Banana Cream Pie

I made a banana cream pie the other night and finally got around to tasting it last night. The taste was wonderful, the looks, not so good. In many fruit pies, you can use over ripe fruit and it doesn't make any difference. But not so with bananas-I had used bananas starting to go to mush, sliced them up in my pie and when the pie was sliced, that's what I saw-small pieces of light brown mush bananas. I will know next time-firm ripe bananas only.

Last night I tried a recipe called Chicken on a Diet. It sounded good. 3 chicken breasts baked at 325 F for 1 hour with 1/4 cup soy sauce and 1 can of orange soda. The chicken was tender, but otherwise no distinguishable flavor to it. Then again, you don't know how it's going to work out, until you at least try.

I don't know where I'm going with this blog. Just writing to keep the creative juices flowing. For years, I wrote travel articles pubished in newspapers all over the U.S. Now, I write this. Maybe this will inspire me to finally write my Romantic Adventure Novel or maybe this will lead to a cooking show that I want to do. Or maybe I'll just cook my little heart out and finally finish my cook books. In the meanwhile, I am writing this for me, a place to talk about my cooking adventures.

I live in Las Vegas and I found a new store chain here where everything is priced .99. Not the Dollar Tree, the $.99 store. All there vegetables and produce are all $.99. Fresh raspberries, blueberries, asparagus, red, orange and yellow peppers-I am so amazed at this. Of course, you have to be there at the right time and place. I have watched women buy 20 pints of blueberries and then eat them in the check-out line like candy. This is obviously the place to buy fruits and vegetables in Las Vegas. They said new shipments come in Tuesdays, but I tried one of the big stores, at Charleston & Decatur and I didn't notice more or less. I do know not to go in Saturday afternoons for fruits and vegs, because everything is gone. Even their food in the frozen section-which is adequate, but nothing to write about.

I also found a thrift store chain I like for kitchen ware called Savers. I have noticed they get alot of commercial kitchen equipment. So I'll be there each week checking out the kitchen ware. They also have clothes, furniture, etc, but I'm be there for the kitchen ware. I found the other day, a heavy duty sauce pan I need for $5.99 with cover, thought it looked good, felt heavy. Found it on the internet as Professional cookware. The next day, I went to pick up some more pieces and they were already gone. I did manage to get an electric fondue, perfect for some deep frying, when you don't want to use a big pot or fryer for $4.99 and a solid 24-inch one-piece wooden rolling pin for $2.99. I love getting great buys.

Your friend on the internet, Cookbook Val