Banana Pudding!

So yesterday today was approaching. What was so special about today was that it was the last day for our summer staff at my nine to five. I just recently finished revamping my cookbook and excited as I was for my finished product I took the book to my job and showed it off. I had everyone looking through it, which lead to the "you should cook something for us and bring it to work." Not being able to actually say no to these guys, I gathered up the necessary ingredients and prepared for my first experience of wholly from scratch cooking.

First of all, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. It definitely was interesting, but not that bad. I got to rig my own double boiler (all those years of watching Food network have proven useful, thank you Alton Brown). I mixed the ingredients a little out of order which, I think, is what resulted in the very slightly gritty texture as an end product. My pudding ended thick...not too runny. It was sweet as expected and no disaster happened as result of me upping the ingredients by 50% in order to have some for home and work. I didn't have to scrap a first or second batch though I was worried at first due to the ingredient order debacle. Everyone was telling me that it was great. I don't think that I have that many people in my life who will eat it and tell me it was good, let alone great, in order to spare my feelings.

I'm deeming my first try at Banana Pudding a success. I slightly gritty success that will get better as I keep making it. I would like to thank my inspirations. Catharine, thanks for you're making me cupcakes for my birthday. Sara, thanks for sharing that cooking is you unwind method. And Ellen and Matt, thanks for my not wanting to tell you know because you happen to be awesome.

I did it! No, not that...

When I was little I would watch my Aunt Maria in the kitchen while she cooked. I admit I found a lot of pleasure in just sitting on the sideline. I even helped a few times. As one of my birthday's approached she asked my what I wanted. I replied that I wanted a cookbook. I wanted her recipes so that I could continue to cook the family favorites.

She gave me one. My very own cookbook titled, very originally, Jasmine's Cook Book: From Aunt Maria 07/01. (I received apologies for the misspelled name.) In this book was a collection of recipes that, while I'm not certain, I believe she gathered from a plethora of sources as well as her own that make appearances at all the major family gatherings.

I loved it! I had it for years...granted I didn't use it much, but it was awesome. Since then I collected recipes that I wanted to try. I wanted to add them into my cookbook but they didn't seem to fit in. My book in though, all it's glory, lacked a few things such as organization. There was no table of contents. Sometimes there would be a beginning of a recipe here and the end of it five pages later. Or a beginning of a recipe with no ending and vice versa.

Well, as my senses grew this just wasn't enough. I wanted to add my own and organize those recipes that were there. Then out of nowhere my friend Meagan dumped 10 back issues of Rachel Ray's magazine in my lap and it was a done deal. I really perused Jasmine's Cook Book and put recipes together as well as sorted the recipes into some sort of semblance of order. I spent weeks going through the mags, finding what I wanted to try and vetoing the not-gonna-happens, cutting them out and sorting them into groups of main ingredients. With that finished I started pasting them to sheets of colored card paper all while cataloging what was on what page. Then the arts and crafts portion was done and I had to move into the most difficult part: manufacturing a numbering system for order and some semblance of professionalism. I have to say it's the most professional part of the entire book. I now have a 20-page Table of Contents to organize the 430something recipes into list that sort them by main ingredients as well as by page number and alphabetically. All of this I have compiled into *drum roll please* Jasmin's Cookbook: From Aunt Maria 07/01 Enhanced by me 08/10

I would just like to say that I appreciate the foundation that my Aunt Maria gave me in 2001 (I still can't believe that it's been that long) and that I'm excited about this same book all over again. I made a few mistakes that I refused to go back and fix...(e.g. the Apple Stuffed Sausages in the dessert section), but it's not to shabby if I may say so myself. Here's a couple more pics.