Foody Friday - Monkey Butter

I found a recipe for Monkey Butter on Pinterest and with a name like that I couldn't help but try it out. 

MONKEY BUTTER (makes 5 cups)

5 medium-size perfectly ripe bananas (no brown spots)

 2 1/2 cups or 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple (I used diced), not drained. 

1/4 cup coconut (I prefer ground coconut)

3 cups of white sugar 

3 Tbsp lemon juice (use bottled for uniform acidity)

Peel and slice bananas, then add all ingredients to a heavy saucepan.

Bring to a boil, stirring often, and then reduce to a simmer. Cook until thick.  As the mixture thickens, stir constantly until desired thickness is achieved.
When thick, spoon mixture immediately into hot sterilized jars, apply heated lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

I probably was a bit conservative with the heat, I kept it fairly low and it took  over an hour of boiling until it was ready to put in the jars. 

But it was worth it and so very good. 

It's just like banana jelly! Yahoo enjoys licking it off the bread, Yip thought it was pretty yummy and Yap won't touch it but then again he doesn't eat jelly at all. I think it got a 3 or 4 stars. 

I have never made or canned any sort of jelly before this. Despite the hour worth of stirring atop the stove making jelly wasn't as difficult as I thought. All my cans sealed which is always a good sign. I think I'd like to try this again and add some other tropical fruits to the mix like mangoes or orange juice. 

Week 16 - Clean

Week 16 theme is clean. I was doing dishes and wanted to try shooting bubbles. This first one originally was very bright and I had to do a lot of editing to get the stream of water and details of the bubbles to show up. 

f7.1, 1/13 sec, ISO 1600

f7.1, 1/10 sec., ISO 1600

The second was a bit better but I still ended up tweaking the contrast some. This one is my favorite though with the shallow depth and the blue reflected on top of the faucet. 

f7.1, 1/20 sec., ISO 1600

Next week....Fire. That could be fun. 

Teenage Boys; do I have ANYTHING to look forward to?

For the last few months I have been struggling with my boys, well struggling with keeping them dressed anyway. Every couple of weeks they are growing out of their jeans, needing a new pair of shoes or all their socks decided to develop holes at the same time. I wish boys were like girls. I have lots of people giving me clothes for Yahoo and if they weren't all I'd have to do is hit up one good garage sale over the summer and she could be set on clothes for a year or more. 


I'm beginning to realize that boys are an entire different animal than girls. I thought I understand them when they were 2, 3, 4 years old. It was cars, jumping, playing guns but now that my boys are 7 I'm beginning to realize I don't know anything about boys. (My boys will be happy to fill you in on my lack of superhero knowledge.) 


On Monday I was subbing for a gym teacher and in the morning I was covering two high school weightlifting classes of about 12 kids a piece with only 1 girl per class. Man, did I feel sorry for those girls. Really my job was extremely boring; give the kids their workout, sit back and make sure no one is goofing around or getting hurt. Basically I sat on my butt for 3 hours with nothing else to do but watching boys lift weights. What an experience; it was like the boys were in their natural habitat in the weight room. 


I don't think I've ever really watched a group of teenage boys before to see them interact and communicate and relate to one another. It was bizarre. I kind of felt like Jane Goodall hiding in the jungle. Boys are so physical; it was like they communicated more by hitting one another than talking to one another. And I noticed that boys do physical acts, like jumping to touch the ceiling or lifting a huge amount of weight, not so much as an act of showing off but because they just have the need to move and to push themselves. Not the girls; the girls got their workout, did it quietly because they needed to get it done but they didn't look too excited about it. I'm sure if the girls had the choice they'd rather sit and talk. 


The more I watched these teenage boys the more they reminded me of really tall 2 and 3 year old boys. Both ages are so very physical with the need to move and do rather than sit and think like the way I notice girls playing and interacting. My experience subbing in the weight room really makes me wonder what exactly I have to look forward to in about 8 years when Yip and Yap are teenagers. Will they have matured at all? (Please someone tell me the answer is yes!!) I felt like I couldn't have related to those teenage boys at all, despite my years of athletic experience. Will I have anything in common with my own teenage sons? 


I'm not the only one worried in my house. DR told me last night he had a nightmare; Yahoo was a teenager and going to prom. I just rolled my eyes at him. At least I have DR because one of these days when I know absolutely nothing about boys he'll be there to fill me in (I hope!) or just take over. Because if I have to raise Yip and Yap through the teen years by myself I doubt I'll make it! 

Look what showed up on my street.

Look what showed up on our street, right outside of my house, this weekend!

I looked out to see all these old cars but I was stirring jelly on the stove so I couldn't take too many photos or my jelly would burn. But I ran out to get a few shots from my front yard. 

I think that the owners were stopping at the museum for a meeting or something because, unfortunately, they didn't stick around too long. 

It was a nice view while it lasted though. 

Sunday Devotions - Daniel's Diet

Daniel 1:8 Daniel made up his mind not to harm himself by eating the king's rich food and drinking the king's wine. So he asked the chief of staff for permission not to harm himself in this way. 12 Please test us for ten days. Give us only vegetables to eat and water to drink. 15 After ten days they looked healthier and stronger than the young men who had been eating the king's rich food. 




With the debate on "pink slime" and other food related issues, recently I've noticed a variety of "diets"  for healthier living gaining popularity on the Internet. There is the Caveman diet, Hormone diet, Gluten Free diet and even the Daniel diet which is based on the prophet Daniel in the Bible as well as Vegetarian and Vegan. Although they all differ in what is and what is not allowed on their diets for the most part all of these diets tend to emphasize eating real food. In saying real food I'm referring to unprocessed, not from a box, food. You know, food that actually requires preparation. No donuts, chips, or Kraft macaroni and cheese. Rather these diets emphasize more fruits, vegetables, nuts and other foods that are grown rather than created in a factory. 


For the last few months I've made some major changes in my diet. Not that I can get my husband convinced to make the same changes but I am starting to see the effects of my brainwashing on my kids. I've given up pop and practically all sugar and I've tried to load my meals with fruits, vegetables, nuts and less meat. It hasn't been easy, especially when it seems my generation and that of my kids seems to have been raised on nothing but processed foods. 


Since making the diet changes I've felt so much better! I've been sleeping better and have had so much more energy and haven't had that afternoon slump that before would have had me brewing a pot of coffee just to keep me going. I've gotten to the point, finally, where I barely crave sugar (candy or pop) any longer. 


A lot of people don't think there is anything wrong with the American way of eating processed and fast foods but the Bible backs up the wisdom of eating better. Daniel asked his Babylonians captors for a diet of vegetables and water and ten days longer he proved that his diet was healthier. When we are healthy we have more energy. When we have more energy we work better for God. This body and this life was a gift by God for God. We are put on Earth to work for him and to get our jobs done to the best of our ability we need to be as healthy as possible. We wouldn't put milk in the gas tank of our car. Then why would we put junk in our bodies? 




Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for giving us these bodies and the right foods to fuel them for Your work that needs done. Help us make the right dietary choices today for ourselves and our families. Amen. 

My Week of Pinterest

A while ago I was giving a lesson on social media to my home ec club. Essentially I was trying to convince a bunch of women, the ages of my mother and grandmother, the positive aspects of sites such as Facebook and Pinterest. 

One of the ladies piped up and asked, "Yeah but aren't a lot of these sites nothing but big time wasters?" 

I kinda felt like I was kicked in the stomach because, you know it's true, Pinterest and Facebook can suck huge spans of time out of my day. But last week I decided that I was going to spend this week applying some of my Pinterest pins....so I can make myself feel better about my growing number of boards..HA! 

1. Easter we decorated eggs like Angry Birds. My boys thought this was awesome! 

Yip even made a Wolverine egg. I was rooting for a Hugh Jackman egg but I'll take what I can get. 

2. Melted Crayon Art 

If you've been anywhere on Pinterest you've seen the melted crayon art. Yap saw it and immediately decided to try it. 

We had to start with the blow dryer really close. I think a diffuser would have helped because after a while the wax started splattering off. 

So then Yap moved the heat to the top and that helped a lot. 

Look at that concentration! 

3. Baking soda and colored vinegar

 Granted, I did go through an entire box of baking soda but Yahoo enjoyed it. I just added some food coloring to vinegar and gave her a pan of baking soda and the fizzies kept her busy for 45 minutes! 

4. Fruit Leather

oh, yum! so much better than store bought. 

5. T-shirt to Tank

This will be sooo nice to wear when the temps soar above the 100's this summer. 

6. Pallet furniture

Okay, I admit this project I started over a month or so ago when I found a pallet, chopped it to the size I wanted and then it's been sitting in the garage ever since waiting for legs. I didn't have a clue what to do about legs. 

I have wanted a coffee table for our living room but needed one that seriously would be able to stand up to my kids. See, my hobbits don't view it as a coffee table or magazine table but rather a launch pad for their Evil Knievel exploits. 

Thanks for the legs DR! 

Now I have visual proof that Pinterest is NOT a waste of time but a useful resource for all aspects of my life! 

(Man that sounds so much better than; Pinterest - a great place to look at people's fingernails!) 

Foody Friday - Pizza Braid

What kid doesn't like pizza? We LOVE making pizza...the only problem is my kids and I don't agree on toppings. I found a fun way on Pinterest for kids to make their own pizza but also make it portable, more like a calzone. 

First roll out your preferred pizza dough and pile it with toppings right down the middle. Me: sauce, mushrooms, peppers, onions and cheese. 

My boys: sauce, pepperoni, cheese 

Then use a pizza cutter to slice the dough on each side of the toppings. Tuck in the ends and then criss cross the dough ribbons across the toppings. 

Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes. 

Cool, slice, dip in the leftover pizza sauce and chow down. 

Like I said, there isn't anything special about making a pizza braid other than it just LOOKS different and if funny pizza helped get my boys excited about making dinner (they actually WANTED to help) I'll gladly do it again. It wasn't that hard and I was surprised the braid stayed together, I kind of expected it to fall apart once it came out of the oven. The best part was I sliced it with a knife and my three year old could eat and I didn't have to worry about the toppings falling off!