A moment to relax.

Something I enjoy about working from home now is the freedom to cook at any point in the day. I'm not too tired and since I am only working down stairs from the kitchen I am able to bake or simmer while I work. My kitchen has been quite full the last few weeks. Today I needed to use up a banana that was about to turn so I whipped up a loaf of cranberry walnut banana bread while I was working on some computer stuff. It made the house smell so home-y and now we will have a healthy snack for our trip to Chicago this weekend. This is just a little slice I had to have....you know to make sure it was good:) Just one of my new found perks of working from home.

Low Fat Banana Bread (a Weight Watches recipe that I put my own spin to)
1 3/4 cups of four
3 Tbs packed light brown sugar
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup of dried cranberries ( you can sub any fruit or nuts here. The original recipe called for 8 chopped dried dates and 6 chopped dried apricot halves. This is just what I had on hand.)
1/4 cup of chopped walnuts
1 egg
1 very ripe banana
1/3 cup fat free milk

Preheat oven to 350, spray a 8x4 (I used 9x5 because that's what I had) loaf pan with cooking spray. In a medium bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon; stir in the fruit and nuts. In a small bowl, beat the egg; add the banana and milk. Pour over the flour mixture, stir until combined. You may have to get in there with your hands as this makes more of a dough than a batter. It will seem dry at first but mix with your hands and it should come together, if not add a little more milk. Transfer to the loaf pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about an hour ( check on it after 30 minutes because mine was done in about 40.) Cool completely on a rack. Makes 12 (small) servings at 111 calories, 1 g. of fat and 3 g. of fiber. Not bad for a breakfast on the go!
(Nutritional info is based on the original recipe, I can't imagine my version is very far off though.)

Little Art

I started making these little tags a few weeks ago. They were originally meant to be garden stakes but since the season is almost over it seemed silly to start making them now. Next year. Some of them became these little tags. I put them up in my shop to see how they do. I'm very hesitant now of putting smaller things out at shows because the last 2 or 3 shows we have done, as I packed up I noticed that at least one of my mini salt and pepper's had walked off. (I can tell because I will have a random S or P without a mate.) I have to re-think how I display smaller items, which is a shame because who steals from artists? That's just not ok. Not that it's ok to steal from anyone but it's just really wrong to steal from an artist at a street fair who is standing right there! Anyway, got off track there for a minute, sorry. I made the tags thinking that they could be hung on the wall as mini art or as a holiday ornament if you liked. I'm sure you could even put them on a chain as a necklace. Let me know what you think. Does anyone make small items?
p.s. I will be back later this week with some new glaze tests....