The house is burning all around you...

Hah! No worries! Mine are backed up on my computer in multiple locations! They're all saved!!!!!!

Okay, I know, not the point. I'll play fair...

There's only one recipe I can think of that I don't have memorized or at least couldn't figure it out on my own, because it has so many ingredients. It's Dunkley's Famous Macaroni Salad, that I got from the Food Network. But I've made so many notes and changes to the recipe in the 5 years that I've been making it, I really need the page to make the salad. It's so good that people ask me specifically to bring this dish to picnics. I eat it and I'm not even a big Pasta Salad fan.

I'm not a baker but these cookies get requested by the kids in my neighborhood all the time. So, this would be the recipe I would save.

(Cue: Ahhh... isn't that sweet.)

SPICED MOLASSES COOKIES​

4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cloves
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
2 large eggs, PLUS one egg yolk

Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly grease cookie sheets.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon.

In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together butter, shortening, and sugar until well creamed. Beat in molasses. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture, 1/3 at a time. Dough will be quite stiff.

Pour a small amount of sugar in a small bowl for rolling on formed cookies.

Form dough into 2 ½-3 inch balls, and then roll in sugar. Place 6 balls on a baking sheet. Flatten each ball by 1/3 using the back of a measuring cup.

Bake cookies in batches in middle of the oven 14 minutes or until puffed and golden around the edges. (Cookies should be soft.) Allow cookies to cool for 30 seconds on baking sheet, and then transfer using a large metal spatula to cooling racks.

Makes approximately 30-33 large cookies. When completely cooled, store in an airtight container.

I keep all and I do mean all of my recipes in my head, oh wait...what recipes? I eyeball everything. But if I did keep them someplace where the could be destroyed, it would be my banana bread. Everybody seems to love the stuff (I do too!).

We use recipe books.

The only one I'd grab as irreplaceable would be this German immigrant cookbook we got in Kansas.

You asked for it...straight out of my head to your computer screen.

Banana Bread

2 cups sifted flour (sift damn it, it won't kill you!)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (I use sea salt)
Sift (yes again!) all these together into a small bowl and set aside.

2 tablespoons butter/margarine
1 cup brown sugar (don't pack it!)
Cream these together, preferably with a wooden spoon (it's good muscle builder!). Then add
1 egg
and mix well. Add
1/2 cup orange juice
3 ripe (brown skinned) bananas, mashed
Stir well to combine. Add flour mixture and mix until just blended. Pour into a greased loaf pan and allow to rest for 15 minutes while you preheat your oven to 350. Bake for half an hour to an hour (you'll smell it when it's close. The aroma is heavenly!).

Just remember to tell them where you got it from...wait, don't do that. I don't need more people banging down my door for banana bread

I searched for twenty years to find a recipe for hot rolls that was even remotely like my mother's... the one I found in an old Southern Cooking recipe compilation for 1995 was right on the money. So I'd have to grab that book.

My great-grandmother's cranberry relish recipe, made every Thanksgiving while I sniffle and try not to cry because I miss her so much.