First up is Joanna Gaines' After School Banana Bread. Or, more appropriate to our home, her All The Time Banana Bread. I won her new Magnolia Table Cookbook when we were at the Silos a few months ago and the first thing we tried from it was this recipe. For a frame of reference, it is less like banana bread and more like Heaven. We replaced the chopped pecans with a (heaping) cup of chocolate chips and have made it almost weekly since. It has changed both my life and the number on my scale and you need to make it stat. Scroll down to the bottom of the blog for the recipe.
Also, Caroline Cobb's album A Home & A Hunger: Songs of Kingdom Hope is on repeat these days. It's one of the most brilliant, beautiful, and creatively composed albums I've ever heard, with each song journeying through the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. Eve's Lament is thought provoking, beautiful, and agonizing, We Draw Near is my favorite song on our church's current worship rotation, and He Has Made A Way is my total jam.
You'll have to listen to He Has Made A Way to better appreciate this story, but let's just say that one unnamed little Hofmann boy has the tendency to say "shut your mouth" when annoyed with his brother which is absolutely not allowed in our home, but you better believe I've given them all permission to belt that same exact phrase out loud and proud whenever this song is on. Listen, I get how that might seem like conflicting messages to my children, but I never claimed to be a great mom and I have only the Bible to blame for this. See Exodus 14:14 for reference. But I digress, and back to my original point: just listen and blessed. You won't regret it.
A Quiet Place is the best (okay, the only) movie I have seen recently. I know this movie is old news and that I was basically the last person in America to see it. I am also the last person in America to write about it, but that's because I'm a mom of three small kids so blogging takes the back burner, unless I'm getting paid for it which-- holla!-- sometimes I am. I know that everyone was excited about and amazed by the lack of sound in this movie, and don't get me wrong, that was totally original and deserves serious props. But what I loved about it the most was the underlying presence of strong male headship, traditional family values, and faith. Call me old fashioned, but the fact that John Krasinski not only played, but created and wove, a gentle yet strong husband and father figure into his film was a beautiful thing that is rarely shown in Hollywood these days. His character demonstrated leadership, provision, protection and sacrifice; couple those things with wholesome family dynamics and prayer (both well done and without being cheesy!) and I was totally and pleasantly surprised. Well done, John. Well done.
The honest truth is that I stopped reading parenting books a long time ago because their do's and don't's of how to raise children sent me into a tailspin of panic over all the things I was doing wrong and all the millions of little changes I felt they were requiring me to make. It was overwhelming and defeating because my personality just can't consume parenting books with a grain of salt; I tend to take them as truth and they become the ultimate standard for all the ways I am failing miserably and could never add up. I was tired of trying to follow all of the rules so I did what any wise person would do: I threw the baby out with the bathwater and swore off all parenting books forever. Really though, I was just too scared to read them. Fear had me believe that if I opened up the books and read what was on their pages that I would be exposed as a fraud and a failure and I wanted nothing to do with that so, I just stopped reading them altogether.
But then, a good friend of mine recently prodded me to two amazing resources: the book Desperate by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson and the God-Centered Mom Podcast with Paul David Tripp. Let me just tell you that I have never been more encouraged in my journey of mothering. I think the reason I loved these two resources so much is because rather than promising a system of fool-proof ways to train my children, both Sally and Paul encouraged and equipped me to retrain my heart in response to them instead. And wow, what a perspective shift that has been! I have a lot more to say on this in another post to come, so stay tuned; but for now I encourage any momma out there to go read & listen to these two resources.
Last but not least.... I have developed perhaps my first ever Guilty Pleasure: The Bachelor Franchise, and yes I am ashamed of this. You guys, this show is a total train wreck and there’s nothing holy about it but really, it’s all Henry’s fault that I’m watching it to begin with. And by "I", I obviously mean "we" because DJ is watching it too and if I’m going down, I’m most certainly bringing him down with me.
Here's how it happened: When I was pregnant with Henry, we were watching the much more legit and socially acceptable show called The Crown. But as my due date neared, we started season two and what with the English history and Royal traditions and British accents and all, I was having a hard time keeping up and I felt like I was going to need a more mindless option once I had a newborn on my hands. Some girlfriends of mine were getting together for some Bachelor viewing parties and though I never attended, I most certainly caught the bug from afar and I'm having a hard time bouncing back. The franchise is totally sneaky and basically forces you to watch all of their shows against your own will. I mean, I started watching in Season 22 and then Arie dump Becca so she became the next Bachelorette and then she dumped Colton so now he’s the next Bachelor and then all the other losers end up on Bachelor in Paradise or Dancing With The Stars and before you know it, you feel like you know them and like they are your crazy BFFs and you can’t stop watching and who have I even become?! It is an embarrassing shame, I tell you. And, seriously, what are even these peoples lives?! Somehow every contestant from every season is all best friends with one another and they just get to be famous together and hang out all the time at all the fancy things they get invited to and post unnatural and awkwardly posed pictures of their perfect selves online and I just don’t even understand what all is happening or how their lives work, but I apparently stalk all of their Instagrams because I just can’t not.
Oh! One more! Good books. This has been such a good reading year for me. This post is already long enough, so I'll just leave you with a few links and tell you to go read all of these now. These have been my favorite reads of the year so far:
Different by Sally & Nathan Clarkson
A Mother's Reckoning by Sue Klebold
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs
The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan
Educated by Tara Westover
We Were The Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
Desperate by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson
And there you have it... a little dose of happy. I actually have a few blogs up my sleeve, so until next time.... maybe.
love, courtney
_________
Joanna Gaines' After School Banana Bread:
- Nonstick baking spray, for the pan
- 8 TBSP (or 1 stick) salted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 4 very ripe bananas, mashed, yet chunky
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans or chocolate chips (again, and it cannot be emphasized enough that a heaping cup of chocolate chips is what makes this recipe the glory that it is)
- 2 TBSP granulated sugar
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8x8 baking pan with nonstick baking spray or line with parchment paper.
- In a stand mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla with the paddle attachment until well blended. (You can also do this with an electric mixer.) Add the bananas until combined.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat just until combined. Add the chocolate chips or pecans and mix until combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread it evenly. Sprinkle the sugar over the top.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a tester or toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the middle. Let the bread cool slightly in the pan on a rack.
- Slice and serve warm with butter. Like, slather it in butter. Spread it generously all over the top and then cut your piece down the middle and lather it on the inside too. You cannot add too much butter. Did I mention that I wonder why I have cellulite?
No comments:
Post a Comment