Green Bananas

I have a bunch of bananas that just will not get ripe. They sit there, all pretty green,  mocking me. So, I decided to look up recipes using green bananas. Now, I know there are ways to get these things to ripen. For instance, I've read that if I put them in a Ziploc bag with some tomatoes or apples, that will do it. But am I going to do this? No, I'm not. I decided to go the unconventional route of actually using these bananas as they are if possible. Why not? I love to experiment after all.

So, off I went on the great green banana recipe search, and I actually found some interesting sounding dishes. Like Samoan Green Bananas on All Recipes. It contains just 3 ingredients (green bananas, onions and coconut milk), which sounds a bit like an odd combination, but I'm willing to try it. Why not?

Also on All Recipes, I found a recipe for Green Banana Fries. What an idea, to cut green bananas into strips and fry like French Fries. Another interesting sounding one to try.

Then on the Cooks.com site, I found recipes for Green Banana Chips (just like fries only cut into slices), Green Banana Salad, Green Banana Pie and various others that sound equally good....or at least interesting, depending on your tastes.

There are other recipes out there. Just glancing down the search results page shows Green Banana Curry (not too sure about that one), Boiled Green Bananas (sounds kinda dull) and even a Green Banana Smoothie (um, maybe). I've even seen a recipe or Mackerel with Green Bananas (probably NOT).

I'm sure if I keep looking, I'll find a green banana recipe that uses some form of chocolate. Now that one I would definitely try.

365 Project

I've been working on something called the 365 Project. The idea is to take a picture every day for a year to show what you were up do basically. It can be a picture of anything that you happen to see and want to take a picture of. I post the pictures on my Facebook page, and thought it would be nice to share some here with y'all.

This was taken on February 14th. I was driving down the road and when I saw this vertical cloud and how it was casting a shadow on the clouds behind it, I had to stop and take a photo. It looked so cool.

The camera was sitting on top of the truck for this one, which is why it's a bit crooked. This is me with Jack, one of my pet sitting clients. I've been visiting him twice a week since last September while his owner is in Ireland. The owner will be coming back soon, and I'm really going to miss my visits with Jack. He's such a good boy. (Although, you can tell from the picture he is not much for being held, especially when he's outside.)

I just like this one...the bright yellow against the old gray house. Would love to know the story behind that house. Maybe I should just make one up.

I almost always have my camera with me and take several pictures most days, not just the one for this project. The problem is deciding which one to use for this.

Today is day 103.

Going Nuts?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just plain losing my mind. Today is one of those times.

Last year, I lost one of my little kitties, Yahoo. I swear I remember posting about that. I remember putting up his picture and talking about the loss, etc. I even remember people commenting on that posting. Now, when I look back to March of 2010 in the archives, that post is no longer there. Other posts seem to have disappeared as well.

I find this fact rather disturbing. Could it be my mind is merely making this stuff up, that it never actually happened? Or is Blogger for some reason taking down certain posts? Odd either way.

I have to wonder, have any of you had this experience? Or is it just me? If it's just me, I will simply file it away as one of those odd quirks of the human mind and let it go at that. If it's not "just me," although I'll still be angry about my posts having disappeared, at least I'll know I haven't totally gone off my rocker....

...yet.

Good News

Cat Island was spared. I am happy beyond words. They had a good bit of damage of course, and are in desperate need of supplies for both humans and felines, but the island itself was not submerged as originally feared.

Please continue to keep those affected by this disaster in your thoughts.

Sadness

Today I am feeling especially sad. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan weighs heavily on my mind, but maybe not for the same reason it weighs on the minds of so many others. Yes, I am saddened by the loss of human life, a total number of which we are no where near knowing yet, but I read about a tiny island there yesterday that has my heart breaking.

Tashirojima, or Cat Island as it is also called, is just off the coast of Japan. From what I've read, it is in one of the most vulnerable spots when it comes to the tsunami that rolled in after the devastating earthquake. Many fear it has been totally submerged.

This island is home to around 100 people (83% of them elderly) and a cat population that tops even that. The cats are fed and taken care of by the island inhabitants as it is believed feeding cats brings wealth and good fortune.

My thoughts are with those living on this island, and with the many cats. I keep searching the internet, hoping to find a report that says this place has been miraculously spared, but I'm not getting my hopes up. As heartbreaking as it is, I have to be realistic as well.

My husband calls me the Crazy Cat Lady, and I adore my cats. I know the fear we as humans go through when something horrible is happening, and I can't imagine the fear the animals feel, especially since they have no way of knowing what's going on in the first place.

My thoughts are with everyone in Japan, but especially with the animal citizens. The Rainbow Bridge is very busy today.

(To donate and help the animals affected by this tragedy, go to The American Humane Association. Our furry friends thank you.)

Odd Habits

I wonder how many of my friends have odd and quirky habits. I don't know what brought this thought to mind. Oh wait, yes I do. I was making a glass of chocolate milk earlier this week, and drinking it in my odd and quirky way. Ever since I was a kid, I have had a habit of drinking my chocolate milk with a spoon, like a soup. I don't know why. It's just something I do.

Another thing I like to do is when I use a straw, I blow bubbles in my milk. I used to get fussed at for that one, but I'm an adult now so I can pretty much do what I want. Odd thing is, I never really got in the habit of doing that with chocolate milk. Only plain milk. Weird.

And if I'm eating cookies with my milk, I hold the cookies in the milk until they are nice and soggy. None of that just simply dunking them in real quick. Heck no. When I was a kid, my brother Dennis got mad because he was the one doing dishes and I had dunked my cookie in my milk glass until it got too soggy and part of it broke off into the glass, sitting there in the bottom like a big old clump of mud. He fussed about it, then had to wash it anyway. Poor kid.

My odd and quirky habits don't stop at milk. I also have this odd habit of looking for even numbers in things. If a license plate on the car in front of me doesn't have an even number of letters/numbers on it, I will count the number of lines it takes to make the ones it does have, looking for that even number. I do the same thing with signs, often adding in the signpost if I have to in order to make the number even. If I'm slicing a piece of cheese off a block, I will get two small pieces instead of one larger one so I'll have an even number. If I'm eating M&M's, I like to get a bunch and organize them by color with an even number in each group. (And no, I'm not organized at all where it really matters. I can't find a thing in my purse or in my house for that matter.)

I'm sure I have other odd habits. Could probably ask my husband and get a nice long list of them. But those are the ones that stick out right now. I'm sure more will come to mind as soon as I post this. That's what usually happens.

Just Some Random Thoughts

1) I am an avid Facebooker. Can't help it. I love that little social networking sight. It has helped me get back in touch with people I went to high school with, whether I wanted to or not. It has also brought me a group of friends I would never have known otherwise, and yes, my life is that much richer for it. Sure, I won't ever meet many of them, but I know I will eventually meet a least a few. And who says you have to meet face-to-face anyway? We share jokes, life stories (happy and sad), advice. We do all the things friends do in the "real" world. We may live hundreds or even thousands of miles apart, but we have found each other through the "miracle" that is the internet and we are all so very glad we did.

2) The Super Bowl is coming up next weekend. I'm not the biggest football fan in the world, and what I know about the game could probably be written on a matchbook, but I do have many (MANY) friends who are avid fans, and most of them seem to be Steelers fans. So, since my Minnesota Vikings couldn't be bothered to actually do much of anything but lose this season, I have decided that for this very huge game, I will do my Steelers friends a favor and pull for their team. I apologize to any of my friends who are Packers fans, but they outnumber you and more of them live near me. (Not to mention that two of them are also pet sitting clients, so I really don't have much choice. HA.)

3) I think my cats enjoy driving me crazy. I know Muffin does for sure. She disappears every once in a great while. Not often, mind you. If it was more often, I probably wouldn't worry when it happens. Every couple of months or so, she doesn't show up for breakfast, today being one such day. Sometimes, I can go over to my neighbor's house and find her "trapped" in his basement. When he's down there working with the door open, she can't resist going in. She spent two full days in there one time, me panicking all the while. Now it's usually the first place I look, and sometimes she's there. Today isn't one of those times. I know she'll show up later on, staring in the window to let me know she's home, giving me that 'look' that cats give when they think you're crazy and they're the only sane ones here. As if they don't know that they're the ones driving us crazy in the first place.

4) I just realized that I am sitting here putting my random thoughts into a list format. My friend Angie would be so proud.

Katharine Hepburn

I adore Katharine Hepburn. I think I always have. Can't remember a time when I didn't know who she was, and boy what a woman she was. She jumped into Hollywood with a look that was at the time considered unusual...certainly not conventionally beautiful. She had a confidence that was usually reserved for men, definitely not women. She wore pants more than skirts, was very athletic and was never afraid to speak her mind. What a great role model for women then and still today.

I own a copy of the book "Kate Remembered" by A. Scott Berg. It is one of the few books I've read more than once. Although I wish there was a little more of her in it, and a little less of him, I can still read passages and hear her voice in my head. I can picture the look on her face when she fusses at the author for something silly or brushes off a comment about her legend. And a legend she was.

I recently picked up two other books about Hepburn from the local library, and I have to say, the one I am looking forward to reading the most was written by the lady herself, "Me: Stories of My Life." It was written in 1991 and is so full of wonderful pictures. I was just sitting here looking through the photographs and as I flipped to the end, I found a section where she wrote a letter to Spencer Tracy. Yes, I went ahead  and read it, and yes I will read it again when I read the book. And yes, it will probably again bring tears to my eyes.

(My favorite picture of Tracy and Hepburn.)

Tracy and Hepburn had a relationship that you would think in that day and age would have been a big scandal, what with him being married with children and moving in with her where he remained until his death. Maybe it's a testament to how much everyone respected them that it wasn't. Or maybe it says a lot about what good people they really were. Even Tracy's wife knew about it (of course) and was called by Hepburn when he died. All I know is, there was something about those two when they were on the screen together. (My husband and I love the movie "Desk Set" and the way they played off each other in that one. Pure joy to watch.)

I have to say that my absolute favorite Tracy-Hepburn movie is "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." They were so good in this one. All those years together really showed, and it's even  more poignant when you realize that Tracy was ill at the time and would not even live to see the finished movie released in the theater. Sidney Poitier was terrific as always and really seemed to have a genuine respect for the couple. Katharine Houghton, who played the daughter and is Katharine Hepburn's niece, also radiated a type of love for them both. A great movie and a fitting way to say goodbye to a man Hepburn often said was "the greatest movie actor."

Katharine Hepburn died in 2003 at the age of 96, and the world is a better place for having known her.

Wordless Wednesday (A Man Who Needs No Words) :)

**SIGH**

Martha Stewart I’m not. Never claimed to be. Don’t really want to be. As a matter of fact, I find some of the things she does more amusing than useful.

I know some people like to do the things she does. I even have some friends who are all Martha Stewart-ish. But I just can’t bring myself to that level.

OK, first off, she makes her own vanilla extract. Me? I’m perfectly happy with the stuff on the store shelf. I’ll go as far as to get the “pure” stuff once in a while, but I’m not ashamed to admit I currently have a large bottle of the “imitation” extract sitting in my cabinet. Nothing wrong with that. Works just fine for me. As for homemade, well, I don’t often have vodka (a required ingredient) in the house, but when I do, I think it tastes much better mixed with a bit of orange juice instead of a bunch of vanilla beans.

Then there are marshmallows. I remember watching Martha Stewart actually make her own marshmallows. From scratch. (Which she promptly put into steaming cups of her from scratch cocoa.) Yeah, I’m sure they taste great an all, but I like my store bought marshmallows. I even like the tiny little hard ones that come in the instant cocoa and get a bit soft when you add the hot water. One friend of mine whose daughter recently made her own homemade marshmallows told me that I’m missing out on the different flavors you can use when you make them yourself. Well, I actually found chocolate flavored marshmallows in the store and really, what other flavor do I need?

I can make some things from scratch of course. I love to make chocolate chip cookies. And I do make a pizza casserole that the hubs just totally loves. (Although, since it uses biscuit mix for the crust, I don’t know if it’s really considered “homemade.”) There are some things I have tried over and over again to make and can just never seem to get it right. Take gravy for instance. I cannot make gravy to save my life. It always comes up either too thin and tasteless or so thick you could cut it into slices and just lay it on top of your potatoes. (Not very appealing really.) So, anytime I need to make gravy, I grab the cream of mushroom soup. A can or two thrown into some pan drippings and you’ve got gravy. As far as I’m concerned  you do anyway.

And don’t get me started on biscuits. My mother could make the best biscuits (although she said her Aunt Marie’s were even better), but I just can’t get the hang of it. They just never taste right and the texture is really, really bad. So, I pull out the biscuit mix. I can make some pretty good biscuit mix biscuits. I even worked at the local McDonald’s for a while making biscuits on Saturday and Sunday mornings and was told I made the best biscuits there. (Yes, they are made with a mix. Surprised?)

Years ago, a friend told me that if I loved my family, I would make everything from scratch, something she claimed she did. I told her it’s because I do love my family that I don’t make everything from scratch. I’d really like my husband to live a good long life, and by not subjecting him to my from-scratch culinary skills on a regular basis, I think I’m helping him in that respect.

So, it is true I will never be a Martha Stewart, but really, why would I want to be?

She kinda creeps me out.