The past few days...

Yesterday was my grandmother's 70th birthday. Everyone pitched in for a potluck dinner at my grandparents' house last night, and I made her a Hummingbird Cake. We were careful to avoid any meat products, as they are Catholic and can't have meat on Fridays during Lent. As we got our plates and sat down to eat, I realized that EVERY SINGLE DISH HAD CHEESE IN IT. We ended up with a hodge-podge of cheese pizza, cheese enchiladas, Mexican layer dip, cheese dip, and refried beans with cheese. Even the cake had cream cheese frosting. We are all cheese fanatics, obviously, and probably wouldn't have minded sitting down to a block of sharp cheddar for dinner!
I wish I could find my camera (it's around here somewhere!) because I really wanted a picture of that cake to post with the recipe. I will definitely be making it again though, so maybe a photo will show up around here eventually. Anyway, the recipe is here. I had a larger can of pineapple than is called for, so I spread that between the layers, sandwiched between the frosting so the cake wouldn't get soggy. I also toasted the pecans before I pressed them onto the frosted cake. I got rave reviews and recipe requests. One thing I might do different next time is to mash the banana. The recipe calls for "chopped banana", but you only get a bite every now and then that way. Otherwise, it was fantastic!

Tonight for supper, I made Crockpot Chicken in Creamy Chive Sauce, which is almost identical to another recipe I have tried before. I doubled the ingredients for the sauce and added some steamed broccoli and cauliflower at the end of cooking to add some veggies. We ate it over macaroni. There was enough left over to make a lunch for Michael to bring to work Monday, and to freeze for another meal. I don't know yet how it will hold up to being frozen and reheated, so we will see...

The ham I made was okay, but it was so fatty that it disgusted us all. I cut away the leaner looking pieces for dinner, and some more for navy beans the next night, and the rest got discarded. I felt horrible for throwing away all that "meat", but ugh, it was icky. Even Michael, who will eat most anything meat-wise, said it was too fatty. I took a little consolation in that it was a gift from his employer at Christmas, so at least nothing was paid out of pocket for it. If we get one again next year, I will pass it on to the more die-hard ham fans in my family!