What's For Supper?

I'm starting out behind already on a weekly menu. I did make one and I shopped for the week, but it was later than usual thanks to the holiday weekend.
This week's menu is:
Monday: I thought we would be gone to a baseball game so I didn't plan anything. Ex-wife changed her plans and we were home after all. We had pizzas. Not homemade, but frozen pizza that I threw extra stuff on. Not quite the same.
Tuesday: Meatloaf, roasted sweet potato fries, and sauteed cabbage.
Wednesday: Chicken spaghetti with whole wheat spaghetti and steamed broccoli.
Thursday: white wings (my version of a Texas restaurant favorite. Read about it here)
Friday: varsity football night so I'm not cooking
Saturday:  I'm not sure I got that far!! I have stuff for fajitas so we could do that.

I have been buying lots of fruit since I've had an athlete in the house, hoping he was getting lots of good stuff with it. We've been going through bananas like there is no tomorrow. Suddenly, while he was gone for the weekend, I found myself with several of these:

What do you do when you have several of those?

Peel them:

                           

Smash them:

 

                             

Then make banana bread! I pulled out one of my favorite cookbooks by Paula Deen and made her recipe.

 It's very easy and I love it because you don't need a mixer.

Here's Paula's recipe:

Banana Bread from Paula Deen's "The Lady and Sons, Too!" cookbook

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 ripe bananas, mashed

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. In a mixing box, combine the butter and sugar; mix well. Add the salt, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and bananas, and mix well. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or until wooden pick comes out clean.

The hardest part of this recipe for me, is to make sure and remember to take the butter out to soften.

I didn't use a traditional loaf pan for my bread. I used this instead:

 I bought this several years ago when I was making little breads for Christmas gifts. Now I use it all the time. These little loaves are perfect for packing in lunches, for a snack and I freeze them individually so we can have them later.

My favorite way is this:

Or this:

With lots of butter!

I used that same pan tonight to make meatloaf. I read about making little baby meat loaves from my friend Patti who has a fabulous blog: Peppermint Ph.D.  Check out her version of baby meatloaves here:

I used another Paula Deen recipe for my meat loaf.
What are you cooking now that school is back in session? Anyone have any great ideas for comfy winter menus? I'm all ears! I haven't experienced winter in so long I forgot what it's like. I'm actually looking forward to it. Ask me how I feel about it in January!!