This weekend my husband painted our house with the help of his father and a couple of trusty friends. Since the dog and the baby had to stay inside, I was relegated also to the great indoors for the lion’s share of the weekend. Feeling like I needed to contribute in some way, I decided that the painters would labor hard, but eat well as a reward.

Mr. Meat and Potatoes will want to give me the finger for saying so, but I feel that I worked almost as hard as they did this weekend, or at least my legs and feet feel like I must have. I’m sharing with you a couple of the recipes I made this weekend, since I feel the need to justify my existence, seeing as I didn’t once wrap my fingers around a paintbrush.

I started on Saturday morning by baking two loaves of banana bread and starting the first pot of coffee. The bread is my sister’s recipe and I have to say, it’s perfection. If you are like me, you do not like nuts in your bread. I have issues with texture.

So, to make Amy’s Perfect Banana Bread, pull the frozen black bananas out of the freezer. You need at least four. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

In one bowl, whip two of the bananas and a cut brown sugar together for three minutes.

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In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients: 2 C flour, 1 1/2 t baking soda, 1/2 t salt, 1 t cinnamon, and a dash of nutmeg.

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Next, beat 2 eggs, 1 1/2 sticks of melted butter, and a teaspoon of vanilla into the wet ingredients, along with the other two bananas (in hunks), and then incorporate the wet into the dry, being careful not to overmix.

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Pour the batter into two greased bread pans, and bake for 25 minutes.

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The most peaceful moment I had over the entire weekend was a five minute breakfast interlude while the baby and I sat and happily shared a piece or two of banana bread. I, with my coffee, and he with his juice, quiet within the chaos.

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On Sunday, lunch was chicken and noodles over mashed potatoes, and a mess of sides. Lindsey had dragged her husband over to help paint, and brought with her a bag of green tomatoes she had plucked from her garden in order to save them from last week’s frost. She helped me whip up some fried green tomatoes which were so good, I’d punch my grandma to get the last one.

The first step to successful fried green tomatoes is getting them to release a lot of their moisture. Slice them fairly thin – a quarter of an inch or less – and then put them in a collandar with a sprinkling of kosher salt, and let them rest for ten or fifteen minutes in the sink. Watch the water seep out.

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Lindsey and I agree that the perfect fried green tomato is coated both in flour and in cornmeal, instead of exclusively one or the other as many recipes suggest. To that end, I poured some milk into a bowl and in another bowl combined a cup of cornmeal, a cup of flour, a healthy pinch of kosher salt and a few twists of the pepper mill.

I heated a half a cup of peanut oil (although you could use canola if that’s what you have) over medium high heat until it crackled when I sprinkled a drop of water in.

Dredge the tomatoes in the milk, then in the flour/cornmeal.

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Then fry on each side until golden brown, about two minutes. Remove to a plate covered with a paper towel, and eat ’em while they’re hot, if you can.

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I have to admit, there is a certain bliss in getting up every morning knowing that my only goals for the day revolve around putting together fabulous meals, and were it not for the toddler, dog, and broken dishwasher, it would have been almost perfect. Still, our dinner on Sunday night was provided by some friends who were gathering for Halloween at someone else’s house, so I only had to throw a salad together from the Dillon’s bar on my way over there. And no food tastes better to you after a weekend of nonstop cooking than food cooked by someone else.