Chick Pea Salad by Moi

Another recipe by me. This one came around just from the attempt to imitate something I had eaten. Well, what I ate before was more like marinated chick peas, and I had no idea how to make a marinade for them, so I decided just to throw in some stuff and see what came out of it. This recipe has been requested by so many, that I think it is best to be shared here, no more writing down it for me. This is easy to modify to include or exclude what ever your likes are. I love cilantro, so I use it a lot. Not everyone likes it, and you can easily replace it with parsley, and you don't have to use it as much either. You could add a bit more olive oil, and put everything into the food processor to ground it up into a dip for pita chips or what not. Chick peas are so good, and you can make almost anything with them, even patties to fry. I guess I just made myself hungry for some falafels. But here goes the recipe:

Chick Pea Salad

4 cans of chick peas, rinsed and drained

1 bunch of cilantro

1/4 c of red onion minced

1/2 c of chopped sun dried tomatoes

1/2 c of parmesan cheese

5 tbs olive oil

pinch of salt

Use a large mixing bowl, toss everything in there, season and mix. Tadaa, that was difficult. Yours to try now, let me know what you did and how you liked it. 

No Bake Banana Pudding

My quest to make the worlds best banana bread was sabotaged by my DH, hungry hubbies can be devastating for a girls baking plans. But I decided to post another recipe that I talked about, banana pudding that does not need baking, and to be honest, since I am not native, I had actually no idea that it would be ever even baked, but this is way faster, and also in a small space of RV will not create too much heat. The recipe that I used was found online, and it was for 20 servings, and I made some changes for it. Maybe I shouldn't have, since I am not used to making banana pudding, but I kinda ran out of the pudding mixture before I had even one third of the bananas used. So my version probably has much more pudding than what you all who know more about the matter would prefer. So maybe renaming the dish would be in place... Some Bananas in Pudding?

No bake banana pudding

I will post the recipe as I should have followed it, but will make notes about the changes to the recipe. This recipe comes together so fast, and especially if you would be RV'ing too, you would appreciate the fact it it takes very little dishes. I love easy, no mess baking and cooking. I prefer recipes that require nothing but throwing whole things out of fridge straight into the pot and get heated. This is one of those, or at least very close to one of them. All dishes to wash that I had were small cutting board, knife, measuring cup and measuring spoon, spatula, beaters and bowl. And next time I don't even need cutting board, bananas are easy to cut in your hand, as long as you use regular knife that you would use with fork. No trips to ER, especially if you're RV'ing. But let's get to business:

Essentials, minus the condensed milk, ooops! 

No Bake Banana Pudding

Ingredients

1 (5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix

2 cups cold milk (I used vanilla flavored almond milk)

1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

1 (16 ounce) package vanilla wafers (I didn't use quite all of these)

14 bananas sliced (I only used 4 to 5, don't ask, it is still delicious!)

Just to add here a note I got from one of my glass friends, she thought that there had been typo in the original recipe, that 14 bananas just sounds way too much, she thinks that 4 sounds more about right. Yay me, accidentally might have gotten it right. :D

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, beat the pudding and cold milk for 2 minutes. Mix in condensed milk until smooth. Stir in vanilla and fold in whipped topping. Layer wafers, bananas and pudding mixture into the glass serving bowl. Chill until serving.

I either didn't put thick enough slices of bananas, or I didn't overlap them, or I put too much pudding mixture, either way, I am pretty sure it will be quite delicious, at least what I licked from the spatula was yummy! One more victory to my RV cookbook! I am pretty stoked and can't wait until tomorrow to see what my coworkers will say, I am no expert in any Southern foods, and they are, so this will be quite a test for me. The good thing is that they are probably not expecting much from my Southern cooking, but I hope they will be pleasantly surprised. Even though it is missing most of its bananas. I ain't telling if you won't.

Well, the good thing about not using as many bananas as the recipe called for is, I will now have enough bananas to make my banana bread, assuming that Lee will leave them alone. Wish me luck!