Good food and good fun!

My friends say I have spoiled my family in many ways and may have ruined their future mates for life when it comes to my cooking...yes, I am bragging about myself just this once...well maybe twice! When my family sees old bananas on the counter I know whats coming..."Mom you should make Banana cake" like at 7:00 pm as I am cleaning up the dinner dishes. They are all filtering home from college and such these days so I do not want to disappoint ...however I got a bit lazy this winter with cooking so I felt I  needed to fulfill the request ( I really wanted to say are you flipping nuts its 7pm)! So I thought how can i make this as easy a possible for myself...one bowl...not much measuring (it's an Italian thing...sorry)...and delicious. Here's what happened...Banana cake with Mascarpone cheese frosting. 

 

My Dear Friends,

Do you know that happens when you take a container Mascarpone cheese add  a cup and half of              confectioners sugar, some vanilla and lemon juice and whip it at high speed? It turns into an tangy marshmallowy deliciousness that stops all time and space and Angles start to sing!! I will now call this my go to frosting forever more!

Yours Truly,

Ming

So here's what I want you to do ...

For the Banana cake:

In a mixing bowl mash...

• 3 old bananas
• 1 cup raw sugar 

Now add to mixture

• 1/4 cup safflower oil
• 2 eggs
• tsp vanilla

 mix again until  incorporated and then add

• A scant 2 cups flour...I use King Arthur
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt...I am now using mineral salt in my cooking and baking
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

Now mix this and lastly add

• 1/4 cup Greek yogurt

Mix again and and pour into a 8x8 baking pan sprayed with cooking or baking spray and bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean.

For the Mascarpone Frosting:

• 4 oz. container of Mascarpone cheese
• 1 1/2 or 2 cups confectioners sugar 
• 1 tsp. Vanilla extract
• juice of a half a lemon may be more to your liking

mix together and just whip it at high speed till incorporate well and watch the Magic happen!

The possibilities are endless with this frosting and what you can add in and alter. I also added some Spanish chocolate shavings too!

Now onto other happenings...

 Gardening has started literally overnight...we went from freezing temps to everything starting to flower and sprout. Finally!! We added two new gardening beds and are going to add more. That was the heaviest dirt I ever had to shovel and move! My daughter is home now and first thing was to get my Great nephew Gavin introduced to the dirt and he loved it and took it very very seriously!

...and it was another Crazy Knitting Night and as usual the craziness and laughs were in abundance.

Our Sandra (who we swear has a small army in her basement knitting for her ... this woman busts the projects out like nobody's business!") showed off her latest finish a West Knits design and not without striking her best Stephen West pose! In February we went to the West Knits workshop at our local yarn store and it was a hoot! She is now on her second West knits design ...I have even started my first ;-(!!

I have lots of projects getting ready top show off  and now that the temps are rising I can sit at my computer and not freeze any more! 

Of course the knitting gals and I love us some Downton Abbey so this meme is just so fitting from @hey_lady_hey on instagram....How true is this!!

Have a wonderful weekend and if you have those old bananas around give the cake a go you wont be disappoint!

Be Well,

Ming