Country star Hannah Dasher’s new cookbook, Stand By Your Pan, is filled with humor, heart and love for serving others.
“Cooking is therapeutic and it’s also a ministry. Food is love,” said Dasher, who always cooks big portions so that there’s plenty to share. “You can get into the kitchen and you can create something, and in just a little bit of time, you can see the fruits of your labor…For me, the repayment is sitting down at the table with loved ones and watching them enjoy what you’ve poured your heart and soul in.”
For her, food goes hand in hand with prayer and thanksgiving. She never skips the opportunity to thank God for what He’s given her.
“I think taking a moment before every meal and saying grace and reflecting on where your food came from and the hands that prepared it and the hands that planted it and harvested it…just taking a moment to reflect before we dive in, because we’re all guilty of eating on the run,” she told Woman’s World. “We’re all guilty of having our phones at the table. I just think it’s important to reconnect.”
Dasher didn’t always have a lot of food on the table. She never takes it for granted now.
“I’ll open that refrigerator and just say, ‘Thank you, Lord,’” she said. “Because there were years when I didn’t know what was going to be in there. I don’t ever want to lose sight of that.”
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She knows that some of her habits are old-fashioned, but she never wants to change them.
“I was one of the first females to bring back the pedal steel guitar and to tour with a pedal steel,” she said. “I’m classic country. The steel guitar for me is nostalgic and one of those things I want to keep around, just like cloth napkins and hosting dinner parties and having meals together without your phones at the table.”
Stand By Your Pan embraces community. There’s no fun in cooking if it’s only for yourself.
“There’s some old-school things that I hope we can really keep around,” she explained.
Dasher has shared lots of recipes and kitchen tips on her social media while her cookbook has been 10 years in the making. She’s ecstatic to have it finally finished.
“So grab your grandma’s Pyrex and devil those deviled eggs until there’s no devil left in ’em,” part of her book’s description reads. “Travel back in time — eat good, spend less and make it look effortless.”
Her intro to her 1977 Banana Puddin’ recipe gives another glimpse of her humor.
“Nashville 1977: It was the year Elvis died, Skynyrd’s plane crashed and SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, my favorite film of all time, was the highest-grossing film at the box office,” Dasher wrote. “Meanwhile, Tammy Wynette was having a date night at home with her new boyfriend, Burt Reynolds. She nearly sent the movie star into a diabetic coma when she served him her famous banana puddin’.”
Wynette didn’t know he was hypoglycemic.
“This is my version of that recipe, but I add sour cream to make it richer. Stand by Your Insulin,” she joked.
The book is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
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