Rez Zircon

Once they turn black and squishy (but not moldy!), cut off one end, squeeze 3 or 4 bananas directly into a plastic bag, freeze (will keep a loooong time frozen).  Use in next batch of banana bread.

I haven't tried dehydrating them but that sounds good.

There's only about three days in the life of a banana where I think it's edible fresh -- barely on the green side, so there's still that slightly salty taste. If they're getting beyond that, smear liberally with peanut butter, and salt the banana. After that, they're let turn black and go in the freezer.

A little yellow mustard in any sort of beaten-egg or melted-cheese dish. (Discovered, along with white pepper, in a souffle recipe.)

Balsamic vinegar and celery salt in tuna sandwiches and deviled eggs. (This is boring. What's handy? Add that.)

Brown sugar in tomato dishes (to cut the acid).

I confess I never seasoned my cast iron; if they had any seasoning, it was before I got them. Apparently cooking in it, which always involved a lot of butter, sufficed.

Nicole Alderman wrote:One thing I'm struggling with is how to get an impression. The seal stamp really likes to stick to the wax.

I'm wondering if a thin coating of vaseline on the seal would help.

It won't go rancid like vegetable oil, and at worst it might soften the wax a bit.

Easy way to clean a cast iron pan:

While it's still hot, dump in a cup of plain water (no soap). This will steam-peel off most of what needs cleaning up.

During the years I used mine, I doubt I ever washed it. I just did the above, a little scrape with the spatula if something was stuck, and it was done.

I have some modern Faberware and random thriftstore finds, but in oldies...

Cast iron -- no-name from some previous century, I've had it over 50 years.

Stainless steel -- the old heavy-duty Revere Ware, some of this is even older than the cast iron.

Glass -- Pyrex, both bowls and other cookware, some has over 50 years in daily use.

Some of the glass I got new, but the rest mostly arrived secondhand.

Weirdest piece: a stainless electric Toastmaster frypan that is so tall it's more like a Dutch oven. Quite old, but still works.

Side note: beware of Chinese stainless; a lot of it is not actually food-grade and can give you magnesium poisoning.

Sam Potter wrote:If you want to see an interesting relation you should see is how crows piss off grackles just for the fun of it! I suspect the squirrels and Blue Jays also enjoy there squabbles.

When I had ravens, I didn't have starlings, because the ravens had no end of fun harassing away any stray starlings. Friend had a horse that just loved tormenting the sheep (chase them around and yank mouthfuls of wool). And we've all had dogs and cats that ding at each other, just for fun. Animals are generally jerks. :D

People have names, and faces?? This is news to me. I don't remember my neighbor I've lived next door to for 11 years and see semi-regularly. I never recognized my teachers outside of class. I once failed to recognize my own mom (in my defense, she'd changed her longstanding hairstyle, and I hadn't seen her in several years).

I've arrived at the point where I TELL people that I will not remember them and they have to re-introduce themselves every time we meet!

Generally, animals only fight if they feel they need to. It consumes energy and risks injury.

Animals fight, a lot. We don't see it so much with domestic animals because we define territory for them, and we provide food and mates (or sterilize them, mostly so they don't fight as much), and we select against interpersonal aggression (which is inherited behavior). Wild animals have to do all that for themselves, there's considerable selection FOR individuals who will fight, and they fight over those resources and sometimes just because they don't like someone. Chimpanzees and spotted hyenas have been observed waging deliberate war on neighboring populations, and the leading cause of death in hyenas is other hyenas. My well-fed free-range chickens would sometimes decide one of their number had to go, and that hen would be chased down and receive a sound thrashing for no visible reason (my roosters didn't fight, but my hens did, regularly). Most dogs LOVE a good fight; the only reason we don't see more fights is that we've bred it out of them. It's not at all unusual for animals to fight, within their own species or against a competing species, and sometimes the reason is evidently "I don't like your face."