Hello everyone! Today is Friday–TGIF and my Grandma's birthday, so this is your gift, Grandma-a blog post from me because we all know how much you love reading my blog! Also, its the 6th days of spring and it doesn't feel like it! Thankfully, I'm lucky for living here in western SD because we aren't quite experiencing the 'nice' spring weather like my folks are. I'm being sarcastic when I say that, they had roughly 8-9 inches of snow earlier this week. Anyways, today is meant to be a catch up from my last post. So here we go...

I've mentioned that we have a new addition to our household, our little, stinkin' cute yet naughty puppy Jet. Honestly, Dustin and I do feel like we are in parenthood. Scary thing to say, but when we have kids, I bet they are just going to be like Jet besides furry and always chewing on things. Jet is an attention hog and sometimes we feel like we don't cater to his needs all the time. But to update you on his progress, here are some photos...

With having Jet, I've slowly found time to do some cooking and baking. I would like to share two wonderful and easy recipes during this busy time of the year.

First recipe I found while looking through an array of cookbooks. While back, Dustin about these small ones, especially this one titled-101 Things to Do With A Slow Cooker. Now, I love my slow cooker because it feels like a magic genie made supper for us while we were at work.
Recipe: Pork Chops and Mushrooms
Ingredients:
4 boneless pork chops (I used bone-in)
2 medium onions
1 can (4 oz.) sliced mushrooms
1 envelope dry onion soup mix
1/2 cup water
1 can (10.75 oz.) cream of mushroom soup

Directions:
Place meat in greased 3.5-4.5 qt slow cooker. Top with onions and mushrooms. In a seperate bowl, combine soup mix, water and soup. Pour over mushrooms and pork chops. Cover and cook on low heat 6-8 hours. Can serve with rice but our meat feel off the bone! It was delicious!

Second recipe I needed to make while I watched three little bananas turn more ripe everyday, for the past several weeks! I just didn't want to throw them away so what do you do with nicely ripped bananas, that's right, make banana bread. My co-worker was going through the same feeling that I made her some too with her well ripped bananas!
Recipe: The Best Banana Bread Ever!
Ingredients:
¾ cups Butter Or Margarine, Softened
1-½ cup Sugar
1-½ cup Bananas, Mashed
2 whole Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
½ cups Buttermilk
2 cups Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
1 cup Walnuts, Chopped (optional)
Directions:
1. If you don’t have buttermilk, substitute with 1 teaspoon cider vinegar in a half cup measure, then add enough milk to equal a half cup and let stand 30 minutes. (I acutally did this!)
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar; then add bananas, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt.
4. Add flour mixture to banana mixture and mix well. Fold in nuts, if using.
5. Pour into two, greased and floured loaf pans (or one 10” loaf pan and if you do this, add about 20 minutes to the baking time).
6. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes or until cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

But I hope I did my duty in fulfilling you on what's been happening once again. I don't mean to cut this short but Jet needs to be catered to again. What a needy dog he is! I'll be back soon with some more updates!