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So much has been going on! RED WHITE game last weekend in Lincoln. Lucy visits. Easter this weekend. Spring/Earth Day projects at school. (Less than a month left of school!) Choir music to learn for holiday services. Yard work. Nancy's birthday (today).

The unthinkable happened yesterday. Mike came to me and said, "We don't have any leftovers in the frig, what should I take for lunch?!?" My head probably spun around in a complete circle. That's when I realized I have been gone, gone, gone and have not been cookin', cookin', cookin'.

Well, tonight I did a Paula chicken dish. Not bad. I still have 3 lbs of ground beef waiting to become razzle dazzle. Not quite sure what will happen to it, yet. For some reason I have been able to come up with many desserts lately. I got a recipe from a mom for a yummy cookie. I have been hungry for my favorite cupcake. And, last weekend I tried a new banana bar recipe. Here's the odd thing, ALL THREE have chocolate and more chocolate in them. It's true, I'm Linda and I'm a choco-holic.

OK, so I did just get a recipe for Butterscotch Pie, but honestly that's for Easter and it's my dad's favorite - not mine. I will give you a review of that pie in about a week, OK? Now back to chocolate. Here's the recipe for the banana bars, they were received with open arms when we tailgated in Lincoln last Saturday. In fact one of James' friends told me to stop passing them around! I made another batch of them within 4 days, which NEVER happens.

BLACK BOTTOM BANANA BARS
1/2 cup soft butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3)
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
chocolate chips
walnuts

Preheat oven to 350*. In a large bowl cream butter, & sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla. Sift together flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Blend into creamed mixture alternately with bananas. Divide batter in half. Blend cocoa into half of the batter. turn chocolate batter into a greased 9x13" cake pan. Spoon banana batter evenly over chocolate batter and carefully spread to within 1/2" of edge. Cover with desired amount of chocolate chips and walnuts. I probably used about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips and 3/4 to 1 cup walnuts broken into smaller pieces.

Bake 25-30 minutes or until center tests clean with toothpick. Cool and cut.

P.S. I continue to love my Kitchen-Aid mixer more and more every day!