genius!

I feel like a genius right now... haha. (I don't know if this is as great as I think it is....)
I have been craving a turkey sandwich, but lunch meat is pretty expensive here... and I'm a bit picky.
But today I was getting cheese from the deli and gave in an bought a half pound of this plain, white, oven roasted turkey... and it was cheap! $4.50EC for the half lb. so like $2.50US
When I was making lunch it looked gross..... kinda slimy and plain.
So I decided to spruce it up a little... I sprinkled some brown sugar in a frying pan and cooked the turkey a little bit, no oil or anything... just fried it on each side for like a minute or less and it got a little brown and flavored & turned out good!
I'm so proud of my brown sugar glazed turkey sandwich. haha.

Bake Sale for Limes

Friday we had a bake sale for the Limes After School Program and it went really well!! We raised a TON of money!!  The money will be used to supplies, snack, and possibly rent for a building.

For the sale I made iced sugar cookies, blueberry muffins, and banana pumpkin bread.

I found the recipe here.

I changed a few things, I didn't use oats or ginger just because I didn't have them.

I was so excited I was able to use almost all ingredients from Grenada... fresh pumpkin, fresh bananas, fresh eggs, sugar produced here, flour I think was made here (or at least in the caribbean somewhere) cinnamon, and nutmeg that I actually found while hiking up to Mt. Carmel waterfalls!  I found nutmeg laying on the ground and grated it for my bread... amazing.
It turned out delicious and I'm so glad I made two batches so Lee and I would have some to eat!

I put the pumpkin, banana, and egg in the blender 

I make a mess cooking. 

mmmmmmm
Thank you everyone for helping out!!

Banana Bread!

This recipe for banana  bread tastes just like Bob Evans!!
& this website is so cool - you can adjust the servings and it automatically changes the measurements for you! and it does US or Metric measurements
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/banana-banana-bread/Detail.aspx

I have to admit that I didn't use real bananas in this bread, I used 'rock figs' which look just like bananas only a little smaller and taste almost exactly like a banana. I think.... I'm starting to forget what a banana tastes like at home.  I don't think they are as good as they are here though.

 Here is a comparison picture of bananas and figs.  They are common in the West Indies.
I found this picture on this website -http://homepage.mac.com/karlek/.Public/SVG/SVG620.HTM it explains a lot of Caribbean foods!

ps.  my silicone bread pan was the greatest idea of all time... nothing ever sticks and it smashed up nicely in my suitcase for the trip down :)

frustrating.

so yesterday I was so proud, I got up and had all the laundry done really early so it would have time to dry before I went to Limes... and then as soon as it is all up on the line and about half dry, my neighbor decided to build a fire RIGHT up against his fence, directly across from my clean laundry.  I didn't realize until the air was already full of smoke and I thought my house was burning down...
I didn't know what to do, our dryer is broken, well not really but a fuse or the switch is & like everything else in Grenada our landlord has been unable to get an electrician to set a time to come and so we're still waiting.
So I wasn't able to just throw all the clothes in the dryer with some smell good sheets and get rid of the odor :(
I decided to just leave it for the afternoon (the sky was completely blue and perfect so no chance of rain) and hopefully after the fire it would air our a bit.
When I got home at 5oclock it was STILL smoking!!!!

at that point I said forget it, and as of now (8am next day) the clothes are still hanging on the line! haha
I will probably have to end up washing them again... but I just want to make totally sure there will not be any more fires!

Cinnamon Rolls

On Sunday afternoon I was just sitting at home alone and got in the mood to bake something.
We don't buy many "snacks" here in Grenada.  Mostly because it is too expensive, so I am excited to try baking more.
I decided to bake cinnamon rolls because that is one of Lee and I's favorite things.  When we first got married and were living in West Virginia we would go to Kroger grocery shopping together (the good old days) and we would always end up buying a can of cinnamon rolls and making them when we got home and eating the entire pack in one sitting! haha, unhealthy, but so fun and delicious.

I found a recipe online that didn't require too much work or sitting around waiting for the dough to raise.

filling

• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted

dough

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk ( I substituted - 1 cup milk & 1tsp white vinegar)
• 6 tablespoonsbutter, melted

I mixed all the ingredients together for the dough and mixed the filling ingredients together until it looked like  sand.

I rolled out the dough into a rectangle, brushed on melted butter, and spread the filling on top

I then cut it into strips and rolled it up into 'rolls'.  This was really difficult for me ( my first time home making cinnamon rolls) maybe my dough was too 'wet' because they kept falling apart and coming open, so they didn't turn out that beautiful.... hence why some turned into more of a crescent roll.
and then by reading more recipes I found that it probably would have been easier to roll the entire piece of dough up into a 'log' and then cut it.  I'll know next time. and pur the rest of the melted butter on top! (LOTS of butter in this one, lol)

 Make sure you spray or butter the pan really, really well!! I found that a lot of the filling melted and ran out the bottom and caused them to stick.  Or perhaps I should have baked them less. ?
I baked them for 20 minutes on 425degrees.

I made a very small amount of icing to pour on top, because they already had so much sugar in them!!



Icing

•  2 tbs of cream cheese
• 1 tbs milk
• enough powdered sugar to make it thick

So I definitely learned a lot for what to do next time, and they turned out delicious regardless!

French Toast Casserole

Friday morning I had a little breakfast party.
3 of my friends came over for breakfast and then we went downtown St. George's to explore and take pictures.
I made french toast casserole & it turned out great!  and everyone seemed to like it :) so here is how I did it.
I'm not really that great for following recipes I usually change things or don't measure or something...  but I'll try to do my best!

ingredients:
1 loaf of bread (texas toast would have been great, but that wasn't an option)
5 eggs
milk -I'd guess about a cup? or a little more
vanilla -just a splash
sugar - about 1/4 cup
cinnamon - 1 teaspoon

-cut the slices of bread into 4ths and layer in a pan. I think I did about 3 layers deep.
-mix eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla in a bowl & then pour over bread making sure to coat each slice and layer.
-cover and refrigerate over night

the next morning:
-bake casserole at 400degrees for about 10 minutes
-while it's baking mix butter and brown sugar in a skillet until it makes a syrup
-then remove casserole from oven & pour over top, and bake for another 10 minutes (or until the bread isn't too soggy anymore)

I like to serve mine with powdered sugar and syrup. 
I also thought bananas mixed in the butter and brown sugar concoction would have been really good, like bananas foster! but there were no bananas to be found on the island that day....

BACK!!

I had almost forgot about this other little blog I started....
I am in full "housewife" mode today and it reminded me to update!!
I will have to work on getting a new layout too, considering I don't live there anymore....

Things are mostly the same.... just different apartment.
Although I now have an oven!!!
and my laundry routine now includes a clothesline.

I will update about all my adventures in cooking, cleaning, and house-wifing soon.
but for now I am getting ready to check on a true housewife disaster....
I washed my navy blue tie-dyed dress with some other things & apparently it bleeds blue dye onto everything else!!!! I have had the dress for like a year.... I can't believe this is the first time it has ruined other clothes.
one thing I was sad about were my off white shorts that I have had since like 10th grade..... I'm going to attempt to recover them from my laundry mistake and get the dye out! wish me luck!