Banana Bread

With a few overripe bananas on the counter I thought today would be as good as any to try a recipe from scratch! I'm one of "those" people that makes banana bread from a box...oops. Now that I'm outed I figure I should share with you guys a recipe I tried this morning for some homemade banana bread. It's quite delicious and if you've never attempted to make it from scratch before I highly encourage you to do so! It's insanely easy and just makes you feel much better than just opening a box, mixing it together, and throwing it in the oven! The buttermilk really makes the bread moist. Slather some butter on it right out of the oven and enjoy :)

Buttermilk Banana Bread

(*Yields two loaves)

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

    5-6 very ripe bananas  
              

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Prepare two loaf pans by buttering and lining with parchment paper

Sift or whisk flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add pecans if using, then set aside. 

In a separate bowl, cream sugar and butter. Mix eggs, one at a time, then add the bananas. Add dry ingredients and buttermilk, alternating until incorporated. Try to end with the dry ingredient addition, and be sure not to over mix.

Bake in buttered loaf pans for one hour until toothpick comes out clean.

Our Week In Photos

In an effort to blog a little more in the future I've decided to jump on the bandwagon and start sharing our days in photos with you lovely people! As most of you know we are heading out soon to bigger and newer things, so hopefully these type of posts will continue to get a little more exciting between now and then ;)

This week we...

Went and played in the river...

Enjoyed spending some extra time with daddy...

Investigated some scary shrubbery...

Got some exercise and swam in the river...

Barked at a train...

Found out there were camels in Del Rio at one
point or another (who would have thought?)...

Had to take a bath because we were extra stinky
(and obviously not too excited about it)...

Found a cool new "hiding" spot...

Got sick :(....

Enjoyed each others company :)

Love,

The Etheridges

Playing Catch Up

Well, the hubs is finally back home after a month long TDY, meaning things are back to normal around the Etheridge household! It's so nice to get back into the routine of our daily lives, as mundane as they may be sometimes, and to have another warm body around the house. It's funny how you know you miss someone when they are away but you don't really realize how much until they are back with you again. Thankfully this will also be the last time we are apart for an extended period of time for a good while, something I'm very much looking forward to enjoying ;)

So happy to have him home...and to
get some Chick-fil-a :)

It was great timing for the love of my life to get back home as we were able to meet up with some friends in San Antonio the weekend he returned. I met up with the hubs on Friday and we decided to spend the night in "the city". We were also fortunate enough to get to reconnect with a long time friend, who was not only the hubs roommate in Colorado but also one of our groomsmen. For those of you that don't remember, he was one of those awesome people that helped pull our wedding together at the last minute and was also honored enough to walk Winston down the aisle as the ring bearer! Anyways, it was great to be able to meet up for drinks and hang out at one of our favorite piano bars in San Antonio called Howl At The Moon. If you're ever up there you should check it out, it's pretty neat!

We also got to meet up with these goons and their mustaches
for lunch on Saturday!

We were also very blessed to be able to celebrate Easter together this year. I decided I'd got all out this time around and make an Easter basket for my sweet husband, as a welcome home gift! I think this is a tradition I'm going to continue though from now on. It was so fun to hunt around town for things to put in his basket and I love giving him gifts, so all in all it was a fun new tradition we've started.

I also got some Easter goodies! Pajama pants.
What more could a girl ask for!

Our Easter was pretty great as we enjoyed getting to spend some much needed time together. We've also been catching up on The Bible on the History channel (thanks Damian for setting it up to record ;)) which was a neat way to continue our Easter day celebrations. To end the evening there was a pretty neat hail storm. It doesn't rain/hail here often, so when it does it always gets everyone pretty excited.

The crazy hail storm

Everyone was excited about the rain!

It sure is great to have my sweet husband home and I'm looking forward to spending some time with him in the next few weeks before things get crazy around here again and life starts to pick back up. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday!

Love,

The Etheridges

P.S. He shaved the mustache...thank goodness Mustache March is OVER!