you are my sunshine

How lovely is this print from Blacklist Studio Prints? Wouldn't that make for a thoughtful gift to someone you love? Hint, hint....

sunday sweets {banana pudding}

Banana pudding is one of those things that is quintessentially southern. I had never had it before moving down here, but it became one of the only things I would sneak from the restaurant I worked at. It's delicious, so delicious that when invited to a friend's house for dinner this weekend, I felt it was absolutely necessary to make. When said friend worked with me at the restaurant, we used to sneak spoonfuls of this stuff from the kitchen. It wasn't even that great. The thing about banana pudding is... there's no such thing as a bad one. There's "not that great" ones, but you'll still eat them. This recipe is a good one, really good. Lots of vanilla, and vanilla wafers, which I believe is the best part. You could also make pound cake for this, but I think vanilla wafers are just as good.

Ingredients:

3/4 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup flour

3 cups milk

3 large egg yolks

3 tablespoons butter, room temp

2 teaspoons vanilla {I may or may not have used about an extra teaspoon of vanilla paste}

vanilla wafers cookies

4-5 ripe bananas

home made whipped cream

Directions:

In bowl, combine the sugar, salt, and flour. Slowly stir in milk until smooth. Pour into double broiler over simmering water and stir until mixture thickens.

In a small bowl, whisk 3 large egg yolks, then slowly mix in about 1 cup of hot milk mixture. Return mixture to double broiler, stir in vanilla and butter. Continue whisking and cooking until thickened, remove from heat and let cool.

To cool the pudding mixture quickly, transfer to a ziplock back and rest in an ice water bath.

In a deep dish layer cooled pudding mixture, vanilla wafers, and bananas until full. Make homemade whipped cream {about 1 1/4 heavy cream and 2 teaspoons powdered sugar {depending on taste} and layer on top. Chill until serving. Serve by scooping all layers together, adding crushed vanilla wafers to the top.

Enjoy!

have a safe weekend!

{allison scarpulla via miss moss}

An earthquake and a hurricane all in one week, gosh east coast, what did you do to piss off mother nature? Hopefully the weather won't effect your weekend plans. I had planned to do a lot of stuff outside this weekend, farmer's market, cookouts, a short trip to Charleston, you know, stuff that would be much more enjoyable without rain and wind.

Hope you all have a lovely {and dry} weekend!

Around the web:

1. Awesome engagement shoot.

2. Yet another thing to learn how to do to my hair.

3. Alexa Chung for Madewell Fall 2011. SO excited.

4. I saw these last week and since then they've been all over the blog world, but just incase you haven't see them...

birthday wish list

{tea and crumpets apron}

{Sonoma Wine Tote}

{My Father's Daughter}

{The Flavor Thesaurus}

My birthday is coming up September 1 and I'm always really bad at telling people what to get me. Throughout the year I always talk about things I want, and then when people ask around my birthday, I mysteriously forget. Honestly, I don't really need anything, I usually just like to go out to dinner or go away for the weekend, however, there's a couple of things I guess I wouldn't mind getting. I will probably post a few more before next week, but here's a couple of things that I feel as frequent baker and hostess I may need.

P.S. No Sunday Sweets today due to my weekend trip, but I may have something in the middle of the week for you.

monday morning eye candy

New prints from Brainstorm! I've talked about my love for their prints before, but since I never ordered them and they are now sold out, I think these would definitely suffice. Ever since we added this map print to our home, I've been obsessed with the theme, so these would be a lovely addition. Perhaps for my birthday coming up? Eh?

THANK GOD it's friday

{via a cup of jo}

This has been a beyond awful week, so bad it cannot even be described to you, you wouldn't believe it if I did. So, I'm quite relieved to get away. This weekend some lady friends and I are headed to St. Simons Island to soak up some sun and hopefully drink A LOT of wine. I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Just some small stuff:

1. WWF ads that are beautiful and sad.

2. Remember this from last week? Well here's a real life one.

3. My striped shirt obsession continues. And here too.

4. Old Try. I may need to order the Georgia one before we move.

missoni for target

Missoni's line for target launches September 13 and it looks like it's going to be pretty awesome. Just look at that bike! Check out the full lookbook here.