Frozen Banana Bites

Last week my husband bought a big bunch of bananas, ate one, and forgot about them. I ate one (half chopped up in my breakfast oatmeal, the other half chopped up in my breakfast yogurt another day). In the old days, I might have made some banana bread with the surplus ripe bananas, but I'm not all that crazy about banana bread, bready type foods aren't agreeing with my band right now, and turning the oven on when the thermometer's reading over 100 degrees just doesn't make sense. So I made a batch of frozen banana bites, and they are divine.

1. Line a baking sheet with waxed paper.
2. Cut a banana (or 2, or 3) into 1/2" crosswise slices and place the slices on the waxed paper
with the sides of the slices very close to each other.
3. Drizzle chocolate syrup (I used Hershey's lite chocolate syrup) over the slices. Don't overdo it
- there's no such thing as too much chocolate, but you don't want to create a sticky mess.
4. Put the baking sheet in the freezer for one hour.
5. Transfer the banana slices to a plastic storage container, using waxed paper (I just cut up
the big piece that lined the baking sheet) to separate the layers.
6. Store the banana bites in the freezer for up to 3 days.

Kids of all ages will love these treats. I eat 3-4 slices at a time. They taste like ice cream without all the fat. Next time I make them, I'm going to "frost" the slices with a thin layer of creamy peanut butter before I drizzle on the chocolate.

Chocolate

At work today we had a visit from our district manager, so our office manager made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. She was serving up generous squares of it when I walked into the break room at 9:30 a.m. and said, "Hey there, Miss Jean! Do you eat chocolate?"

I said, "Mae, Mae, Mae. Do I eat chocolate? Is the Pope Catholic?"

Apparently she'd never heard that saying before. I love it when I can get a laugh with old material. (Where I used to live in New England, that saying was so old it didn't get a rise out of anyone. Instead of invoking the Pope, people would say, "Does a bear go ca-ca in the woods?")Speaking of old sayings. When asked her preference, my mom's dear friend Dorothy used to say, "Any color as long as it's blue. Any flavor as long as it's chocolate."

There are lots of sayings about chocolate, but I can't think of a better, more succinct one than that. Unfortunately, you can't read the saying in this photo very well because of the flash (I believe I've mentioned before what a terrible photographer I am), but you get the general idea, anyway.

This post is hereby dedicated to Dorothy Bailey Smith. Rest in peace, Dorothy, and thanks again for teaching me to slather butter on Danish pastry.