Sunday, July 27, 2014

Chocolate Chip Cookies with banana and coconut oil

I've made chocolate chip cookies a few times substituting one banana for one of the sticks of butter. Today I remembered I wanted to try a half cup of coconut oil and one banana instead of any butter. The coconut oil is softer due to the summer temperatures, even in the a/c, so I didn't heat it at all.

I followed a basic chocolate chip recipe using two teaspoons of vanilla and one egg. I don't see many other variations. I did add one cup of oats, which I often do and did add almost two full cups of chocolate chips. I often only add one cup, but my helpers vetoed that idea.

I baked 10 minutes at 375 degrees and these have a very nice texture. The banana and butter variation seems more cakey. Banana only (no added fats) are very cakey. I think we will stick with the coconut oil.  As my daughter said, coconut oil is good for everything!  Even my feet!


Thursday, July 24, 2014

Ladybug Quilt

My four year old and I were shopping and she came across some ladybug fabric.  She wanted to buy it.  I asked her what we could use it for and she said a quilt.  I hadn't really planned to make her a new quilt, but do know there aren't enough quilts to go around on chilly evenings.  We looked around for coordinating fabrics and found a couple on the Christmas Clearance tables.  Finally I found the flowered print and felt that pulled everything together.  I bought enough for a back and for the blocks.

It did take me some time to decide how I wanted to make the blocks.  Finally I decided on wonky blocks and loosely followed this tutorial.

I started with 13" squares of the 5 different prints.  I made four cuts.  After shifting and sewing back together, it yielded 10.5" blocks.

After I got the blocks together, the quilt was too small.  Finally, with my guild members input, added the white sashing and a wonky outside border.

For the wonky border, I used 13" x 5.5" rectangle, layered 5 fabrics, then cut in half lengthwise.  The border is probably my favorite part.

Another decision which seemed hard at the time was how to quilt it.  I wanted to challenge myself to try something different.  I opted to make large free motion flowers with white thread.  It worked fairly well, but it's certainly not perfect.