Just when you think you have it all figured out

You get a curve ball.

It's been a bad Crohn's night. Lots of pain and running to the bathroom. Maybe it was one to many banana bars, or maybe it's the whole PMS thing, that always seems to set it off, but you would think with the massive amount of steroids I am taking it would block the PMS thing. I don't know, I thought it was getting better but maybe the steroids aren't working as well as we thought.

Oh yea, PMS and Roids, that should be a good one. I'm already mega bitch just from the roids, lets add hormones to the mix. My family's in for a fun weekend. Even the dogs are starting to tip toe around the house.

I'm a very happy go lucky person. To make a living as a portrait photographer you have to be. You sell yourself as much as you sell your images. When I used to photograph 120 high school kids in a season all we did was laugh, and people would tell me what a great time they would have here. That lady has gone far, far away into roid vill. Roid vill is a dark scary place where the tiniest thing can set you off the handle.

Yesterday I asked Kurt to bring the spaghetti sauce up from the freezer, and he did. But when I went to cook it he had grabbed the 2 cup bag of sauce set aside for pizzas and such, not the 4 cup bag set aside to actually feed a family a spaghetti meal. I got so angry, I was slamming things around and swearing, and I never swear and here I am dropping the F-bomb like a crazy person. The funny thing is I'm still really week, so when I tried to slam the door to the basement it just went "bump" and that made me more mad so I grabbed it and just started slamming it over and over. Seriously, roid rages, they make you into a crazy person. The nice loud slamming made me feel better though and I got on with dinner. Lucky for Kurt he was still driving home, and I was all calmed down by the time he got here. :)

My other curve ball for the day was this darn lime jello salad. Guess what you can not do. You can not just drop a large block of cream cheese into liquid jello and whisk it smooth. Yea that's not going to happen, you get floating cottage cheese. I googled it and found that I should have mashed the cream cheese then added a little bit of liquid at a time, but to late for that. So I skimmed off what I could, put it into a freezer bag and mashed it all together. It worked but there was some still already in the jello that just wasn't coming out and if you look at the photos you can see how it settled to the top of the jello mold. Except to see that you have to look at the bottom of the jello, because you flip it over when you unmold it. :) So all the cottage cheese looking stuff is at the base even though it technically floated to the top.

Layered Pear Cream Cheese Mold

1 can (16 ounces) pear halves, undrained
1 package (8-serving size) or 2 packages (4-serving size each) Jello lime flavored gelatin
1½ cups cold ginger ale or water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
¼ cup chopped pecans

Drain pears, reserving liquid. Dice pears: set aside. Add water to liquid to make 1½ cups; bring to boil in small saucepan. (I just microwaved it)

Stir boiling liquid into gelatin in a large bowl at least 2 minutes until completely dissolved. Stir in cold ginger ale and lemon juice. Reserve 2½ cups gelatin at room temperature.  Pour remaining gelatin into 5-cup mold. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until thickened (spoon drawn though leaves definite impression). Arrange about ½ cup of the diced pears in thickened gelatin in mold.

Stir reserved 2½ cups gelatin gradually into cream cheese in a large bowl with wire whisk until smooth. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until slightly thickened (consistency of egg whites). Stir in remaining diced pears and pecans. Spoon over gelatin layer in mold.

Refrigerate 4 hours until firm. Unmold. Garnish as desired.

Makes 10 servings

The last of my 2:30 am cooking spree was these fantastic banana bars. OMG they are heavenly, but the kids say the frosting is the best thing. I don't agree, the frosting is good but these are so moist and have such great flavor and texture. A really, really good bar recipe. The bar recipe came from AR but the frosting is just your basic cream cheese frosting: cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar. I actually ran out of powdered sugar so it's a little thinner then I would normally make it but the kids could drink it. They are using the extra to dip their fruit in.

Frosted Banana Bars

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas
• 1 (16 ounce) container cream cheese frosting - *noooooo, make your own, so much better*

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 10x15 inch jellyroll pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the sour cream and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; stir into the batter. Finally, mix in the mashed banana. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow bars to cool completely before frosting with the cream cheese frosting.

Now I read that you can freeze these and I still have 3 bananas that need cooked up so I may make another batch and give freezing a try. I'm a little worried they will be all dry after freezing, but I'll give it a try and let you know how it turns out.