Pancake Day Roundup

Can you believe it's already the day before Lent?   Which means it's Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day.

3 tips for Planning Meals ahead of time.

I'm not too fond of the term 'Hacks' but I do like sharing my tips and hints for meal planning.   Especially since I do plan ahead, have always done so, and will probably continue to do so.

Up until the past few years, I've always lived within just a couple of miles of grocery stores, it was easy to just run down and pick up a couple of things.   But I still planned ahead, even then.

It just wasn't as critical as it is now.

I now live 7 miles out of town, and albeit a lovely drive into town, without traffic, it's still 7 miles to go.

My habit of planning ahead has actually helped me a lot, here.   I head to the 'big city', which is 60+ miles away, once a month or so to stock up on ground beef, cause I know where to go to get it cheaper, and of course there are the specialty shops I like to wander around in.  The Oriental store, the Indian store, the store that has international foodstuffs.   Which can be a good thing or...

I usually come back with foods I want to try playing with, some of which I'd never heard of before.
Kinda like the Tat Soi I got in my Organic Vegetable share this week.   I'll tell you all about what I made with that in a future post.

Game Day Wings...

I'm a little late here but thought I would throw a few ideas for Game Day your way.
 You know it's coming up, right?

Sunday, Feb. 7, the day of the great and wonderful commercials, not to mention a half time show that can sometimes be very entertaining as well.

But in between the commercials, you need to nosh a little.   So here are a few ideas.

I'm working on a couple more Wing ideas, and when I get them right, I'll share, but in the meantime here are a few of my favorites.

I'm just going to wing it here...

Dill Pickle Dip

I'm a member of the Secret Recipe Club.  We're a bunch of bloggers who are assigned a blog every month to make a recipe from and blog about it.  We're not allowed to tell anyone until our 'reveal day' which for our group, is the first Monday of the month.   

I was all set.  I'd researched and read and bookmarked some recipes and was all set to make my final choice, well, I still made it, but...
I then went back to my assigned blog, Making Memories with your kids  and found this recipe that Erin posted and it bumped out the other recipe, just sat there and smacked it right out of the running.
So...
I made two recipes this month.  I'll tell you about the second one in a different post, later on.
Well, gotta keep the new recipes coming up on the blog, somehow.
But first off...
I made the Dill Pickle Dip.

Banana Cream Pie

I admit it, I get a big kick out of making a recipe from food I've grown.  Which in my case usually means herbs.

I have a collection of herbs that I grow and harvest and use pretty much year round.   I grow them in containers in my very spacious backyard, all seven feet wide of it.

However there is one herb I don't grow in pots, this herb grows in the ground and when I get to harvest its' fruit I get really excited.

I'm talking bananas.
 
They are an herb, technically.  Although most people think they're a fruit.  And we're both right.

Bananas

I've gotten bananas off of my plants in the past, but nothing like this year, well, actually last year.
I got so excited when I saw this bunch on the plant.  I went and visited them almost daily, took lots and lots and lots of pictures.