If you ever lived or visited Bakersfield, and asked where is a great place to eat, more and likely you were recommended a Basque Restaurant. Our town is well known for its Basque foods and we even have four restaurants in an one block area, and all of them are full every night. I’m not even sure why we have such a big Basque culture here, hmm maybe something to look into. One of my favorite things to get is what they all call the “set up” which consists of Basque soup, beans, bread, and salad. My mouth is starting to drool just thinking of this. However, the surprising thing is if you try to look for a Basque soup recipe to make at home, you can’t find one. Some have called recipes Basque soup, but it wasn’t a Bakersfield Basque Soup. Here is my recipe for this amazing soup and I will tell you it is as good as some of the restaurants in town!

Ingredients:

• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 carrots, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 small head of green cabbage, chopped
• 8 cups vegetable broth
• 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 16 oz tomato sauce
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• ** Homemade Salad and French Bread, optional but very traditional!

Directions:

1. Sauté your onion, garlic, carrots, and celery
2. Add the broth, tomato sauce, undrained diced tomatoed, and the seasonings
3. Stir it all together and bring it to a boil, then reduce and let it simmer for 30 minutes
4. Add the chopped cabbage and simmer for another 30 minutes
5. Serve with salsa and french bread if desired

I have known I wanted to make this quilt since I was pregnant with Andrew. Throughout his first year, I set aside my favorite onesies, pajamas, and shirts just to make this quilt.

To start the quilt I cut out a square of each item. Because of the small size of some of the items those squares were smaller, so to even it out I made bigger squares of others. I laid each square on our bed to figure out the layout. Once decided I started sewing them in rows, then sewed all of the rows together.
I used flannel fabric to create a border on both the front and the back. The rest of the back was a big square of flannel fabric. After all of the pieces were sewn, I used temporary fabric adhesive to stick the two sides together and sew them in place. The last step was to sew on the trim.
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This quilt is so precious to me and something I will probably cherish forever!
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Update:  My quilt won second place in the memory quilt category!

Andrew goes through eating bananas and just throwing them on the floor. There were a few times the overripe bananas just got thrown away because we were tired of banana bread. Instead of them getting thrown away or the same old banana bread, I looked for something different. I came across a recipe for banana chocolate chip bread and changed a few things.

Ingredients

•  3-4 medium, overripe bananas
•  3/4 cup sugar
•  1 egg
•  1 teaspoon vanilla
•  1/4 c. vegetable oil
•  1 1/2 cups All Purpose flour
•  1 1/4 tsp baking powder
•  1/2 tsp. baking soda
•  dash of ground cinnamon
•  1/8 tsp salt
•  1 bag of mini chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Prepare a 9x5 loaf baking pan by lining it with parchment or foil and lightly spraying nonstick spray.
2. Mash the bananas with a fork or whisk. Whisk in the sugar, egg, vanilla, and vegetable oil.
3. Mix in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. The batter will be lumpy.
4. Fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan (top with more chocolate chips if you want). Bake for 55-60 minutes.

​Y’all the bread was amazing, warm mini chocolate chips that melted in the mouth, with the subtle taste of banana was the perfect breakfast on a lazy Sunday morning!