Banana Cream Pie Anyone???

O.K. ... so I know I shouldn't post this, but it's too funny not to. Especially since I claim to be a great cook and I'm compiling a fabulous cookbook for publishing. But I just have to share. So ... I'm over at my Mom and Dad's home, most of the time now, cleaning and cooking and taking care of them. I've been using the food that's been in their fridge for a couple of weeks now, never thinking to check the date of their milk. I decide to make Banana Cream Pie for dessert, one of my Dad's favorite. I have all of the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and I pour out a cup of milk into the measuring cup and notice that it's kinda glopping and glurping as I'm pouring it into the bowl. Hmmm ... I decide to smell the carton of milk and it's sour. What do I do? It's only 1 cup of sour milk, sorta like sour cream. I know ... I'll just pour some half-n-half into the mixture because I need another 1 1/2 cups of milk. I tell my mother that the milk was bad but I used it anyway and asked her to taste the pudding. She did and said that it tasted fine. I finished making the pie and put it in the fridge until supper. After supper I got out the pie and served Mom, Dad, and Lynn. Mom reminded me to not say anything to the guys about the sour milk in the pie. So I didn't. They each gobbled up a huge piece of pie. I'm silently laughing while watching. Later that night I asked Lynn, "How did you like the pie?" He said, "It was really good. But the first bite kinda tasted wierd, kinda like fish oil!" I laughed and then told him about the sour milk. I don't think he thought it was too funny and I think he'll think twice before he eats my Banana Cream Pie again.

More cookings stories ... I decided to make homemade whole wheat bread. I haven't made whole wheat bread since I was in high school. And that's got to be many years ago. So, I had my Dad open some of his stored wheat, probably about 50 years old, and grind it into wheat flour. Once again I went to Mom's cupboard and got out some yeast. I thought I checked the date on the yeast and thought it said 2010. But it probably said 2000 because after mixing the bread and letting it sit all day, it did nothing. No rising ... nothing! I hated to waste the dough so I decided to make fry bread out of it. BOOOO ... it did nothing in the oil ... just sat there getting crusty and hard. So I threw that out and took the rest of the dough home thinking I could revive it. I added some of my 'new' yeast, a little more oil and some water and mixed it all up, then turned on my stove to warm and let it sit on top of the stove to rise. After returning home from a meeting my husband remarked that the dough had risen and run all over the top of my burners. What a mess! I smelled the dough and it smelled like something was fermenting. I bundled up the dough in a garbage sack and took it out to the trash to ferment in the can!

The next day I made some more bread. This time with my yeast. It turned out beautifully and Dad has really been enjoying the wheat bread. He had gotten to the point where he wouldn't eat much bread but he's sure been gobbling this down. I think I'll make a couple of loaves each week. Sure wish I could eat it! There's nothing I like more than eating a big slice of warm whole wheat bread right out of the oven, while it's still hot, with slabs of melting butter on top. I guess that's why I have a weight problem. :)

Yesterday was a monumental day! I finally broke the 200 mark. I weighed 199. Down 58 pounds in less than three months. I thought this day would never come. It's been years since I've weighed less than 220. Hooray!

Oh ... let me share my bean with bacon/ham soup with you. Beth wanted the recipe so I decided to share it with all of you. I don't have exact measurements for you, so you'll have to taste it to determine how much salt and pepper and garlic you need in your soup.

Use as many white beans or as little as you'd like. I used 4 cups and we'll be eating beans for three weeks. It was waaaay too many for the 4 of us. Place them in a pan and cover with water and soak for a few hours. If you soak your beans they won't take as long to cook and I've also heard that it helps to take out some of the gas. (Probably an old wive's tale!)

After soaking, rinse beans, and cover with water again. Add a chopped onion and a couple of stalks of chopped celery. Throw in a ham hock or two. You can buy these at your butcher shop. They flavor the beans wonderfully and the ham is divine after cooking.

Cover and simmer on low for several hours until the beans are tender. You'll probably have to keep adding water to the beans. Don't let them burn!

Taste the beans before flavoring with seasoning. Flavor the beans with salt, pepper, and garlic salt or garlic powder. Remove ham from bones and throw away bones.

If you don't want to use a ham hock, you can fry up some bacon, chop it up and throw it into the beans. But the ham hocks flavor the beans better than just throwing in some bacon or chopped ham. The soup will be thick, not runny and oh soooo good for you! Enjoy!

Getting the Addison tonight for a sleep-over and then I get Ben and Ellie tomorrow for play! Have a wonderful week-end.

Love Yah -- Lou