Twelve Loaves Challenge

I'm a fairly new follower of Elizabeth of Food and Thrift. She and her daughter Lara are having a Twelve Loaves Challenge which I've decided to join.  The reason? I read Elizabeth's blog on Tuesday night and found a fantastic deal on strawberries the very next day.  I also had a few ingredients which needed to be used up (coconut milk, blueberries and multi-grain flour).

My loaf today is a Strawberry - Blueberry loaf (easy on the blueberries).  I use a banana instead of sugar. I'd have rather used applesauce but I didn't have any on hand.  This is a made up loaf so it's my first time making it.

 Strawberry Loaf

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 cup oat bran

*1/2 cup multi-grain flour (or add equiv. amount of all purpose flour)

2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 large mashed banana
1/2 cup vegetable, or canola oil
3 eggs

1/2 milk

*1/4 coconut milk (or equiv. Amount of milk)
2 cups fresh diced strawberries

*1/2 cup fresh blueberries (or add another berry or equiv. Amount of strawberries)

Directions

The ingredients with an asterik * were added because they were left over from other recipes and I wanted to use them up. You can omit all these and simply add more of other similar ingredients.

In a large bowl, add flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Mix together with a fork. In a medium bowl, break the eggs, and lightly mix together with the oil, banana and milk. With a plastic spatula, or spoon, add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture and gently stir before adding the fresh fruit.

Bake in a loaf pan at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes.

Note:  The loaf was very good. I tend to like my loaves dense and crunchy rather than light and airy. Update:  After being in the freezer the loaf was a little more crumbly than I'd like. I'm going to experiment with this loaf, adding more egg one day and more liquid on another day, and also use applesauce for sweetening or a bit more banana. I think this one is a keeper for me.

Yields: 2 loaves or 1 loaf and 6 large muffins.

Taste test:  Perfect for me. The loaf had a bit of crunch from the oat bran and multi-grain flour yet it was soft enough. It was not sweet at all and had a hint of banana. If you prefer your loaves and muffins sweeter, you can add 3/4 of sugar to the liquid mixture in place of the mashed banana.


Blueberry-Peach Loaf

I also made Elizabeth's Blueberry-Peach Loaf recipe with the following modifications:  instead of 1 1/2 cups of unbleached flour I used: 1 cup of oat bran, 1/4 cup multi-grain flour and 1/4 cup of unbleached flour.  This gave the loaf more crunch and made it denser. I actually should have made some sugar substitutions but I was not thinking.  I haven't baked in a very long while. I will be freezing much of these loaves and muffins for munching on later.  Taste test:  Yummy.

I'm linking up with Lara for the Twelve Loaves Challenge.

If you missed my post on Little Linet in Kenya, please read here. 

Beauty in The Sky

Even a telephone post can look beautiful silhouetted against the sky.

Join with with all the gang who host Skywatch Friday here.

If you missed my post on Little Linet in Kenya, please read here.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Update on Fundraising for Little Linet's Surgery

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

This is a quick update to let you know that we still need $80 60 (eighty sixty dollars) Canadian to get the medical evaluation as to whether cleft palate surgery can be performed on Little Linet. See story in my last post (click "Older Post" at bottom of this post if you do not see the story on this page).  We also need $70 (seventy dollars) Canadian for the return travels for 3 people (Little Linet, Mama Linet and Jonah to assist them). Altogether we need $130 dollars  (Canadian) for Little Linet.

I had a couple people contact me about the DONATE feature on Jonah's website which is acting up. This has been a long standing issue for us. Please send your donation via Pay Pal to kerichojoy[at]gmail.com if you have any problems with the DONATE button.

If you are following Edwin's progress for cancer treatment, please know that there is an upcoming trip on August 8th to Nairobi. At that time Edwin will have follow up check up and require more medicine to continue his treatment. If you would like to help Edwin, you can donate in the same way. He will need about $100 (one hundred) Canadian to cover travel, medical treatment and one month's food needs for Edwin and his family.

Thank you so much in advance on behalf of Jonah, Linet and Edwin. Blessings. xx

Little Linet

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

The last time I wrote you about little Linet she had been taken to hospital.  You might remember Little Linet is the girl with a cleft palate. Her family is not able to afford hospital care.

This photo shows Linet as a toddler when Jonah first started helping her with doctor visits and food.

My friend Jonah, in Kenya, first helped this little one because she couldn't eat. Somehow by the grace of God, the baby was able to start eating after medical attention and she gained weight. However she has been having  many problems and is now malnourished.

She went to hospital again a few weeks ago and the doctors took out her long front teeth, administered oral hygiene and tended to her  mouth wounds.  She is now on a strict diet which the mother cannot afford to purchase for her little girl. She needs our help.

This is Linet (standing) with her mother on her way to see doctor at mission hospital.

We still need to cover some nominal costs of Linet's oral surgery from a few weeks ago.   At the same time, we are trying to help with special food needs and raising the funds for the cleft palate surgery. The mission hospital is not close to where Little Linet lives with her family so there are additional costs like transport, food and lodgings.

You can see the little girl's long teeth in front. These were removed.

This girl is supposed to go to the missions hospital for an evaluation as to whether she can have surgery to repair her cleft palate.  Repairing it is the only way to resolve the different medical issues she has been suffering for a few years now.  It will cost us a few hundred dollars for the medical costs, transportation (Linet, her mother and Jonah to assist them), food and follow up costs.  If we can't raise the money for her surgery, she will continue to lose weight.

The surgery we are doing is NOT through Operation Smile. I did look into that program some time ago but learned that not everyone who can get to screening will be selected for surgery.  I also learned that Operation Smile collects a donation of $240 US even though surgeon and nursing care are donated to the surgery efforts.  The $240 doesn't cover the cost of a family's transportation to get to the medical center, lodging or food costs.  I've posted this information about Operation Smile just so you have something similar with which to compare Little Linet's need.

If you can help Little Linet get the medical evaluation and the surgery she so desperately requires, you can send your donation

via Pay Pal to kerichojoy[at]gmail.com

or link here at Kenya Missions of Hope for the DONATE button.

My apologies, but the links to Kenya Missions of Hope don't always work consistently.  If you have any problems at all please let me know.

Thank you so much for your understanding.

Sky Over Granville Island

For more beautiful skies from Skywatch Friday, click here.

Beautiful Tulip

Join Floral Friday Fotos here. Also join Tina at Weekend Flowers on Friday, here.

Back to Routine & a Bit of Knitting

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

After having a visitor for a few weeks, I'm catching up on my own schedule of things.  I've actually been very busy with household work, doing my laundry and trying to clean my carpets; vacuuming and steam cleaning, vacuuming and steam cleaning and so on, until the high traffic areas are clean.  I have one of those small steamer (steam-tek mop) that works with just water in it. I like it because it is very light and easy to use. It isn't for heavy duty jobs but it helps a lot.

Following my post yesterday, I've also been spending a lot of time trying to implement my new blogging approach by deleting many of my subscriptions. One thing I've learned is that although there is a place to manage one's subscriptions in Google Reader, it actually doesn't work that well. I've been trying to delete certain subscriptions since well before yesterday and they continue to appear in my dashboard. Has anyone else experienced this? So much for efficient computer use. Though I will keep trying I didn't expect it to be so difficult to delete blogs!

I've also been fitting in a bit of knitting which I find so relaxing. This time I made two dishcloths in this rib knit pattern which I found here last year. I use size 6 mm needles rather than the size 4.5 mm called for. I really like my 6 mm needles because they are bamboo and so comfortable to use.  I really should try knitting with the proper size needles to get a neater look (I need all the help I can get) *smile.

Since I first printed the pattern for the washcloth in the photo, the author has made corrections to her pattern but I am still using the old one! I'm such a newbie that I didn't notice anything wrong with the pattern other than it isn't as neat around the edges as I'd like and that is perhaps due to my lack of skill. I'll have to try the new instructions and see what a difference it makes. I just finished putting the crocheted edge around the dishcloths today. Later I hope to go downtown and continue the sofa search I started last month.

As I was looking for the yarn to make these dishcloths I realized I still have my small afghan to finish. It was going to be a baby afghan but now I will turn it into a lap blanket for my mother.  Sadly she didn't get to use the crocheted afghan I made for her (photo of the work in progress here).  The very day I gave it to her, someone rolled it up in a bunch of things they donated and we never saw it again. Mom didn't even have a chance to get a label put on it so that she could be identified as the owner.

I hope you are all having a good week. Enjoy!