Banana Boats

The last two Fridays Eric and I have spent the evenings up Millcreek Canyon hanging out by a fire and roasting hot dogs and other food stuffs. This is a ridiculously cheap activity for us, and we love it. The weather is perfect for it right now, and we are enjoying watching the leaves change each time we go up the canyon.

A few years ago we took a camping class together (Does that sound like a blow-off class? It totally was.) where we learned about a really great campfire treat that we call banana boats. Maybe the original people called them banana boats as well, but I can't remember.

I haven't offered a recipe in a very, very, very long time, so this post is devoted to the makings of banana boats. While these are traditionally baked over a campfire, you can do them just as easily in your oven.

First, lay the bananas on their sides and take off a portion of the peel, but still leave it attached at the stem. (Technically you do not have to leave it attached, but it is easier if you do.)






Then cut out a portion of the banana to fill with whatever fillings you are using. (I have suggested fillings at the bottom of the instructions.)

(You should note that the purple blob in the corner of this photo is my belly.)




When you've hollowed out your bananas, they should look like this. Of course, you can hollow out your bananas more or less based on your preferences. It will be easier to hollow out your bananas if they are fairly ripe. But really, they are bananas. We're not talking about carving pumpkins, here. Just use a decent knife, and you are fine.



Once you've hollowed out your bananas the way you want them, fill them with the various fillings. In this case, we used peanut butter, fudge topping, marshmallows and graham cracker crumbs.








Place the peel over the filled in portion of the banana. This is fairly important because it will keep your filling where it belongs instead of getting all over the tin foil.

Then wrap your bananas in foil. Each banana should be wrapped separately.

Bake your bananas at 400 degrees (Fahrenheit, obviously) for about 15-20 minutes. You want the banana to be cooked enough that it becomes fairly caramelized. If you are doing this on an outside fire, you will want to put your bananas on hot coals and leave them there only about 5-8 minutes. Even if you don't cook them all the way through, everything will still taste really good, but the caramelized bananas are pretty much to die for.

When all is said and done, your banana will look kind of gross. But it will taste oh so yummy. (Eating it in the dark will help you not notice that it doesn't actually look particularly appetizing. I believe that is partly why it is usually a camping favorite.)







Filling suggestions:

• Any sort of ice cream topping like caramel, fudge, marshmallow cream.
• Marshmallows
  
• Chocolate chips
• Peanut butter
• Various types of jam

Anybody else is welcome to offer suggestions of fillers. Eric and I typically do marshmallows and chocolate chips.

My thanks to Priscilla for taking the photos during the making of said banana boats.

Shoes

Yes, my blog-fodder reservoir is so low that I am blogging about my shoes.

Compared to most American women, I do not have a lot of shoes. I have never been a shoe-guru. I certainly appreciate a pair of cute shoes, but when it comes to buying shoes I am rarely capable of letting go of my money to buy a pair unless I know that I will wear them a lot.

I am more interested in comfort and functionality than I am interested in style. Consequently, I do not own a lot of really adorable shoes. I see a lot of adorable shoes, but then I realize that those shoes would probably hurt my feet and/or make my back hurt, and I don't buy them.

One of my biggest pet peeves in traveling, actually, is that I hate to be that person wearing clunky and ugly tennis shoes at all the tourist places, but there are no other more comfortable shoes. And if I'm going to be walking around the National Mall and visiting umpteen Smithsonians, I don't want my feet and back to be killing me by the end of the day. And my feet and back would kill me by the end of a block or two if I were wearing some of my cuter shoes. (You can trust me on this. I park 1.5 blocks from the Family History Library, and even that little walk will often make my feet and lower back hurt all day long if I am not wearing tennis shoes.)

Perhaps the solution is to buy better quality cute shoes, but I have not found that the quality of a cute shoe matters a whole lot. Most shoes just do not have the support that I need to have a comfortable shoe-wearing experience.

So I am the girl with not very many shoes, who gets out of my shoes as soon as I walk into my flat.

(As you can probably tell, the bottom four rows of the shoe rack are mine. Missing are my pair of black flats. They happen to be right where I left them when I walked in the door from work today.)

31 Weeks

Lest anybody who does not see me in real life on a regular basis thought I was making this up, I am not. I really am pregnant. And thankfully, I'm still on the small side considering how far along I am. Only about nine weeks to go!

(And, yeah, that picture on the right is really wonky. Why did Eric cut off the top of my head? And why didn't he tell me that my posture was more crooked than usual? Oh well.)

A workaday world

Back in March I gave a brief description of Eric's job. I usually don't talk about Eric's job a whole lot, just like I do not talk about my own that much. It is partly because there just isn't a lot to say about our jobs, but also because I like to keep our professional lives pretty separate from the blog. I don't ever want to get into any kind of trouble for saying something on my blog about our jobs that could somehow get either of us into some kind of trouble. (While I'm explaining that, please take note that I NEVER name the companies that either of us currently work for, so please also refrain from doing that when you comment. Thanks!)

That whole paragraph does have a point, and it is thus - Eric got a promotion and a transfer to his company's Salt Lake branch. This is a huge blessing for us, and we are very excited about this new transition. Of all the things I am most excited about, the main one is that he will have a normal schedule. Last night was his last graveyard shift EVER. Since he's worked graveyard shifts our entire marriage (sans the year we were in New Zealand), I'm not particularly bothered by being by myself overnight. (I got over any qualms I had about that very quickly.) But it is kind of lame that he would often leave our flat on Sunday night at about 11 and not return until Tuesday evening. No more of that. He will be working regular office hours. We're going to see each other every single evening. I don't even know what that is like! But I'm excited for it.

Pregnancy Lies

For the most part, I think I've had a very normal pregnancy. But I have definitely noticed some things that women told me would or wouldn't happen a certain way that have just not been the same for me.

• Your morning sickness will be gone by 14 weeks. Let's try 21 weeks.
• Your hair is amazing when you are pregnant, and you don't shed. My hair is the same. I shed the same amount.
• Your energy will sky-rocket in the second trimester. While I definitely felt my energy rebound after the first few exhausting weeks, I never felt like I had exceptional energy during the second trimester. Of course, that may have to do with the fact that I was low on iron, as I found out last week after my iron test. And maybe the longer I am in the third trimester the more I will realize that I had great energy levels in the second. We shall see.
  
• You won't have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom during the second trimester. I understand the logic behind this: during the first trimester your uterus mostly grows downward, causing you to need to use the bathroom more than usual. In the second trimester, your uterus really begins to grow outward, and that is alleviated until the third trimester when your uterus just grows and grows and grows. I had about two weeks where I wasn't waking up in the middle of the night to use the loo. It was a lovely two weeks, and it was so very, very, very long ago.
• Weird cravings. I just haven't had any. I know that that is not a straight and fast rule, but it is something that you hear a lot about, but I didn't have issues with it really. In fact, there were few things that I really craved at all. I do love pickles, but I've always liked them. I also love chocolate milk, but I've also always liked that too. I just happen to like them a little more than usual right now. But I've never had a craving that justifies going out and satisfying it RIGHT THEN (or sending Eric out, which, let's be honest, is the more likely solution.)
• Moodiness. I had a few weeks of being pretty unstable (by my standards - it's possible I was very even-keeled compared to other people.), but since then I've felt pretty normal. As when I am not pregnant, things get touchy when I haven't eaten properly or haven't slept properly (Yes, I am in fact an infant.), but that sort of moodiness is not unique to pregnancy.

Now, I know that most of what I've heard are generalities, and for the most part I think I've fit into those generalities. But these are few things that have caused me to raise my eyebrows and wonder what the heck every body else was talking about.

Time-travel and political debates

We've been watching The Civil War, the documentary series produced by Ken Burns several years ago. It is a truly great series. The other night we watched the episode that included Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg. One of the interesting things about this speech is that Lincoln was invited in sort of an off-handed way. The folks dedicating the new cemetery realized they probably should extend an invitation to the president, and he knew that he'd be called upon to speak. However, he was not invited as the primary speaker. The chief orator was Edward Everett. His speech lasted a couple of hours. Of course, Lincoln's was only a few minutes, and it was one of the most eloquent and beautiful speeches most of us have ever read.

With all that background, here is my point: Can you imagine listening to somebody speak for over two hours? In the 1860s that was really common. Most politicians gave speeches that lasted that long. Sermons were that long too. Mormons attend a semi-annual conference each year. Each conference includes six two-hour sessions, four of which are directed at the entire church. (Meaning that at any given conference you probably will only attend as many as five sessions.) Don't get me wrong, I love General Conference, but sitting for two hours at a time and listening to speakers is a little tiring, and we're talking about NUMEROUS speakers in each session, plus songs! And I still find myself very ready for each session to end.

It is hard for me to imagine politicians of today, who are trained to speak in soundbites and quippy remarks having a debate with a politician of the 1860s. I mean, really, can you imagine Abraham Lincoln participating in the Republican presidential primaries with Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and John McCain? If anything on earth could make our current politicians look even dumber, I think that would be it. Of course, Americans, as a rule, appreciate the shorter, quippy remarks to the logical, thoughtful political explanations. (Thank you, television.) Not only that, but can you imagine a politician of the 1860s having to respond to debate questions within a 90-second limit?

Now, I'm not advocating a return to lengthy political speeches. I just thought it was interesting how very different our political discussions are now than what they were 150 years ago. The style of political discourse is so vastly different than it once was, that it really is like comparing apples and oranges. But I still do wonder if truly eloquent politicians of ages past are looking down on the Sarah Palins (and others, oh, there are others!) of today and shake their heads in disappointment.