Carry On Travel Kits

Have you been to the airport lately and had to have your makeup bag confiscated because you brought too many items on board? Well, I had that happen a few times and now I just don’t carry any of that in my purse. However, for those of you who feel completely lost without their little bag of cosmetic goodies and lotions and potions I found this website that may be beneficial to you.

It’s called 311 travel bag  or clearbagsystem.com and they sell fashionable carry on toiletry cases that meet all the carry-on regulations. The bottles are pretty in their sleek and sophisticated designs, zippered closure patent leather see-through bags, clear bottles with silver caps and the bottles are big enough to where you don’t have to purchase those trial size bottles that never seem to have the products we like.

Creamy Banana Bread

As Christmas draws closer with each passing day, if you’re like us here at ABridetoBee.com you’ve probably found yourself headed towards the kitchen with your baking shoes on. The challenge however, before jumping into your mixing bowls, is to find this years perfect recipe! After searching through every magazine and cook book published within the last fifty years, we’ve found some secret recipes (old and new) that are absolutely to die for! We’ll post more recipes over the next few days that have been ‘kid tested-mother approved’ and will surely be a hit with all your friends and family!

Here’s another one we found on our quest to come up with a more moist banana nut bread and something that was easy to make and ship to our friends.

Creamy Banana Bread-from allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup margarine, softened
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1-1/2 cups mashed bananas (@ 3 banana’s)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

1. Cream the butter or margarine and cream cheese together. Gradually add the white sugar, and continue beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the mashed bananas and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder, and soda; mix until batter is just moist.
2. In a small bowl, mix together chopped pecans, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, and cinnamon.
3. Divide 1/2 batter into two greased and floured 8×4 inch loaf pans. Sprinkle pecan mixture over batter in pans, and top with remaining batter.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
5. *When we made this recipe we did it without the pecans for those of our friends who have nut allergies. And we tried the recipe with the original one cup of (2) banana’s and it was not banana enough for us, so we added 3 and made a difference. We also only baked the bread for 40 minutes instead of 45. But make sure you use an oven thermometer to test your oven for accurate temperature. We found out ours was off by 10 degrees!  

Triple Chocolate Cookies

After numerous requests for homemade cookies from my little honey bees I cooked like Betty Crocker this weekend. Over 15 dozen cookies to be exact, 15 loaves of creamy banana bread and carrot cake and I was also on the quest to come up with a gourmet cookie better than the toll house chocolate chip cookie. Anyway, during my research on whether to use butter or shortening, why I should use salt and how to make a thick gourmet cookie, l I found this awesome recipe for triple chocolate cookies from a website called, expertvillage.com, they promote themselves as the world’s largest how-to video site. It’s pretty cool.  Anyway, I made these cookies below and I read through the transcript and wrote out the directions and sharing them with you. You should check out their website, it’s amazing what’s on there. Enjoy! My friends and family loved them.

TRIPLE CHOCOLATE COOKIES BY COOKIESCOUTURE.COM

Preheat oven to 350* bake cookies for 10-12 minutes

Ingredients:

2 Cups Flour

1 Tsp Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp Salt

1 Cup Softened Butter Room Temp (2 sticks)

3/4 Cup Brown Sugar

3/4 Cup White Sugar

Sugar

2 Eggs

1 Tbsp Vanilla

1/2 Cup Dutch Cocoa

2 Cups Chocolate Chips

Cream the butter and the sugar on Medium speed, cream for about 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and scrap down sides of bowl and give it one more good mix. In a separate bowl mix 2 cups of flour and add 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and then add 1/2 cup of cocoa. Use a wooden spoon make sure it is dry incorporate all the dry ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Start on low speed so the dry does not fly out the sides. Mix for about 3 minutes. Do not over mix. Stop mixing  then add chocolate chips and mix for about 30 seconds until you see the chips mixed throughout the dough.

Get a scoop and dip in water to prevent sticking and scoop out dough on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Then place in freezer for 5 minutes. This prevents the dough from spreading. Bake for 12 minutes at 350*. Remove from oven and remove parchment paper with cookies off hot pan to a cool surface.

Last Minute Deals of the Day!

Hey bee’s, I wanted to take a second and share some awesome coupons for you to use while you finish up your last minute online shopping!

Weekly Shoe-Giveaway when you become a user and make a purchase at Shoes.com.

Buy SpaWish Gift Certificates and Products. Save $5 today. Click For Details.

Don’t forget to check out our coupon section for ones you can download and print from home to be used in your local stores!

Check back later for some great cookie recipe’s!

Free Ebook for Garden Wedding or Backyard Wedding

I know its winter time but for those of you that are planning spring or summer weddings, now is the time to start thinking about where you want to have your event. We have helped a lot of brides with ideas over the years for backyard and garden themed weddings, but we found this other Free Ebook from Moplants.com titled Backyard Wedding Makeover.

This 19 page downloadable Ebook helps you evaluate your yard, how to lay out the wedding space, planting design ideas, wedding colors relating to the garden colors, seasonal flower bloom color lists and more. Maureen Gilmer has some great ideas and maybe you can pick up something from her book to get the ideas flowing.

Good luck.  

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