Add all of the new subdivision names which also have gotten more and more complex and I am spending an incredible amount of time on each envelope. (Plus we all know Santa doesn't address sloppily nor does he use abbreviations. I am seriously thinking we need to start charging by the number of letters in the address.)
Instead of a decoration photo today, I am sharing a picture of one of the envelopes from Santa
Notice the skillfully designed double name masquerading as a single name followed by a surname for a middle name and then a hyphenated last name. Also notice the street name which is not real, but it is very much like the streets in some of the subdivisions around me. Where is Main Street , or Oak or Elm? Give a sister a break how about it.
And now with no segue is the recipe of the day.This recipe is not something I generally make for Christmas, in fact I have never made it before but I have 6 overly ripe bananas and man can only bake and freeze X loaves of banana bread. I tried these cookies on a lark simple because I found a recipe (very old cookbook with no cover, so sorry for not crediting someone somewhere with it) using mashed very ripe bananas. Well, it used overripe bananas and I had all the other ingredients on hand, plus it required just one bowl and a wooden spoon to whip it together, so it met my criteria. As an additional benefit, the entire recipe whipped up in less than 5 minutes.
Banana Oatmeal Cookies
3/4 cup softened salted butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup mashed banana
1 egg
2 teaspoons corn starch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3 cups old fashioned oats
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you have a convection setting use it!
Mix the butter with the sugars until it is creamy, add the banana and egg and blend well. Pour the flour on top of the sugar mixture and add the rest of the ingredients except for the oats, then stir until all the flour mixture is well blended. Stir the oats through. Grease 3 large cookie sheets and drop the cookie mix by tablespoons onto the sheets. Lightly tap with your fingers to flatten a bit. Bake for about 10 minutes, but check them often. They really do want to burn around the edges. I made the mistake of stacking 3 trays in the oven at the same time and the one on the bottom burned badly, even though it stayed in the oven much less time than the other pans. Cook them on the center or top rack, in the middle of the oven and keep you eye on them. Remove from the pan and allow to cool completely on cookie racks. They are a very rustic looking cookie, not something you would want to serve the Queen should she drop by for cookies, but still a decent looking cookie.
I ate one when it was still warm because I love warm,fresh from the oven cookies. If I had written the review then I would have told you not to bother, that they tasted like nothing. They were soft and mushy and pretty flavorless. Then they cooled down and crisped up. Suddenly you could taste the banana flavor and the oatmeal, brown sugar and butter.
As it turns out it is a pretty tasty cookie, but it is something I will make only when I have bananas that are too ripe. As tasty as they are I am not a big enough of a fan of banana flavor to actively plan on baking them. As I say that though, I am wondering how it would taste with a drizzle of melted chocolate, or melted peanut butter chips. There are many left and I might have to give that a try tomorrow, so the jury is potentially still out on the final verdict. Hmmmmmm
And once again no segue to the song of the day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoLExhhNv2Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdRGqqUR2-A
Santa is pretty Southern and proper for coming from the North (Pole) using no abbreviations. I guess Santa knows his audience and addresses his letters with what is most appropriate for the area. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm going to start paying attention to see if there is the same name trend here in then north.
Well, sort of north. Much more north than you, but still below the Mason-Dixon Line.
ReplyDeleteLet me know what you find out
DeleteI can say with certainty that the name trend is in the North as well. A lot of littles around here have two middle names so I think that's what you're referring to as a triple name. But when you say double names, are you implying that boys in the south didn't used to have middle names or that middle names were uncommon at sometime? Because my mother in law and her sister don't have middle names but everyone else I know does. My son would be considered as having three names though, we gave him two middle names. It is becoming quite the trend actually. My husband has a boy cousin with something like FOUR middle names. Even we thought that was pretty excessive. I'm not even kidding. His name is SOOO long!
ReplyDeleteNo I am not talking about 2 names as a given name, I am talking about using them both as your walking around name. The south has been notorious for having double girl names like Mary Ann or Sara Jane for as long as I can remember, but this new trend is to create a single name from a former double name and then use a surname as the second given name. Like Sarajane Vaughn Brown. The other new trend is males using both name like John Douglas or Peter Brock or Paul Joseph. I never knew a guy growing up who used a double name as their everyday walking around name
DeleteAh ha, I see what you're saying now. Yeah, that is more of a southern thing, but I have to giggle when I say that because my always calls me by my first and middle name. I don't go by both to anyone else (except a few relatives). And yeah, we only refer to my son by his first name. I only say his full name occasionally (and not when he's in trouble either... just for special things). I can't think of any guys off hand that I know who go by two names.
DeleteI was Elizabeth Anne until I was about 4, then I dropped the Elizabeth part of it. If I ever heard Mom say Elizabeth Anne I knew someone's head was about to roll.
DeleteHello Anne,
ReplyDeleteI find that the names on the preschool department's walls at church are quite unusual, too. Rarely do you find a John or Emily or anything else that sounds "normal". Is there such a thing? ~smile~
Have a wonderful Christmas season!
Blessings,
Laura of Harvest Lane Cottage
I noticed that also Laura. We had Hunt, Tade, Hinton and Till just to name a few.
DeleteYou are a saint. And you have a gift when it comes to handwriting/calligraphy. I usually have to print cuz no one can read what I write. One teacher told DJ to give up on cursive and stick with printing or just type everything. LOL he got it honest.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid penmanship was a required course through the 6th grade. Because I never liked anyone to beat me, I mastered the Palmer Method. And now the only thing girly about me is my handwriting. For the record none of my sons write or print well at all.
DeleteAnd do you know why? Because someone was smart enough to understand it would never matter again!