Red Velvet Wisdom

In celebration of the hectic holiday known as Thanksgving, Dena and I wanted to share with you stories and recipes from our family.   Now I’m not entirely sure how we got the tradition of the Thanksgiving auction started, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that our Papaw loved any kind of an auction, and as he got older and less capable, he wasn’t really able to go.  So one year Dena got the bright idea that we would have an auction of sorts.

Now in order for this to happen, a few months before the actual holiday, Dena told everybody to start buying little random inexpensive items to put in this auction.  Then she had some play money printed up and everybody got the same amount to spend.  Now at first we were sort of hesitant, but we soon got into the game when we realized that among the random toys, dollar store trinkets, and holiday candy was a plate full of Geneva’s homemade fried pies.  Now you have to be calculating,  because in addition to the pies there may be some sort of makeup, or card game, or Christmas ornament that you need, and you don’t wanna blow it all on pies, even though it may sound like a good investment at the time.

It wasn’t long before we were all screaming like we were on the New York stock exchange and fighting over gummy worms from Dollar General like they were gold.  Call it a competitive gene we all have, but we became very determined in our quest to get whatever items we were wanting off the auction block.   Needless to say, the auction went very well, and so was carried on to the next year, where Dena got the BRILLIANT idea to put a little goody basket full of 5 hour energy drinks on the auction block.  Our siblings were so ecstatic to see their already overly-active kids bidding rabidly on something that would provide them with hours and hours of sleepless fun.  Of course the most hyper of them all threw every fake dollar he had in and was the big winner.  Dena is still apologizing over that.

Now as much fun as it is to buy trinkets from various discount outlets, my personal favorites are the things that people make, and by things I mean food.   I have already mentioned the fried pies, but other favorites have been homemade divinity, and loaves of banana nut bread.  I could eat a whole loaf all by myself.  I mean that I would, or have, but I could if somebody twisted my arm.  So here is the recipe, just in case you get the urge to make a loaf, and then take it out of the oven and cover a warm slice in butter and eat it.  And then repeat the process over and over.

Banana Nut Bread

• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup of sugar
• 3-5 ripe bananas
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup butter (softened)
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts (or more if you prefer, or you can omit it entirely for those with nut allergies)

Preheat oven to 350.    Mash bananas and add softened butter.  Beat eggs and add to mixture.  Add remaining ingredients and mix well.  Pour into a loaf pan (make sure to spray with some sort of non-stick cooking spray).  Bake for 45 minutes.  At the 45 minute mark check the middle of it with a toothpick.  Another option would be to put this in several small loaf pans and bake for 35 minutes.    Wrap it in some brightly colored cling wrap and it’s a perfect little gift!

Monday, November 16th, 2009, 11:08 pm   |   Uncategorized  |  RSS feed Comments and pings are currently closed.