Now I Understand Frozen Banana

Since it is Monday I can officially put last week behind me, but not without a little final complaining...

Saturday AM I managed to slice three of my fingers on a pumpkin can. Saturday was a painful day to say the least and the right hand was almost unusable. You never know how much you hit your fingertips on items until you slice them open. By Saturday night the Tdap vaccine ache was also at its peak (the irony was not lost on me that I did get my tetanus done the day before this awesome injury).

So by Saturday PM was a touch grumpy. I couldn't bake, I couldn't clean my house, and I was achy. I laid in bed committed to making Sunday better.

One of the BEST parts of the weekend was the sun and the heat!

Sunday morning I woke up to a new recipe 30 Second Chocolate Pie Crust and a promise of a hot day! I wanted to try "no oven" creations (and one hand friendly - I wore a nitrile glove a lot).

I kept putting off the Chocolate-Strawberry Truffle Pie in part because of the pre-planning involved (soaking cashews - a hardship you know).

Sunday turned out to be the was the perfect day for this type of recipe. Strawberries were on sale and I started my cashew soaking around noon. I also broke up three bananas and started them freezing for my other planned trial of Chocolate Banana Bon Bons.

Then Nim and I went into the yard so I could work on homework and occasional yard stuff (which proved impossible with my injured hand). Several hours later I realized Nim was being extremely ornery and decided it was time to go back into the house.

I started about my baking and every time I checked on him he was out cold. He was absolutely exhausted.

I didn't stop to think about it, but he had been running with me since pretty early morning and hadn't really had a break. He is young enough that settling on his own in the yard with his toys is pretty challenging.

I have never caught him sleeping on his back like that.

This pie may not look like much, but it is incredible. I have worked with raw cashews for years for vegan "cheese" sauces and never knew to soak them first. It makes a big consistency difference. Now I am very attracted to her other "raw" or no-bake recipes.

And the Bon Bons. I decided on 4 variations: banana, banana + berry, banana + peanut butter and banana + peach (not pictured).

I have always short-cut the freezing of a banana and now I get what I was missing. When you blend a frozen banana it will eventually reach almost a soft-serve consistency. I am sold.

This is the berry-banana mix. You can see it is almost like play dough.

When I went to coat the Bon Bons with the Hot Chocolate Butter I got instantly bored and decided to dip all 4 flavors in the chocolate and make an assessment that way. (I had already also eaten a slice of the Chocolate-Strawberry Truffle Pie which apparently was so good it took all my remaining dessert focus out of me.)

Top flavors: banana + berry and banana + peanut butter. The plain banana I won't bother with again. The banana + peach was weird! I couldn't even tell you why.