Banana Bread (No Oil, No Sugar!)

Hey everyone! I'm alive and well, I just had some minor surgery earlier this month and underestimated the number of posts I needed to have scheduled. You live and you learn, right? I am doing great, I just couldn't work on any house projects for a while...

I realized that I can still cook, though. So I decided to share a recipe for banana bread that has no oil or added sugar (or honey, or agave, etc.). I like it because I'm really working on limiting my sugar and sweetener intake, but I don't want to go low carb. The bananas make this bread sweet enough for a yummy breakfast bread without sending it into the traditional dessert territory of regular banana bread recipes.

The process is very simple, just a regular quick bread recipe! Start with your wet ingredients:

Next, mash up the bananas. Make sure they are very ripe since they're providing all the sweetness to our bread.

 In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together:

Add the bananas to the wet ingredients, followed by the dry ingredients:

Bake & enjoy! It's really good toasted, and still sweet enough for my kids to enjoy without it being a dessert. I still love traditional banana bread, this is just a healthier way to enjoy that yummy taste more often.

Sugar & Oil-Free Banana Bread (adapted from The Sweet Beet)
2 large eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup milk (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups mashed banana (about 4 very ripe, medium-sized bananas)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Beat eggs until fluffy, then add applesauce, milk and vanilla. In another bowl, mash bananas. In a third bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add bananas to wet ingredients and stir well. Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Pour into a loaf pan and bake at 350°F for 55-65 minutes.

Completed Spa Room

Earlier this year, of the friends I got to know in esthetics school asked me to design and decorate her facial room. And now it's finally done, and I get to share it with you!

The spa room is located in a local salon suites business, where business owners can rent individual rooms rather than renting stations in a larger salon. It's a neat concept and my friend also has the suite next door for her hair business of over 15 years. (yes, she's a talented lady!)

 I posted the design board in June, but here's a reminder for you:

My friend wanted her spa room to feel warm and southwestern, but more Sedona than geometric or Native American-inspired like the trend that's really popular right now.

Because a lot of the esthetics equipment can be pretty expensive, we shopped smart for decor. In fact, the mirror, sconces, chair, pillow, and orange throw were all on clearance! We also hit up IKEA for things like canisters, small bowls for product, and towels.

I had her buy unfinished stock cabinetry which I painted, distressed and lightly glazed.

And now for the sad part: I tested it out, and getting waxed still hurts, no matter how pretty the room. Dang it.

My New Delta Faucet

Okay, friends... remember this trip?

Delta was such a gracious host to all of us when we were visiting them in Indianapolis for the blogger event.

Well.

While we were there, they took us to an amazing restaurant for dinner one night and presented us all with gifts.

Yeah, I was pretty excited. We got to pick a shower head with Delta's H20 Kinetic Technology and a Touch20 kitchen faucet. So obviously, my facial expression in the above photo makes perfect sense. Talk about perfect timing for this girl who is currently knee-deep in the world's longest kitchen remodel.

Last month I got this in the mail:

And last week it finally turned into this:

I can tell Delta is working hard to make their faucet installation as simple as possible. I could have done it all by myself if I needed to. There was a full color booklet with step-by-step drawings, and the parts were all in small bags organized by when you needed them during the installation process.

I won't lie, it was also pretty nice to be able to put it together on the kitchen floor instead of under an existing sink! In the above photo, you can see the black box that houses whatever fancy magical parts are responsible for the touch response of the faucet -- the only thing missing is the battery pack that plugs into the end of that wire.

I love the clean lines of this more contemporary faucet paired with the classic look of my new counters, and I'm officially addicted to having a touch faucet. Delta provided the faucet, but I'm being 100% honest when I say that I think their touch technology is second to none.

My five year old loves being able to wash his hands in the kitchen without needing a stool to reach the handle, and I love being able to turn it on by tapping when my hands are dirty.

So now that I've shared my love story with this new favorite toy, tell me: what kitchen product or feature can't YOU live without?

Here a Tile, There a Tile...

I wanted to wait until the counters were installed to pick the backsplash tile, because I'm slower than molasses when it comes to making decisions for myself. If this kitchen belonged to anyone else, I would have picked everything at once and it would have been done a year ago... but that's because I'm sort of bossy and (not so) secretly enjoy making decisions for other people. Ha!

I have it narrowed down to three options. I'm all about options.

Thanks to the magic of computers and my limited skills, I threw three images of my kitchen together with samples of the colors.

Option 1: Green glass tiles (3x6")
Pretend these tiles are 3x6.

Option 2: Green marble tiles (2x4" or 3x6")
This is what I'm leaning toward because I think they're so darn pretty. And I think they're different enough from my Formica counters that there wouldn't be an issue of the real marble making the fake look cheap.

The mosaic sheet shown is just to illustrate the color variation -- they're each 1x2" in this sample which I don't like as much. The hang up is, if I do go for the slightly smaller 2x4 tile, I have to wait a couple months because they're out of stock. (So naturally that's what I think I want at this point...)

This green marble tile also reminds me a little of this kitchen's beautiful crackled ceramic tile, and I've always loved this kitchen.

(original source unknown)

Option 3: White subway tiles (3x6")
A classic choice. Would make for a very white kitchen, though..

 So, what do you think? Does anyone have any words of advice for me? Let's pick some tile!

New Kitchen Counters

Some serious progress has been made in the kitchen! There's still plenty to do but for now I'm just going to enjoy my new counters.

They are from Formica's 180fx line -- the pattern is "Calacatta Marble." We bought a couple sheets of  it and our contractor friend installed them for us so we saved a lot of money, but it also means there's no fancy seamless edge. I still think they look really nice so I will certainly not complain!

It was a big job and it involved a last minute unplanned sink purchase. The one we were planning on using was free from someone we know who had upgraded, but it turned out to be missing a big part necessary for mounting, and I didn't have time to order it from the company!

Could you imagine going a week or two without a kitchen sink? I think I'd lose my mind.

Next up is the backsplash! You probably noticed that my $53 slate version came down with the old counters... it's time to move on to bigger, better and more permanent things. I'm trying to make a decision about tile right now, so I'll share the options on here in the next day or two. For now, though... let's just enjoy.

No Sink in Sight

Yesterday, when I went to work, my kitchen looked like this:

And when I came back (and had completely forgotten), I was surprised with this:

So, while I might not have a sink... or even a hole for one, I will today! Finally! You can't see me right now, but I'm jumping up and down with excitement.

Okay, that's not true... I'm actually sitting and typing this out, not jumping. But it's happening on the inside, people. The inside.

New counters! Without weird, gag-worthy built in cutting boards! Apparently, y'all should be happy I wasn't here to take photos of the removal... lets just imagine years of water sneaking in around the edges of that cutting board. I heard it was pretty gross.

Let's focus on the good stuff though. After 4 months, the counters are going in. Be still my heart.

Now excuse me, I have to go wash some dishes in my bathroom sink!

P.S. Yes, I got a job. I'm such a grown up!
P.P.S. Happy 500th post to me!