Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Banana Bread

Posted in food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

This is some awesome bread.

I came up with this recipe to get a bread that was moist and soft and very, very chocolatey.

It’s kinda rich, too.

If you prefer to have a little crunch in the middle, though, you could substitute half of the chocolate chips with chopped walnuts.

Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Banana Bread

It’s a pretty basic banana bread recipe.

All the usual suspects.

Plus the chocolate chips, and a little cinnamon for an extra layer of flavor. I love cinnamon.

Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Banana Bread

It will look pretty wet as you’re mixing it, but that’s okay.

Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Banana Bread

Here’s the dough in the pan.

The little bit of moisture around the edge is from the baking spray I used. I don’t usually have the patience to butter and flour a pan, so I use the baking nonstick spray that has flour in it. Maybe not the healthiest thing in the world, but it’s easy.

I did add a piece of parchment paper to the bottom of the pan, as well, just in case. Better safe than sorry.

Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Banana Bread

Doesn’t that look amazing?

And it smells even better than it looks.

Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Banana Bread

Like I said: very, very chocolatey.

That chocolate in every bite is what I think makes the smoothness of the bananas and the spice of the cinnamon extra awesome.

Sometimes I eat it just like that, and sometimes with butter. Sometimes for breakfast, and sometimes for dessert.

Either way, it’s pretty filling.

And awesome.

Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Banana Bread

Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Banana Bread

Ingredients:

3 large, ripe bananas
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup miniature chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F and prepare a 9×5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, smash the bananas with a fork until mostly smooth. Mix the melted butter into the bananas. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla until combined. Then mix in the cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Stir in the flour, 1/2 cup at a time. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until browned. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

[Note: This is a moist bread with chocolate in every bite. If you want less chocolate, and a little crunch, you could substitute half of the chocolate chips for chopped walnuts.]

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For the printable PDF version of the recipe, click here: Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Banana Bread

Enjoy!

Roaming Rosie Signature

24Aug2014

Lemon Scented Play Dough

Posted in activities for kids by Rosemary Lynn

Lemon Scented Play Dough

I came up with this recipe because my 4yo was asking to make play dough and I’d just found an extra lemon hanging out in our kitchen.

So: lemon scented play dough.

Because scented sensory play is fun for everyone, including moms.

Seriously. I love playing with this stuff.

Lemon Scented Play Dough

Anyway, the ingredients are pretty basic.

And it’s easy to put together – you just throw everything in a pot:

Lemon Scented Play Dough

Then you keep stirring it over medium heat until it looks like this:

Lemon Scented Play Dough

And then you knead it to make it smooth.

As you can see in the blurry photo below, my daughter was already grabbing pieces of it to play with before I had a chance to knead it. :)

Just be careful, because it will be hot. I kinda like digging my hands into the warm dough, tho.

Lemon Scented Play Dough

My girls like to roll it out and cut out shapes with cookie cutters, or cut it using a small angled spatula.

Here are a few pics of them playing with the deliciously scented dough:

Lemon Scented Play Dough

Oh – and playing with it on their easy-to-clean Jake placemats, of course!

Lemon Scented Play Dough

Lemon Scented Play Dough

Ingredients:

1 cup lemon juice (or water added to squeezed lemon juice to equal 1 cup)
1 cup flour
1/4 cup salt
Zest from one lemon
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 tsp. cream of tarter
1 tsp. lemon extract
Yellow food coloring

Begin by zesting and juicing one lemon.

Squeeze the juice of the lemon into a glass measuring cup. If it is less than one cup, add water until it reaches the 1 cup line.

Mix all ingredients in a medium sauce pan, adding enough food coloring to reach your desired color.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes together into a ball.

Remove from heat and knead until smooth.

Store covered. Will keep for about two weeks.

[Note: even though all of the ingredients are technically edible, please don’t let your kids ingest this. Also, if your child is going to help with the kneading, please remember that the dough will still be hot when you first remove it from the pan. If stored in a sealed container, this will last many months.]

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To print the free PDF of this recipe, click here:

Lemon Scented Play Dough

Happy Crafting!

Roaming Rosie Signature

22Aug2014

Letter A: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities, free worksheets & printables by Rosemary Lynn

FREE Printable Letter A Alphabet Activities Worksheets

If you’re new here, please read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities first!

Here are all of the printable PDFs for the Letter A. They are free for home and classroom use, but please don’t sell them.

A is for Aardvarks

A is for Alligator and Asparagus

A is for Apple {tracing}

A is for Apples {color matching}

A is for Avocado

And don’t forget to check out all of our Letter A Alphabet Activities.

Follow me on Facebook and Pinterest to see my latest posts.

Have fun!

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22Aug2014

Letter A: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities by Rosemary Lynn

Letter A Day was our first Alphabet Activities day.

My OCD really wouldn’t have let it happen any other way. :)

Anyway, if you haven’t read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities, you should really start there.

And don’t forget to check out the Letter A: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids, too!

One of the first letter projects we ever did was an American flag.

And it really stuck with her.

To this day, my daughter points out the flags, excitedly shouting, “An American flag!”

The project itself was simple: I cut out red stripes, a blue rectangle, and punched out some white stars ahead of time. Then I showed my daughter a flag and she copied it in paper.

There are plenty of other flags you could do, too. Just to name a few: Austria, Australia, Argentina, and Afghanistan. Also, Alabama, Arizona, Alaska, and Arkansas.

I always do a letter sorting project where I print out both capital and lowercase letters ahead of time.

These letters were cut into apple shapes. {Don’t laugh at my apple trees!}

You could easily hand write the letters instead. Honestly, my printer gives me more trouble with construction paper…

This was a fun snack.

I cut some thin slices in an apple and used an A cookie cutter to make little apple ‘A’s.

And I ate all the scraps, too. :)

I’ve made these a bunch of times, usually for potlucks.

I’m not posting a recipe since it was all ready-made supplies {or you could substitute with your favorite homemade recipes}.

Check out the step-by-step photos:

I used a 2-inch flower shaped cookie cutter to cut pieces out of store bought pie crust. I placed the flower crusts in greased muffin tins. Then I scooped a few apples from a can of apple pie filling into the crust. I topped it with a generous sprinkle of my Cinnamon and Sugar Mix, and baked them according to the pie crust directions.

These little pies are always a hit.

Chocolate is a favorite in our house, so these chocolate acorns, it should go without saying, were also a hit.

The great thing is that they also work well for autumn-themed projects. I’m thinking of making them again around Thanksgiving.

As you can see in the photos, the ingredients are Hershey’s Kisses, mini Fudge Stripe cookies, and miniature chocolate chips.

I melted some chocolate chips in a baggy to act as the “glue” to hold it all together. Then we stuck the flat end of the Kisses onto the bottom of the cookies and let them sit for a minute to set. Then I put a drop of melted chocolate on the top of the cookies, and my daughter attached the kiss to the top.

Store covered… if you have any left.

Click here to get the free printable Letter A: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids.

And here are some of the supplies I’ve mentioned in this post, including the star punch, letter A cookie cutter, and fudge stripe cookies:

I’d love for you to share if you’ve done any of these projects with your little ones!

Follow me on Facebook and Pinterest to see my latest posts.

Have fun!

22Aug2014

Introduction to the ALPHABET ACTIVITIES for Kids {Start Here}

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities, free worksheets & printables by Rosemary Lynn

Welcome to my Alphabet Activities section!

My kids and I have been practicing the alphabet through Letter Days, exploring one letter a day through food, games, activities, and worksheets.

I originally began posting about them on Squidoo (which is now HubPages), and posted about half of the alphabet there. But that site keeps changing their format, so it’s just easier for me to redo everything here, to start from scratch. Besides, I’ve created new worksheets and edited the format of the old worksheets to make printing easier. Not only that, there’s new stuff here you won’t find there – which is why I didn’t include the links to the old articles.

For each letter, I’ll be posting about activities and recipe ideas and also a list of all the free worksheets I’ve made. The worksheets posted below are all in PDF format and are free for home and classroom use – so enjoy!

What is a Letter Day?

I would usually spend one full day doing projects on a letter, or spread it out over a few days. Although even if we did just one Letter Day, we’d still continue discussing that letter for the next couple of days.

To begin each Letter Day, we glue a letter into our alphabet binder. We have two binders that are quite full, with all of the paper activities separated by A-Z dividers.

I almost always do at least two construction paper crafts that include making a letter into something (an H into a horse or a Q into a queen, for example) and a letter sorting activity where my girls need to separate capital from lowercase letters onto two shapes.

I do cut the paper down, though, before we do the projects. I make them 8.5″ by 11″ and then use a 3 hole punch after we’re done to help them fit in the binder.

I used to cut out the construction paper pieces ahead of time, too, and just let my girls glue them on and sort the pieces however they liked. My girls are older now, though, so they can cut more of the pieces themselves. It’s up to you how you’d like to do it, depending on the age of your children.

We also do worksheets that include tracing letters, tracing lines, mazes, color matching, letter searches, and much more.

Sometimes we do a traditional craft indoors, sometimes we run around outside and dig in the dirt. And we pretty much always cook and/or bake something.

But whatever game we play or whatever food we eat, we always talk about the letters. If we’re eating gnocchi because it’s Letter G day, we take the time to find the letter G on the gnocchi package.

We usually do collages, too. But not always, so I don’t plan on including them in each post. When we started, my daughter wasn’t able to cut out shapes yet, so I spent some time cutting pictures out of magazines after she went to bed.

The finished collages looked like this:

We used apples, angels, artichokes, and an accordion for letter A; a bison, butterflies, babies, and bells for letter B; and cars, camera, cherries, and cats for letter C. Now that she’s cutting out shapes quite well on her own, though, I’m considering starting the project all over again, but letting her cut out the pictures this time.

Plus, since my girls love being outside and drawing with chalk, we also practice our letters with tracing and coloring in chalk:

Most of these projects use supplies that we have around the house or that are easy to find. Construction paper is a biggie.

Here are some of the things I’ve mentioned in this post, including construction paper, a paper cutter, a 3 hole punch, and page dividers:

But where do I find all of these projects and worksheets that you’ve mentioned?

I’m so glad you asked!

They’ll all be listed right here and under the Alphabet Activities category. I haven’t finished editing all the photos yet, but they’ll be listed here as I post them. Plus, at one point my old computer died and I lost a lot of photos. So now my oldest is a great deal older when than when I started these projects with her, and since we’ve had to redo some of them for the photos (and it’s taken me awhile to get around to posting them) you may notice some age gaps between the photos of my various blog posts. But taking three or so years to post something is just an everyday part of #momlife, right? Right??

Anyway, this is the best page to bookmark (or Pin) if you want to take full advantage of everything, since this is where you’ll find the list to all of the Letter Day activities and worksheets.

… and drum roll please …

The Alphabet Activities and Worksheets

Letter A: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter A: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Letter B: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter B: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Letter C: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter C: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Letter D: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter D: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Letter E: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter E: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Letter F: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter F: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Letter G: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter G: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Letter H: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter H: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Letter I: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter I: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Letter J: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter J: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Letter K: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Letter K: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

*more soon*

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest to see my latest posts.

Enjoy!

20Aug2014

4 Ingredient Chili

Posted in food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

I really do try to incorporate more organic foods into our diet. I try to avoid things that have preservatives and artificial ingredients.

But, just like how there are some days that I’ll finish off half a box of Cheez-Its in one sitting, there are days when I need something super simple to cook.

This recipe qualifies as “super simple” for a few reasons:

It takes 5 minutes to make.

There are only 4 ingredients (plus a few spices – but these are optional)

It only uses one pan.

All of the ingredients are waiting for me in the pantry, except for the meat, which I usually keep on hand in the freezer.

See? Four ingredients.

Beans (with sauce), tomato sauce, seasoning mix, and meat.

And like I said, the first 3 things are easy to stock up on and have sitting in the pantry.

I usually have either ground turkey or beef on hand, either in the fridge or freezer, so I find that I often have everything to make this dish.

I do like to add a few extra spices, but those are also always in the pantry.

And I like to add some shredded cheese and sour cream to the top, but those are usually in my fridge too, and if not, well, they’re also optional. Just tasty. I like the contrast of the sour cream against the spicy chili.

I like spicy food.

My kids have been eating spicy food forever, so they like it, too.

BUT, if you’re not into spice, feel free to cut out the cayenne, or even all of the extra spices, if you prefer.

I mix the spices into the raw meat just as it’s starting to cook because it helps infuse the meat with a nice flavor.

Here it is all mixed together.

Essentially, after browning the meat, you’re just dumping everything into one pan. How cool is that?

Doesn’t that look delicious?

4 Ingredient Chili

Ingredients:

1 (16 oz.) can Chili beans in sauce
1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce
1 (1.25 oz.) package chili seasoning mix
16 oz. ground turkey or beef

Optional Extra Spices:

1 Tbsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. Ancho Chile pepper
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

Optional Toppings:

Shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Sour cream

In a large, deep saucepan, heat a small amount of olive oil. Add ground turkey. If using the optional extra spices, sprinkle them evenly over the meat while still raw and mix them in. Cook the meat until browned. Drain the fat from the pan and return it to the stovetop.

Sprinkle the chili seasoning mix over the meat and mix it in. Stir in the chili beans in sauce and tomato sauce until fully combined.

Bring to a simmer over medium heat and allow to simmer for a few minutes to heat through. You can serve it now, or turn the stove to low and let the chili cook for an hour, covered, to allow the flavors to develop. Stir occasionally.

Serve with shredded cheese and cream cheese, if desired.

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And to get the free printable PDF, click here: 4 Ingredient Chili

11Aug2014

Painting Birdhouses With The Kids

Posted in activities for kids, books & book reviews, toys & games & gifts by Rosemary Lynn

painting birdhouses

My kids were SO excited about this project.

I hadn’t realized that picking up a couple of $1 wooden birdhouses at the store could make a day so very eventful.

It was pretty awesome.

Anyway, the reason we even went looking for birdhouses was because of this book that was given to us by a neighbor:

This First Discovery book about Birds was something I thought looked kind of fun, but I wasn’t sure how my kids would respond to it.

Surprisingly, it’s been requested over and over again at bedtime.

Even though it’s a learning book and not a story book, both my 4yo and 2yo enjoy reading it.

This is partially because they love all kinds of books where they get to discover things (the 4yo often requests a book that spells out the life cycle of butterflies) but also because of the fun way they allow kids to “discover” the facts about their subject matter.

This series of books includes transparent pages.

The transparent pages are printed with pictures on both sides and “hide” part of the page that’s underneath it. When you turn the page it reveals the hidden image.

My daughter calls these the “puzzle pages.”

And, from looking at the pictures of others in the series on the back cover, she’s already ardently requested that we get the ladybug book.

Thus, a ladybug and a dinosaur book are in a box on the way to my house right now. And I will be buying more in the future.

If you think your kids would love this kind of interactive learning, too, here are a few others in the series for you to view:

Do you own any of these books already? Which are your kids’ favorites? Your favorite?

Roaming Rosie Signature

8Aug2014

Easy Flatbread Pizzas

Posted in food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

Easy Flatbread Pizzas

This was one of those easy lunch [or dinner] ideas that I just had to share.

My mother has a tendency to stock up on things at Publix when they’re Buy One Get One. So I sometimes have things, like Nature’s Own Sandwich Rounds, that I wouldn’t otherwise ordinarily have in the pantry. Since we don’t eat a lot of sandwiches (bread and meat and cheese, yes, just not in sandwich form for some reason…), I needed to find something to make with them.

I decided to go with pizza.

Which is always a good choice.

For this pizza, I grabbed the Sandwich Rounds, a can of tomato sauce, grated Parmesan, shredded Mozzarella, and some salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Easy Flatbread Pizzas

The first time I made this, I didn’t toast the Sandwich Rounds.

But the sauce made them slightly soggy. Toasting them before baking fixed that.

So don’t forget to give them a quick toast while you’re grabbing the other ingredients.

Easy Flatbread Pizzas

Anyway, throw some Rounds on a baking pan and spread on some tomato sauce.

Then sprinkle on some salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Next, shake on some Parmesan and, finally, top with Mozzarella.

If you’re going to throw anything else on top, like meat or veggies, make sure they’re at least partially cooked, because these really don’t take very long.

Easy Flatbread Pizzas

I put these flatbread pizzas in the convection oven at 350 degrees F until the cheese was melted and slightly browned.

Depending on your oven, this should take about 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Roaming Rosie Signature

3Aug2014

The Outlander Attraction

Posted in books & book reviews by Rosemary Lynn

STARZ Outlander television series

I had heard of the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon a while ago and had even put the books on my {rather long} wishlist of books to read.

I hadn’t gotten around to reading them yet, but I was excited when I found a free preview of the STARZ series based on the books.

{You can find the first episode at Starz.com/videos.}

And now that I’ve watched it, I feel that I really, really, really need to read the books. Now.

Why? What’s the appeal for me?

First of all, I love historical novels. Because they’re different. It’s the same reason I love Sci-Fi. I don’t live in a spaceship any more than I live in Scotland in the 1940s or the 1740s. So reading books like this lets me experience things I wouldn’t get to experience in my own life.

Like time travel. And having two lovers living in two different centuries.

I don’t expect that to happen in my lifetime.

{Although I wouldn’t mind a steamy affair with a Scottish warrior…}

And I loved seeing the story made into a television show. Aside from the gorgeous backdrop of a fascinating country and culture, I was also drawn to her wardrobe.

What can I say? I love travel and adventure, but I love a pretty dress, too.

Anywho, here are the first few books in the series, in case you haven’t seen them yet:

And you can find more at Diana Gabaldon’s Amazon page.

If you’ve read the books, please let me know what you think! I know there are a ton of fans out there, and I’d love to know what draws you to the series.

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26Jul2014

Lemon Cheesecake Bars

Posted in food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

It’s been awhile since I’ve made these, so I had to come up with an excuse for needing them again.

Luckily, there was a potluck party this weekend.

I used that.

But these crumb cake-like, cream cheesy bars don’t really demand an excuse. They work great even for a random weeknight dessert.

Especially since they’re so easy to make.

{If you keep up with my blog, you know easy=awesome in my book.}

Anyway, these bars start with a cake mix.

And you could probably use real lemon juice/zest, but I’ve only tried it with the extract.

Once you make the cake mix batter that serves as both the crust of the bars and as the crumb topping, you’ll need to set aside a cup of it.

That cup of crumbs will go on top.

What you’re left with won’t look like enough to cover the bottom of a 13×9 baking dish – but it will.

It rises as it bakes, so it’s okay that it’s really thin.

Just go ahead and press it out to cover the entire bottom.

Here it is with the yummy cream cheese mixture spread over the cake crust.

And here it is with the cake-ish crumbs sprinkled over the top, just before baking.

Be careful not to let the edges brown too much. The finished bars should still look a little moist in the center.

But even if the edges cook a little too much, you can always slice them off when cutting the bars to serve. And, you know, throw them in a bowl and devour them by the forkful when your kids aren’t watching.

Lemon Cheesecake Bars

Ingredients:

1 box (18 oz.) yellow cake mix
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 eggs, separated
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. lemon extract

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, one egg, and the oil until it reaches a crumbly consistency.

In a medium bowl, use a mixer to beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add in the remaining egg, sugar, and lemon extract and continue beating until fully incorporated.

Reserve one cup of the cake mix batter, and press the remaining batter into the bottom of a greased 13 x 9 inch baking dish. It will be thin.

Spread the cream cheese mixture over the cake mix batter.

Sprinkle the reserved cake mix batter over the cream cheese.

Bake for 25 minutes or until the edges are just golden brown.

Cool completely before cutting.

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To PRINT your free PDF of this recipe click here: Lemon Cheesecake Bars

Enjoy!