Nana Files the Second

I learned a few things yesterday.
Number one, don't feed the little darlings their yummiest things for breakfast, it's a waste of a good appetite. Save the yummy things for dinner. So we had eggs and french toast. Scarlet gobbled it down but London was playing hard to get.
Fine, I said, you can eat it later. Less chocolate milk for you tomorrow.
So she pulled her craft bins out of the pantry and concentrated on her art for a while.
The blue face in the top right corner is me. Be jealous.

And this is her whole family, including Wrangler and Max, the cat.

And after an hour or so of painting, Miss London cleaned her plate and declared it was time for ice cream. Er, okay, why not?
So they ate little bowls of ice cream.

Scarlet got pretty mad when her bowl was empty. This was after she forgave me.

While Scarlet took her nap today we made banana bread. As soon as she woke up we left, me pulling the wagon full of two girls, a picnic, and jackets. (Lesson number two, always take jackets.) This lake is halfway to the park and we quacked at the ducks and admired the scenery. 

We picnicked on cookies and banana bread (tasty! said London) and apples and ran around the play structure and mostly I chased Scarlet while trying to simultaneously keep an eye on the wagon and on London, who is remarkably daring in new situations for a timid child. One poor little girl threw her coat into our wagon and took a drink out of one of our cups, thinking it was her family's wagon. She was so embarrassed when her dad told her what she had done that she started crying and they had to go home. 

I was trying to get a good picture of Scarlet's gleeful expression so I stopped the swing. She stuck her little nose up in the air and turned her head away and wouldn't look at me until I pushed the swing again. Not even eighteen months old and a force of nature already.

The sun was low in the sky when I finally convinced London it was time to go home. I decided to take a different route to avoid a nasty road crossing that hadn't been apparent on Google maps. We passed right by the water tower. I love water towers, for no significant reason.

On the way home we picked a few pansies from flowerbeds at the intersections. London said her favourite colour was pink and the pansies weren't pink so she didn't want any. Fine, I said. After Scarlet had ripped apart several differing shades of pansies, London did a little pout because she didn't have a flower. Well, sez I, you only wanted a pink flower and pansies aren't pink. Do you want a different colour next time we see some? She nodded. And collected a purple pansy at the next corner. 

Score for Nana!

It was a long walk home because of our wee distractions, especially when Scarlet decided that she was going to be a hellion unless I let her walk with me. It was only a little over three miles round trip, but pulling the wagon made it seem more like double that distance. Plus, I am not in the best shape of my life, sadly. Five minutes before we reached the house I looked back at the girls and London was sitting upright with her eyes closed. She had fallen asleep. I put her head on my purse so that she wouldn't fall out of the wagon.

And so went the second day. One of the blessings of being a nana is being able to look after grandchildren when their parents take some much-needed time to be together. It makes me a bit sad that the girls probably won't remember this weekend, but perhaps some day, when they get older, they will read this and get an inkling of how much their nana adores them. 

Gluten-free Banana Bread

I decided to give up eating gluten for a month or so to see if it would help with a couple of health problems that I have been experiencing. The final straw was when my knee became so painful with inflammation of some kind that I could hardly walk. There comes a point when the deliciousness of fresh bread is not more enticing than being out of pain, and I was right there.

Luckily, we have been doing a lot of this kind of cooking for years in our family, so I already have some tricks up my sleeve. I am hopeless at any kind of weight-loss diet, but if I want to eat healthily, all I have to do is prepare a pot each of soup and soaked oatmeal and I will be good for a whole week..

I scored a bagful of over-ripe bananas at the Senior Center last week and knew that there were lots of grain-free recipes for banana bread online that were heavy on bananas and light on other ingredients. I modified one to come up with this delicious loaf that even Jeff likes. It is moist and sweet and yes, I did throw in a handful of chocolate chips. 

Grain-free banana bread

3 ripe mashed bananas
1/3 c butter or coconut oil, melted
5 eggs
2 tbs raw honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c coconut flour
1 tsp B. Soda
1 tsp BP
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 c chopped nuts
handful of chocolate chips or raisins

Mix ingredients in order given. I used a large whisk, as the mixture is very wet. Bake in a loaf pan for  an hour at 325. I lined the loaf pan with waxed paper, as the first loaf didn't come out of the pan very well. The original recipe called for baking at 350 for 45 minutes, so take your pick. Test with a toothpick; it will come out clean if the loaf is done. Leave in pan for 5 minutes before cooling on a wire rack.

In a perfect world, all the ingredients would be organic and grass-fed and free-range, but I say, do your best. I actually prefer this to my old recipes for banana bread. It is so sweet that Jeff said, This tastes like dessert!