Being creative with the foods I have on hand!

One important step I have taken in my frugal journey is to become more aware of the foods that tend to go to waste in my house… and well, NOT try to let that happen, at least not that much anyway. I am trying to become more creative in the kitchen and realize how much fun it can be to create new concoctions with the foods I have on hand.

Today my Bananas were getting to that really ripe, spotted brown stage. I had seven bananas that quickly needed to be used. First I sliced up four bananas, set them apart on a pan and put them in the freezer. If you don’t want them to stick together, then this is a great way to do it. Once there frozen I will put them in a Ziploc bag. These will come in handy for fruit smoothies, muffins and more!

Next I used the other three Bananas to make Banana Cookies. My kids were growing tired of eating the same Banana Bread recipe, so I decided to try something new!

Banana Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
1/2 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup of sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 cup of mashed bananas (about 2 ½ large bananas)
1 teaspoon of baking soda
2 cups of flour
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground mace or nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves
1 cup of pecans (walnuts and chocolate chips are fine alternatives)
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.
2. In a bowl, mix the mashed bananas and baking soda. Let sit for 2 minutes. The baking soda will react with the acid in the bananas which in turn will give the cookies their lift and rise.
3 .Mix the banana mixture into the butter mixture. Mix together the flour, salt, and spices and sift into the butter and banana mixture and mix until just combined.
4. Fold into the batter the pecans or chocolate chips if using. Drop in dollops onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until nicely golden brown. Let cool on wire racks.
Makes about 30 cookies.

**My little tip-Make sure you cook them long enough! They should be a really deep golden brown color.

Remember the great deal I got on a rotisserie Chicken and three side dishes from Food Lion… well I managed to make some use out of it! The first night we had it for dinner, then I used the leftovers to make my hubby Chicken Salad for lunch.

Chicken salads easy to make and you can pretty much add whatever you want to it. This time I just did a little mayo, mustard, relish, celery, onions, a little salt and pepper. Sometimes, though, I add grapes, apples, nuts and whatever else were in the mood for.
I normally don’t have a rotisserie chicken on hand since there usually too expensive. On Mondays, though, I will try and bake up lots of chicken breasts to use throughout the week. I make chicken salads like I talked about above, Chicken Tortilla soup, use in casseroles, slice up to put in regular salads and well, the list goes on and on. Having the chicken cooked and ready to go saves me lots of time and money… no more calling Pizza Hut because I have no time to cook!