A Happy Day

This morning Tyler was eyeing the two darkening bananas on our counter.  I said, "I can bake banana bread if you like."  Since the end of last year, as the kitchen was dismantled and re-mantled, I have not quite gotten back into the baking mode.   Yet, there is a big difference between just eating a banana and using the fruit for a bread, so this afternoon I baked.  Such a glorious feeling to chop the pecans.  As I moved the bread knife with its handy serrated blade through the pecans, I remembered a neighborhood friend of my parents whom Tyler and I got to get to know when my parents moved to Odessa.  She had a pecan tree in her backyard, and I can still hear her saying, "If I have pecans in the freezer, I do not worry."  I did indeed have pecans in the freezer.   I am not sure how someone who grew up in West Texas in the 50's and 60's who did not like pecans survived.  They appeared in everything.  Except, at least for my mother anyway, in the dressing for the turkey.  Honestly, I love them in dressing, but I do still feel my mother wince.   

 

Our kitchen refrigerator is still not repaired, so our cold food is being kept in our old garage refrigerator.  As we were shifting food, we discovered some leftover homemade buttered rum mix (sans rum) leftover from Christmas.  I was going to throw it out as our upstairs refrigerator had developed an unappetizing odor, but Tyler tasted the mix and announced it as still delicious.  I decided to use it in the banana bread today.  There are spices that are usually not in the bread, but they are quite compatible (cloves, allspice, and cinnamon).  We had just enough of the butter/spice mixture to both coat the pan and add to the flour, baking soda, eggs, milk, and yes, chopped pecans.  No extra salt was needed as that, too, was in the butter  mixture.  I just tasted the results:  I can taste the banana and the pecans, and also the spices.  The texture is good.  The bread is not too sweet. This will sustain for a couple of days.  Certainly longer than simply eating a banana while standing over the sink, although sometimes that is quite appropriate, especially when being pressured by the dog for the morning walk.     

 

This is the cooking that I was taught and that I love.  How to make the ingredients on hand stretch.   How to substitute when running to the grocery store is not feasible. Now that I think about it, this is what we are doing in our churches.  How to make use of what and who we have on hand.  How to mix all of that together to make it substantial enough to sustain us through these times.  How to taste for the new spice being offered right in our own midst.      

  

Love and blessings to you all,  

Sue Ann