Meal Planning with Connie

"Yes, we have no bananas We have-a no bananas today. We've string beans, and onions Cabbages, and scallions, And all sorts of fruit and say We have an old fashioned to-mah-to A Long Island po-tah-to But yes, we have no bananas. We have no bananas today." ~ by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn My day didn't start out with no bananas. Instead, I had an abundance of very ripe bananas that needed using! We eat a lot of bananas, and we almost never have this many that are going to ruin, if not used. What to do with all those bananas? Because he was off today, Larry and I were able to start our day with nice long walk. On the way home from walking, we noticed the Warren Construction Crew was working in our neighborhood. This is a great group of Christian men who built our house many years ago and spent most of last summer working here on some remodeling. They were guinea pigs for lots of my muffin recipes! Larry said if I'd fix the guys some muffins, he'd ru...

I truly only have two hobbies. Y’all know that one, of course, is cooking! But, I don’t sew, knit, paint, scrapbook, or weave baskets. So, in the hobby department, other than cooking, I read. That’s it. I so strongly identify with the slogan you see printed on book bags and mugs at Barnes and Noble - “So many books, so little time!” I'm sure there are many other activities I would enjoy, but I've never been willing to give up reading time to pursue any of them. So, I read - and cook! One of my favorite kind of books to read is cookbooks! I can spend hours leafing through a cookbook’s pages, dreaming of all the great meals I’m going to prepare for my family, thinking of which recipes will be well-liked by each family member. Cookbook reading is a love I learned from my mother-in-law. When a new cookbook came to her attention, she’d pick up a copy for herself - and one for me, too! I fondly recall many sweet times of sitting with my mother-in-law in her den, perusing rec...