Hannah's Bananas
Do not preheat oven-this dough must chill before baking
1 l/2 cups melted butter (3 sticks)
2 cups white granulated sugar
3/4 cup mashed very ripe banana (2 medium or 3 small)
4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 beaten eggs (just whip them up with a fork)
4 cups flour (no need to sift)
2 cups finely chopped walnuts or pecans (measure AFTER chopping)
1/2 cup white granulated sugar for later
Melt butter in a large microwavable bowl. Stir in the sugar, beaten eggs, baking soda, and salt. Choose bananas that have black freckles on the skin so they're almost overripe. Mash them until they're smooth (you can do this in a food processor or by hand). Add the banana puree and mix thoroughly. Mix in the flour and then the nuts. Cover your bowl and refrigerate it for 4 hours (overnight is fine, too).
When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
Roll the chilled dough into walnut-sized balls with your hands. (This dough is quite sticky-you can wear plastic gloves if you like, or wet your hands slightly so the dough won't stick to them.) Put 1/2 cup white sugar in a small bowl and roll the balls in it. Place the dough balls on a greased cookie sheet, 12 to a sheet. Press them down just a little so they won't roll off on the floor when you put them in the oven. Then return your bowl to the refrigerator and let it chill until it's time to roll more.
Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees F., or until they're lightly golden in color. They'll flatten out, all by themselves. Let them cool for 2 minutes on the cookie sheet and then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.
These cookies freeze well. Roll them up in foil, place the rolls in a freezer bag, and they'll be fine for 3 months or so, if they last that long.
Yield: Approximately 10 dozen, depending on cookie size.
Lisa's cousin Beth says these are great when they're dunked in hot chocolate.
Carrie Rhodes also loves these cookies. She says that middle-aged women should eat bananas every day because they need extra potassium. (I bit my tongue when she said "middle-aged"-Carrie's at least fifty-five and people don't usually live to be a hundred and ten!)
Chapter Ten
Hannah was still thinking about Moishe when she pulled into her parking spot at The Cookie Jar on Thursday morning. When she picked up a replacement tip sheet this morning, Sue assured her that one of the ten suggestions was bound to work and that Moishe couldn't hold out forever. But Hannah knew Moishe much better than that. If her cat decided that he didn't want to eat his senior food, he could be even more stubborn than the other Lake Eden male who had once been part of her life, Mike Kingston.
"Hi, Lisa," Hannah called out as she came in the back door. "Sorry I'm late."
"That's okay. I thought you'd be even later." Lisa's voice floated out of the coffee shop and a moment later she pushed through the door, carrying a steaming mug of coffee. "Did you get your problem solved with Moishe?"
"No. I got a tip sheet for switching him to the new food, but whoever wrote it doesn't know Moishe."
"True. How about sprinkling a little fresh catnip on his new food?"
"That's tip number seven." Hannah held out the sheet. "And number eight is drizzling some tuna juice over the top of his bowl. I don't have high hopes for any of them."
Lisa looked thoughtful. "Maybe Moishe's just too smart to be fooled by tricks. Have you had a heart-to-heart with him and told him why his new food is good for him?"
"Of course. I felt a little stupid getting down on the floor with him, but I did it anyway. I think he understood me, Lisa. He really paid attention to everything I said. But after I finished and I was getting up off the floor, he stomped over to his food bowl and tipped it over with his paw."
"Uh-oh. You've got a real problem on your…" Lisa stopped talking as the back door opened and Andrea stood there. "Hi, Andrea. Come in."
"Thanks. It's nice and warm in here." Andrea walked over to one of the stools at the workstation and sat down.
"How about some coffee?" Hannah asked.
"Yes! I've been saving up my coffee allotment, Hannah. Yours is a lot better than my instant."
Hannah headed for the coffee pot. Everyone knew that instant couldn't hold a candle to real coffee brewed from scratch.
"Here you go." Hannah set the mug in front of her sister. "What brings you out so early?"
"I got a phone call from the supervisor. She checked the records for me."
"Fun in the Sun?" Hannah asked, reaching for her notebook.
"That's right. One of their representatives called Bill at eight-twenty and the call lasted one minute."
"Good. Just let me jot that down."
"The only thing is, I don't think it helps Bill any. I drove from our house to the school and timed the trip. It took me twenty minutes. Not that he did it, of course, but Bill could have killed Sheriff Grant at eight and gotten home in time to take the Fun in the Sun sales call."
"Wrong," Hannah said, flipping through the notebook until she found the right page. "I was standing right there in the parking lot while Mike looked for bloodstains. He found they were heaviest right next to Sheriff Grant's car and Mike said that's where it happened. Since the car was at least ten yards away from the Dumpster, it must have taken the killer at least a couple of minutes to drag Sheriff Grant's body there and put it inside."
"And if Bill had done that, he would have missed the Fun in the Sun call by a couple of minutes?"
"Absolutely."
"Thanks, Hannah." A relieved smile spread over Andrea's face. "Could the other call, the one from the roofing company, clear Bill completely if it came in at the right time?"
"Maybe. Didn't you tell me that you got home from the movie with Tracey at nine forty-five?"
"That's right. I looked at my watch when we got out of the car. I was feeling a little guilty because I'd kept Tracey up so late on a school night. I told her to go in the house, kiss her dad, and go straight to bed."
Hannah turned to a clean page in her notebook and crunched the numbers. "The second call could clear Bill if it came in at approximately ten minutes after nine. The time frame's tight, but that would do it."
"Great! I'm going to drive around and look at more roofs, Hannah. I've got to find out who made that second call."
"Take your coffee with you," Hannah urged, dumping the contents of Andrea's mug into a disposable cup.