Since my husband is off Fridays and Saturdays now we get more of a real weekend together (he was off Sundays and Wednesdays for months before this new schedule). Last night we had visitors stop by from Michigan. They were coming to town to see his father who lives north of here, near Reba, but wanted to see us and my parents as well since we've known them since I was 3 years old. The pre school where I went and my mom began working at when I was there is also where this couple works and we've always been close because they know my love for Nashville and Reba and his dad has always lived here. It's nice we get to see them more often than other MI friends since they have other reasons to visit this area as well! Anyway, my long, drawn out point is, I cleaned my house REALLY good yesterday since they'd be coming to see it.
It was SOOOO nice to wake up to a perfectly clean house. I'm not kidding you, it made my day 100 times more enjoyable and I loved the feeling. We can easily clean and then all of a sudden things are a total disaster again, so my new goal is to make sure it's as clean as possible before we go to bed. My boss is on vacation right now so I also have today off, three day weekend for me. Three day weekend + a clean house already = can't beat that!
So we made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast (w/ whole wheat flour since I was out of regular, which actually worked fine!) and relaxed a bit, then headed out to grocery shop - something that desperately needed to be done for sure.
We were even so responsible this time and chose recipes beforehand and made a list! I am so sick of buying totally random stuff and then having "nothing to make" so I am really proud we did this. We stuck to it mostly except for a few random things that looked just too good to pass up (organic strawberries and grapes, some yummy dips and broccoli salad from a local raw food/vegan company, etc).
And the entire point of this blog is this... one of the recipes was this Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole from Lauren's Kitchen (it's a blog in my favorites to the right there). HOLY CRAP! I don't even really care about Chicken Cordon Bleu since I'm not a huge ham or cheese person, but I showed the recipe to my husband while browsing this morning and knew he'd love it. It actually looked pretty good anyway, so we gave it a try.
Um, delicious! Seriously this is probably the best dinner we've made in a long, long time! The only thing we did differently was huge a ham steak that wasn't precut from Whole Foods. I cooked the brown rice first and once it was in the casserole it seriously seemed like fuffy white rice in a creamy casserole dish. Like Lauren, I added more cheese than was called for I think (also didn't measure), but would use less next time. It's just so rich on it's own that it doesn't even need all the cheese it calls for probably. Either way, it was one of those recipes that's almost too good! And the only unhealthy part really if you get good quality meat is the butter (I'm sure you could cut down on that) and the cheese, which could also easily be cut.
I had four bananas that were going bad on the counter so my husband asked if I'd make banana bread. Didn't have to ask me twice! I love to cook and bake and I love banana bread. I really should make it way more often because we get bananas that go bad (I won't eat a banana that is without green) really fast and throw way too many away. I need to be better about stuff like that.
So in the oven right now is this recipe. Let me just say that I would have added chocolate chips to it if my husband would have let me (he requested none, crazy man!) and I had more than a tiny bit left in my bag, but those are reserved for chocolate chip pancakes, a staple for me. He also wanted nuts in there, but we didn't have any, nor to do I like nuts in my banana bread. So it's plan tonight, though I am tempted to spread a few chocolate chips on my piping hot piece!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup margarine, softened
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups mashed banana
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- I also added a pinch of salt and about a 1/2 tsp of vanilla
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour one 9x5 inch pan.
- Cream margarine and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs, then bananas. Add flour and soda, stirring just until combined.
- Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F for about 1 hour (or till toothpick comes out clean). Remove from pan and let cool, store in refrigerator or freeze.
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