Banana Fritters

One of my residents and I both had some bananas that needed to be gotten rid of...so we looked up some interesting recipes for bananas while we watched the game tonight.  We loved the idea of Banana Icing, Banana Sorbet, and Banana Apple cupcakes...but we settled on Banana Fritters! :)

We found the recipe at allrecipes.com Here's a link and a screenprint! :) (Click the image to make it bigger).
We wound up using the good parts from four very ripe bananas rather than the two bananas it suggested.

And of course...pictures! :)

How cute sitting in pretty chocolate...

These were the funny looking ones while they were frying, but still yummy. :)

YUMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We got a little photo crazy waiting on the rest to fry...

And when the oil got a little low...we made a Funnel Cake!!!!! :)

Beth showing off her fritter arranging skills! :)

Wonderful.

How pretty. :)

Relatively Unique

Honey Nut Chicken

One of my residents had been talking about how wonderful this recipe was that her mom found on the Food Network website.  It's delicious! :)  Honey Nut Chicken with Barbecued Succotash from Rachael Ray. Yum. :)  I'm not going to rewrite the recipe here because it's very well written at the original website.  The only thing we changed was that we didn't include the hot sauce.  Instead of the Montreal Seasoning by McCormick that the recipe recommended, we used the Israeli Spice Rub from Rachael Ray's website.  My grandmother had mixed up some of this a while back and it's really good! :)  For the barbecued succotash, we used a yellow onion instead of a red onion and left out the red bell pepper.

PS I saw on the Food Network site that you can print the recipes as notecard sizes.  Here's a link to the recipe card size Honey Nut Chicken if you want to put it in a recipe box or a recipe binder ((Julia...that's your cue to hit print when you pick out a box or a binder. :) ))

I Love my Girls!

I feel like I say this all the time...but I love the girls in my building.  This is my fifth year on staff and this year, the community in my building is so much stronger than any other year and it's evident to everyone!  There is almost always someone in the lobby cooking, studying, or just watching YouTube videos waiting on someone to join them!  This is the first year that we've kept the kitchen stocked with a variety of cookware and dishes because everyone uses them!! We also keep dish soap and a dish rag in there because people are washing their dishes when they are done! This may not seem like that novel of an idea, but last year I found myself washing abandoned dishes in the kitchen way too frequently because otherwise, the sink would stay stopped up with food and the dishes would sit in the sink and start to smell up that end of the second floor.  This just isn't the case this year!  Megan told me at the beginning of the year that she prayed for our residents during the summer, before we met them and God has really answered both of our prayers and given us such a great group of residents.  Granted, every single moment may not be peachy, all the good is most definitely out-weighing the bad.    At the end of the year last year, I was sad to see a lot of the "frequent lobby dwellers" move on to apartments, other schools, or to move in with sorority sisters.  I know it's not going to be any different this year!

I said all that to say....Saturday night three of my girls went shopping and came back with supplies to make a rainbow dinosaur cake.  They came and knocked on my door to come watch (I was the photographer) and as other residents came through to warm up their dinner, they started hanging out as well!

Anywho...enough rambling...let's see how much fun they had. :) :)

I know this looks a little staged, everyone circling around the cake...but it wasn't!! :)

And....collages are my new favorite way to upload a bazillion pictures at once...with style! :)

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

I made these tonight/early this morning while a group of us were hanging out in the lobby.  I had some bananas that weren't going to make it through the night....so we did a little cooking.  I found a recipe for banana oatmeal cookies and we tweaked it (I always tend to do that!)

3/4 cup oatmeal

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp cinnamon

3/4 cup veggie oil

1 egg

1 tsp nutmeg all spice (I was out of nutmeg and the all spice smelled intriguing)

2 small very ripe bananas

1 1/2 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350*F.

Combine ingredients in order listed.  (A hand mixer comes in handy for helping the bananas mush).

Drop by the tablespoonfuls onto an aluminum-foil covered cookie sheet (the best way to cut down on dishes).

Bake 10-15 minutes (11 worked perfect for me with two pans in the oven).

So Yummy....and approved by my residents!!! :)

Relatively Unique

Construction in my "front yard"

This is what I've been hearing while I'm in deep slumber at 6:30 in the morning....construction in my "front yard." And by "front yard" I mean, the parking lot haha.  They've been working on the sewage system or something for the last month, and they're about finished! They're going to move to the other parking lot next week, which means I won't hear it in the morning haha! (And I'm hoping they'll repave that parking lot! It was needing it really bad!!)

Isn't that artsy?? :) I thought so! :) I was trying to capture as many of the trucks there, but the picture was taken during their lunch break...so there wasn't much going on.