 My relationship with bananas has always been a bit strained. 🍌 I feel like I can never choose the right amount of bananas to buy at one time. I either buy too few which leads to morning arguments over who gets the last banana or I buy too many and I'm left with extras that get left on the counter until they looked like they survived a small house fire.😅 My go-to for recipe for superfluous overripe bananas has always been banana bread. I mean - who doesn't like banana bread? But now that I have a 16 month old granddaughter, I've completely rewritten the rules for leftover bananas in our house. They're the perfect wholesome ingredient when I want to make a sweet treat for her - and me - without having to add mountains of sugar.  These banana apple oat muffins have no mysterious ingredients with names that sound like chemistry experiments. They're a simple food that can be eaten for breakfast, snack time, lunch, or the fifteen-minute window that toddlers have between "I'm perfectly happy" and "I have never been fed in my entire life." Of course, we all know that there are no guarantees when it comes to the food preferences of toddlers. They're known to be unpredictable food critics. Feed these to your child on one day and you might get happy giggles a clean plate. Feed it to them again the next day and you may be looking at a "I cannot believe you expect me to eat this" expression. It's all part of the parenting adventure.🤣 So here's to overripe bananas, healthy snacks and the tiny grandchildren who keep us laughing while we try and figure out what they will want to eat today. 🤣  Banana Apple Oat Muffins 1 large ripe banana 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce 1 egg 3 Tablespoons coconut sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 apple, grated
 Bake 20 minutes at 350.
 Ciao!
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 I can't think of too many ways that I'd rather spend a Wednesday afternoon than gathered around my kitchen island with a group of friends making homemade pasta. I had dedicated one afternoon to ravioli making so I could fill my freezer with some of the delicious homemade pasta and I invited my friends to join me because cooking is always more fun with friends.🍝👩🏻🍳 We armed ourselves with aprons, lots of flour, a few dozen eggs and an electric pasta maker and got to work.👩🏻🍳
At the end of the afternoon there was flour covering every countertop, all over the floor (and us) and trays and trays of homemade ravioli.😅 We filled my freezer but also our plates with hand crafted ravioli and fettuccini. Every bite tasted like the sweet satisfaction of a delicious meal that we'd made ourselves.😋  If you're looking for my ravioli recipe, you can check it out here: Homemade butternut squash ravioli. Since I already shared that recipe, I'll post another popular pasta dish that I've been waiting to share. Cacio E Pepe is a very straightforward pasta dish. 3 ingredients - pasta, pepper and cheese. Easy, right? Sometimes I feel like the simpler the recipe, the harder it is to "get it right."🤷🏻♀️ You can make this Cacio E Pepe with homemade pasta or boxed pasta just make sure you use the best cheese that you can find. It WILL make a difference. Trust me.  Cacio E Pepe 4 teaspoons black peppercorns 1 2/3 cups Pecorino Romano cheese, cut into 1/2" pieces 12 ounces linguini
 Warm bowl over leftover pasta water in Dutch oven if it cools. Serve in warm bowls with leftover pepper.
Ciao!  By the time we reached Canyonlands National Park — the final stop on our grand tour of Utah’s Mighty 5 — we had officially entered the vacation fatigue but emotionally attached to rocks phase of travel. At this point our bodies were held together entirely by salty snacks, sunscreen and sheer national park loyalty. We had already conquered Zion National Park, survived the sandy chaos of Bryce Canyon, scaled rocks so steep that we had to crawl on our hands in Arches and tested our hiking limits in Capitol Reef. We were ready for whatever Canyonlands had in store for us.😅 Canyonlands is massive, vast and dramatic. It's the kind of landscape that's impossible to capture through the lens of a camera.📸 That didn't stop me from trying though.😅 It was a lot to take in but I'm eternally grateful that I got to see this amazing creation with my own eyes.
We finished out our national park journey with the hardest and steepest hike of our journey yet. We can now check "scrambling and bouldering" off of our bucket lists. 😂⛰️ The hike was hot and difficult but it the views from the top of the mountain made it worth every treacherous step.😆
Standing at the edge of these magnificent mesas and watching the endless canyons stretch into the horizon felt like the grand finale that we had been building toward all week. I could have stood on top of this mountain for hours - party because of the view and partly because I wasn't sure how I was going to get myself down the mountain.🤣
It was hard to see our 1800 mile trek across Utah come to an end but it was good to get home too.🚗 Living out of a suitcase for 10 days got a little tiresome and I was ready to get back in my own bed after our vacation. It was also nice to be back in my kitchen so we didn't have to look for a grocery store or a restaurant for every meal. Having snacks at my fingertips is a blessing and a curse.🤣 Most days on our trip we would pack snacks to eat in between our hikes and park adventures. My lunches consisted mainly of granola bars, cheese sticks and almonds so I was ready for a little more variety in my lunches when I got home. I was craving homemade, healthy and nutritious food. Zucchini oat muffins for the win.  Zucchini Oat Muffins 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce 1 cup finely grated zucchini 1 egg ¼ cup full-fat plain Greek yogurt ¼ cup melted coconut oil 1 teaspoon vanilla ¾ cup oat flour ¼ cup ground flaxseed ¼ teaspoon cinnamon ½ teaspoon baking powder ¼ teaspoon baking soda
 Bake 20 minutes at 350.  Ciao!
 If there’s one thing Arizona’s slot canyons taught me it’s that I am physically incapable of taking “just a few pictures.”📸 I entered Antelope canyon thinking "I’ll snap a couple of really great photos to post and then put my camera away so I can stay present in the moment while I'm in there."🤣 Forty five minutes later my camera disk was full and my spouse, who I lovingly referred to as my "second shooter" had nearly maxed out the storage on his phone. At then end of our tour, we had nearly 700 identical photos of sunlight hitting rock walls from slightly different angles. And honestly every single one felt necessary. I don't know how to describe the slot canyons in Arizona other than outrageously beautiful. The towering sandstone walls twist and curve like flowing caramel ribbons carved by time itself. Every tiny beam of sunlight felt like a divine performance put on exclusively for my camera roll and every perfect swirl of rock looks like it should be on the cover of a luxury travel magazine. Naturally, this sent me into full-blown wilderness paparazzi mode. Brace yourselves for slot canyon picture overload...
By the end of the hike, my camera roll looked like: canyon wall, canyon wall, canyon wall, canyon wall with shadow, canyon wall in portrait mode, canyon wall with sunlight, husband standing against canyon wall, blurry canyon wall, accidental photo of my shoe, and at least six photos where my finger somehow worked its way over the lens.😅  No matter how many photos I took of the slot canyons, I still don't feel like I was able to truly capture the true majesty of this incredible place. I feel the same way when I photograph an exceptionally beautiful loaf of sourdough. How do I capture the crackling golden crust, the perfect spiral of cinnamon sugar tucked inside soft tangy sourdough and the smell that instantly makes your entire kitchen feel like a cozy cabin. Cinnamon swirl sourdough is layered, dramatic, and deserving of excessive photography.🤣 Every time I make this I tell myself that I'll just have one slice. Next thing you know, I'm standing at the counter eating a third piece while saying things like “I’m appreciating the craftsmanship.”😂 The sourdough journey requires patience, timing and a willingness to accept that things may get a little messy along the way but it's totally worth it.  Cinnamon Sourdough Bread 100 grams active sourdough starter 375 grams water 450 grams bread flour 50 grams whole wheat flour 10 grams salt Cinnamon Filling 4 Tablespoons butter, softened 1/4 cup brown sugar 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon bread flour pinch of salt
  Bake loaf in preheated Dutch oven for 25 minutes at 450 with the lid on. Remove lid and bake 20 more minutes at 400.  Ciao!
 If you have a few extra minutes, please enjoy the story of how I ended up spending a day SPITE hiking through Arches National park. 😅 It started innocently enough. We walked into the visitor center looking hydrated, optimistic, and — according to one ranger’s facial expression — deeply unqualified.😅 We inquired about obtaining a permit to do a particularly strenuous hike and after a loooong pause, the ranger suggested that spend our day in the park visiting some of the scenic overlook hikes instead.🙃 She used the unseasonably warm weather as her reasoning behind her recommendation but we both knew that it was because we didn't look like the type of hikers that could handle a strenuous hike.🤣 She even went so far as to pull out a laminated card with photographs of people climbing up rocks as a means of discouraging us from the particular hike that we had chosen. Reasonable adults would hear this and perhaps consider spending the day driving to the scenic overlooks throughout the park but instead, we took it as a personal challenge.🤪 We marched ourselves right our of that visitor center toward the trailhead fueled entirely by french toast, poor judgment, and the overwhelming need to prove ourselves to a ranger in her twenties. Honestly, I get where the ranger was coming from. She's likely witnessed this exact cycle thousands of times: tourists want to do strenuous hike - tourists receive warning - tourists ignore recommendation - tourists suffer dramatically.😂 At one point during our hike, we encountered a steep slickrock incline that required using both hands and what little dignity I had left and I distinctly remember muttering, “That ranger will never know the satisfaction of being right.”🤣 Hours later — sunburned, dusty and held together by pure stubbornness — we finally reached the end of our desired hike and it was spectacular. Massive stone arches framed the desert landscape like something from another planet. The silence stretched endlessly across the canyons while the late afternoon sun turned the rocks into deep shades of orange and gold.
 
 
FYI: There is no food available in Arches national park so if you plan to go... pack snacks. LOTS of snacks - even if you choose to drive to the scenic overlooks instead of tackling the strenuous trails. 😅
I think my husband has been a fan of vanilla wafers since he was a kid so why would I not try and make a homemade version of this classic snack? These tiny cookies were surprisingly easy to make and they were super tasty. I won't go so far as to say that they taste like the Nabisco version of the cookie - but they are still very good - different - but equally good.  Vanilla Wafers 1 cup flour 1 cup powdered sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 8 Tablespoons butter, melted 1 egg 2 teaspoons vanilla
 Bake 16-19 minutes at 325 until golden brown. Let cool 3 minutes on trays.  Ciao!
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