Burgers, Eyebrows, and New Books

Tim and I just stumbled onto a new island discovery! I have no idea what took us so long to try out Teddy's Bigger Burgers, but you have to go!

They are all across Oahu and the islands. I assumed they were just another greasy burger dive (which, I realize has it's place for some ;)). But they are soooo not! It's more of a cross between In & Out and Five Guys (for you Mainland folk). Think fresh, local, and natural.

It's an order at the counter, dine-in place with a 50s surfer vibe. The staff was uber friendly and they made our whopping, natural burgers to order while we sat. It may be a few bucks more than a Big Mac, but still cheaper (and waaay better) than a burger at Chili's.

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Oh, and it made me happy to see they are breaking into the Pacific Northwest scene with Teddy's to open in WA & OR.

Okay, enough about my latest burger (can you tell what I've been craving?). If you try it out and don't love it as much as I did, you can blame my pregnancy senses! Here is Blakely's newest "trick" that kept Tim and I chuckling while we waited for our lunch.

She may be charming most of the time, but she also has some pretty trying moments. In fact, my Amazon order came today! Guess what books I got?

Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood (by Jim and Charles Fay)
Making Children Mind without Losing Yours (by Kevin Leman)
Dare to Discipline (by James Dobson)
The Toddler's Busy Book (by Trish Kuffner)

Can you tell what I need to read up on? Yup! She's two in exactly two months. Here we go... :)

{good thing no melt down could make me love her any less...I am stinkin' proud of my little one}

Hawaii for Cheap(er): Grow some bananas--make some bread!

Aloha!

I thought I'd start a blog segment about saving money--basically cooking and playing for less. This is crucial for my family cause many costs get hiked for islanders. However, I think most my tips can be helpful anywhere. In fact, most of my ideas are from my lovely mother who raised her 4 children on one pastor's income.

One of my favorite, or not-so-favorite, memories of growing up was drinking chunky milk! Gross, right? Well, it's not as gross as it sounds! It wasn't chunky cause it was spoiled, it was just previously frozen. With two growing brothers, my mom could barely keep our milk stocked. She would buy it from the dairy farm in bulk and then freeze full gallons in the deep freezer.

I'd often pour it over cereal only hear the *glunk, *glunk, *glunk, sound as ice chips fell onto my raisin bran. While at the time I figured I'd never freeze my own milk...it was so weird (no offense, mom)....I was wrong! My, how one's perspective can change when she pays all her own bills ;). I now think freezing milk or anything else possible is brilliant!

Okay--so I just made some awesome (healthy) banana bread with the bananas we grow in the front yard. Now, I realize that not every climate is ideal for growing bananas, but if you live in Hawaii and have a smidgen of a yard, I suggest it! They grow quickly and easily here! Getting started with a banana tree is cheap and then the production is free!

The only problem is that when you cut down the ripe bananas...they are all ready at once! Be prepared to share, bake, and freeze!

Let me share some pics and then my new fave recipe. Happy baking (and maybe growing) to you!

The trees grow quite tall and it's important to cut down the whole tree that produces the stalk of bananas.

We usually have two banana trees growing at any given time.

The trees grow new shoots so the banana tree life cycle continues pretty effortlessly.

This is maybe half of what one tree yielded a couple of weeks ago. Did I mention that they are apple bananas? Yum!

Okay--the good stuff--banana bread! I added flax seed and dark chocolate to the recipe!

Just before I baked the bread. I just put it in a 9x13 since I don't have a very big bread pan.



Whole Wheat Oatmeal Banana Bread (with added flax seed and dark chocolate)

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/8 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used Greek)
• 3 mashed bananas (or like 10+ mashed apple bananas)
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla (I'm liberal with vanilla)
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup oats
• 1/4 cup pecans (I left this out since chopped nuts are hard for B. I added 1/4 cup flax or more and 1/2 of a crushed dark chocolate bar).

Preheat over to 350
Cream butter and sugar
Add eggs--beat
Add yogurt, bananas, and vanilla--beat
Add flour, salt, and baking soda--stir
Add oats, pecans, flax, chocolate, anything else! ha! -- stir
Bake--1 hour (check at 45 min if baking in 9x13).

Consider this:

• Double or triple the recipe.
• Save out what you'll eat soon.
• Share some with neighbors.
• Package up some loafs and pop in freezer. Enjoy later!

(I like to serve warm with ice cream for dessert!)

Hawaii for Cheap(er): Just Freeze It!

Living in Hawaii is amazing. I truly thank God daily for His beauty which surrounds me.

However, as some of you know...there are some drawbacks (naturally, there's the trade off for every choice made). And one thing I don't love so much about living on a remote tropical island (did you know Hawaii is the most remote island chain? Crazy, right?) is the price increase of every day goods.

If I were really gonna rant, which I'll try not to do, I'd tell you all about Target's price increases! They don't even try to make us feel better about paying more, they just print off a new price sticker (with the higher price) and tap it on top of the "mainland" price. Sometimes I wish it weren't so obvious. ;)

Anyway, I just spent a couple of hours today "banking" some food for later. This is just one way I try to save while living across the Pacific. But, I'd actually do the whole buy-bulk-freeze-most thing anywhere...

Food spoils. Quickly. Here.

It's $$$ to get delicious, fresh produce. So, I buy as much as I can at Costco. Then I freeze as much as I can. It's surprising what all works out well in the freezer. I'll share more later, but just for fun, here's what I did today....

I prefer organic or local, but when that's too costly, I just wash with veggie wash and peel the outer layer.

Frozen onions are awesome! It's a no hassle way to add onions to most dishes! I like to cut my onions in half and then slice them lengthwise.

Finally, I chop them just one more time so that I have pretty large onion chunks.

Today, I used onions from one of those ginormous Costco bags. Not all the onions were good, but most were. In fact, it's super manageable to cut off any not-so-good sections of an onion.

For freezing, I like the freezer zip locks because they are hefty and take up little space. While I was at it, I tossed in some mini sweet peppers. Also fantastic & also spoils sooner than I can use them all.

I'm still freezing baby food! I don't need to freeze purees as often, but I do cook up eggs, polenta, cheese, and veggies--then freeze in portions for later...

Happy Freezing! Happy Friday!