoors. You’ll need mini glass vases, a glass dome (the shape above works really well), and fresh herbs or flowers. This creates a greenhouse effect, allowing herbs and flowers to last for days and days. How eco-chic! Makes a great centerpiece, and allows you to change the look with your mood.
Tiny vases filled with herbs or flowers adds an instant pop of color to your table or windowsill. It costs pennies, and looks like a million bucks! Not to mention, it smells delicious.
Group different types of herbs together to create a more interesting display.
Keep mini vases of rinsed fresh herbs in the refrigerator for quick access to herbs for cooking.
I’ve been making banana bread since 5th grade. That’s also the year I begged my mom to teach me how to do the laundry. I was born with domestication in my bones, evidently. I have literally been making this recipe since I was 10 years old, so it has deeply-rooted memories of home to me.
Home smells like freshly baked banana bread. I’ve baked thousands of loaves of banana bread. When you stop by my house for a cup of coffee, odds are, I’ll make a banana bread while we are gossiping around the kitchen island.
Banana Bread Recipe
Ingredients
3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
Method
Preheat the oven to 350°. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4″ x 8″ inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.
*Note: There are so many variations you can add to this, such as walnuts, banana chunks, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, sliced almonds, coconut, dried cherries, etc., in addition to various icings and glazes on the top. For a quick icing, purchase cake icing, and microwave in its container for 30 seconds (or until pourable), pour over loaf of banana bread. Sprinkle chopped walnuts on top of icing. I can tell you from experience, this brings ooohhhs and aaahhhhs.
Al fresco dining can be one of the most romantic things you do all summer. Opt to go al fresco when given the option. Dining outdoors, whether it be in a restaurant or in your yard, can be ultra-sexy. The outdoors and fresh air will lift your spirits, and the sun gives your body the needed vitamin D it requires.
Al fresco dining can be incredibly sexy. Dining outdoors is beautiful when the sun is going down and there are flickering candles all over the table. If you need ideas to spice up “date night”, think al fresco!
Alfresco not only works on your date, it also works on a crowd. Have some friends over and dine alfresco in your own yard. Attention to details, such as beautiful glasses and plates, gorgeous linens, candles on the table, hanging lanterns, pillows, fresh flowers, etc., are essential in making your al fresco experience shine!
Throw an al fresco dinner party for your friends or your date this weekend. Make it shine. Be original. Be fabulous!
Del Monte wants to give women what they want. They asked 1000 British women whom they would most like to lick, in the form of a popsicle. James Bond won…the Daniel Craig version. Thus, you now have a frozen Daniel Craig on a stick. Unforch, they are only being sold in England.
Excellent choice , Brits! Daniel Craig is a superior selection. I actually made it through an entire James Bond film courtesy of Daniel Craig….meow! In my opinion, he’s the best James Bond…ever. He perfectly melds all the qualities of smart, sexy, cool, dangerous, rugged, masculine, and drop-dead-gorgeous together to create the deliciousness that is Daniel Craig.
The popsicle’s face is a bit frightening. Keep in mind, this is their model. Stay focused!
Whether you need a quick bite for friends who suddenly show up on your door step, or if you just want to look like a rockstar to your kids and their friends, you can make this in seconds with zero effort.
Grab a great serving platter, then put rinsed strawberries on one half of the platter, Oreo cookies (low fat, double stuffed…whatever you like) around the other half of the platter, and Fat-Free Cool Whip in a bowl in the center (not the bowl that it came in, please.) (editorial note….Fat-Free Cool Whip tastes just as great as regular. It’s one of the few foods on the market that you can’t taste the fat-free-ness in the product. It’s delicious!)
It’s all in the presentation. Great serving platter + Great center bowl + Display beautifully = Big results for little effort. Perfect for a picnic (keep Cool Whip in the cooler on ice until ready to serve.)
On May 19, 2009, I’ve been extended the wonderful opportunity by Smart Talk Women’s series to meet the fabulous Diane Keaton in Cincinnati. I’ll be asking Diane some questions….make sure and send me what you want to know, straight from DK herself!
To hear what people are saying about the Smart Talk Connected Conversations and to purchase tickets for the event, click here.
Diane is such an icon! I relate to so many of her characters…especially JC in Baby Boom. The Tiger Lady. Who didn’t want to be her? Every ambitious career girl can relate to JC. Business world takes the Tiger Lady down. Tiger Lady channels her own brilliance, and ends up turning the business world down in the end.
It was this movie where I developed my love for all things East Coast. Ever since, I’ve wanted to uproot and move to my own 62 acre Vermont estate. I still haven’t ruled that out, as a matter of fact. Moving to Vermont and making organic baby food from the apples I grow would not be that far out of the realm of normal for me, after all.
In the end, JC wanted it all, and she got it all! That’s why it’s always good to want it all. Break the glass ceiling. I think that if you stay true to whatever it is you desire, if you want it all. you just might get it. That’s why it’s good to keep wanting….wanting it all.
One of the wonderful things about blogs is that it connects you with people you normally wouldn’t have known otherwise. Take, for instance, The Vintage Kitten. She lives in the English countryside and loves all things vintage. Cocktails are her specialty.
This cocktail, a Cloud Nine, will be perfect for entertaining my friends tonight. Thanks, VK!
Visit my girl across the pond, The Vintage Kitten and her husband, Mr. Kitten, and explore her style and recipes. She has the best cocktail recipes…ever! You’ll love her vintage style.
Blend all the ingredients together with lots of ice until slushy.
Dip the rim of the glass in chocolate shavings and carefully pour the drink without touching the chocolate. Float lightly whipped cream on the top of the cocktail and decorate with raspberries.
Channel your inner girly-girl with this recessionista find. You’ll be irresistible for whomever you are cooking for in this retro-inspired girly apron.
One of the best gifts you can give to someone is to make them a table-full of their favorite delicious foods. And who can resist a girl who meets her man at the door wearing this apron with a glass of homemade lemonade in hand, adorned with thin lemon wheel slices? Seriously, who?
Channel your femininity and shower it on someone today. At only $23.75, this aligns with a recessionista’s budget. Shop Etsy for more girly finds.
Whose ready to win $1,000,000? I am, bring it, Dough Boy! Pillsbury is having their 44th Pillsbury Bake Off Contest. They are offering their fabulous cash and prizes, as usual, with the grand prize being a cool mill!
I love Bake Off time. It’s always fun competing for great prizes, but the process of winning is just as fun. You have to create original recipes, which lets you spread your creative wings in the kitchen to invent great dishes, many of which you’ll discover by chance. My mind is constantly in motion, the wheels are always turning when I’m thinking of original recipes for Bake Off. Inspiration is everywhere, so use it to your advantage and be savvy enough to recognize it.
You’ll have four categories in which you can enter…Breakfasts and Brunches , Entertaining Appetizers, Dinners Made Easy, and Sweet Treats. Are your wheels turning yet? I feel like a strong contender in Breakfasts and Brunches and Entertaining Appetizers! My mind is most definitely in motion.
I love Bake Off!
For complete details on Pillsbury’s Bake Off, click the blue-eyed one above. Test your recipes out on your friends and family for feedback. Feed your neighbors, your co-workers and see what makes them beg for more. Throw a party and test out some Entertaining appetizers. Host Sunday open house dinner for family and try out dinner recipes. Try a double date. Have the other couple bring the wine, and you test your Sweet Treat recipes on them all night.
In an economic time when most magazines are packing their bags and calling it a day, Organic Beauty magazine comes along. Organic Beauty magazine is a new, eco-conscious magazine not exclusively focused on beauty products. Organic Beauty is, in many ways, a complete lifestyle magazine, well-rounded with articles on style, health, fitness, parenting and business—but always with its lens on beauty. I love the idea of an eco-chic magazine! It’s truly the wave of the future, so get in touch, get in tune, and find out what eco-friendly is all about. Organic Beauty is on newsstands now.
