Bananas

I hate bananas. I hate them. They make me gag. And they are utterly overpowering and pushy in smoothies.

I do,  however, love banana bread. I love it. With my whole heart.
 I love it so much sometimes I eat it too fast and get the hiccups.

This recipe is from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. It's the simplest banana bread recipe ever. You don't need a mixer, you only need one bowl, and you can throw almost anything you want into it. Last week I smashed up a dark chocolate bar. This week chocolate chips and walnuts. Last month I made it with only bananas, one time I used whole wheat flour.

 The only thing you want to watch for is that your bananas are actually really ripe. So ripe, that you wouldn't eat them, even if you liked bananas. Ripe, in the sense that they are spotty, and covered with disgusting brown mushy spots.
Once I was inpatient, (I'm impatient a lot, this 'once', refers only to circumstances involving banana bread...) and really wanted to eat banana bread, so I used not completely ripe, still possibly edible bananas. It didn't work so well. The  lack of mushy banana causes the batter to be very thick and it struggle to rise.

SO, be patient. Let your bananas sit around and get gross and mushy.
Then, make banana bread.


Banana Nut Bread

This is pure and simple banana bread, heavy, moist and dark.

3 ripe bananas, well mashed (with a fork)
2 eggs, well beaten
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup walnuts, or chocolate or anything you think goes.

 Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a loaf pan, (use an 8 x 4ish, sized one). Mix the bananas and eggs together in a large bowl. Stir in the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Add the walnuts and blend. Put the batter in the pan and bake for 1 hour. Remove from the pan to a rack. Serve warm or cool, or re-heated in the microwave, smothered with butter.
---
This recipe can be easily doubled, if you have two loaf pans. You can throw them side by side in the oven. I almost always double it. It gets eaten so fast at our house, it's worth it.
Also, if you have a multitude of spotty bananas cluttering up your counter space, and no time to make banana bread, you can freeze the bananas in their peels in a Ziploc bag, until you have time to use them. Just defrost them a little, remove the peels and mash normally. They will be a little slimier then usual but do not fear! It will be fine.
That is my promise to you.

just tie your tie, and go on, go forth

time for a weekly update:
i'll warn you, it involves a lot of baking.
i actually sewed this week too, i made a little purse/bag/pencil case thing.  unfortunately i don't have any pictures of it. i'll try get on that soon 'cause i like it.
it's sorta pretty.

anyways:

this week, i spied on anna playing the piano and trying to see the strings move.
it was pretty cute.

i cut my bangs, i know you can't really see the bangs, but the fact that you can see my eyes
is proof enough. :)

i made another apple coffee cake thing.

except this time, i took half the dough and half the sugar, cinnamon, and butter and made my own invention.

i cut the dough into three strips and stuffed them with walnuts, butter and brown sugar.

and braided them together.

and baked it.
isn't it beautiful?

i also made banana bread, with chocolate chips and walnuts. yum.

i'm gonna share this recipe with you, right now.
yup, right now.

wait for it,

and I didn't forget:

lemon cake, with lemon glaze, and lemon icing. Yum!
(if you like lemons)

apple coffee cake.



 I think it's something beautiful, and the dough is something tasty!

if we are at peace, i want to know

 my house hosted youth group games night tonight. it was bucket loads of fun.
it was a full out party, loud laughter, broken glasses, &a few gender issues. (everything you need, right?)
i sit surrounded by mountains of board games and the empty food containers sit on the counter of the kitchen, with a few used tea bags to keep them company. the dip is gone, the chips are gone, & every single one of the skor bars are gone--before i could even document their coming into existence.
(&i really wanted one for my lunch!)
i had to settle for documenting crumbs... and posting the recipe up here, so all you who devoured them can make them for yourselves.
(or...take one look at the ingredients and decided never to eat them again)

maybe next time there will be some left for me.

while i'm at it, i'm going to introduce you to a lemon cake as well. (just a image for now, recipe to follow--perhaps at a later date-- &an apple coffee cake twist thing)

beautiful Kira introduced me to beautiful Joy the Baker.
google her.
(Joy the Baker that is, you can try googling 'beautiful Kira' too,  if you want, but i can not guarantee as complete a satisfaction)

(i tried it..Beautiful Kira yields Barbie dolls and cats. stick to Joy the Baker)

& you'll never regret it. i swear to you. she has the loveliest character, and the most delicious recipes.
i've only tried three, but they've all been scrumptious.

the apple coffee cake is her recipe and the lemon cake come from my big, red, sticky-noted, most treasured New York Times Cookbook (thanks Len :) )

this skor recipe, is a rip out of a magazine, whose original identity has been lost. But that magazine has my sincere gratitude, because these are good.

never mind, i just comprehended a pun.
a hilarious one at that.
these skor bars, are actually called "Score Bars" and the recipe comes from The Toronto Hockey Hall of Fame.

good one guys, good one.

anyway, here you go:
sorry for the less then beautiful quality. it's getting late, i have to work tomorrow, i have to clean up a kitchen, i'm plain lazy.
all excuses i recognize, & you probably deserve more then that, but at this time of the day (Oh, it's 11:11!) it's about all i have to offer.

and if i don't post it now, i probably never will because then it will just be 'old news'.
nobody wants 'old news'.

right! here you go.

(i think you can click on it to make it bigger)

andddd, as promised:

anna balancing an egg with her nose!


naked lemons chillin on my kitchen counter.
sad thing is, i think i actually promised someone a picture of these.


anddd, breakfast courtesy of Joy the Baker.

Now i'm vicious with appetite

I have yet, to figure out why I blogging is ridiculous. Until I do, you can pretend that thought never happened, and I'm going to continue to write these things. If you think blogs are stupid or consider my actions as hypocritical, by all means, refrain from continuing to read this.

Right now, I have two delicious smelling lemon loafs in the oven. There is a warm sugar-lemon glaze sitting on the stove. Dan Mangan's voice is filling the kitchen. Anna has been tucked nicely into bed, Jacob must be picked up in about one hour and 19 minutes.

I've been baking like a nut this whole week. I really like baking?
There was a time, a few months back, where everything i tried to bake flopped miserably.
Mostly because of most horrifically simple mistakes (an extra cup of flour & mistaking baking soda for baking powder), but some just flopped for no apparent reason.

The mysterious baking curse seems to have lifted. I'm glad. There has been little, to no, unnecessary swearing over egg whites that refuse to meringue, dry banana bread, or sugar spilled in a drawer...

this week, things have been turning out. 

It's nice.
I could get used to this.
I'm considering a career as a baker.

 

























As seen above:

Sour milk cake (This cake is sooo good)
Inside of sour milk cake.
Beaters, with sour milk cake on them.
Cinnamon bun batch, number one: unbaked.
Cinnamon bun batch number two: baked and iced, with cream cheese icing (yum!).
Cinnamon bun dough.
Lone Cinnamon bun batch three, on  a plate.
Chocolate Chocolate Banana Bread (i realised after i left for work in the morning that  i had forgotten to photograph this lovely bread. luckily there was still some left when i got home, ha!)

my doubts about it.

i figured out how to make picture collages on the computer, now i can share this with you in a most organized fashion:



i have had this dress for the longest times. this dress brings back memories of grade 10, dancing through apple trees in behind Auchmar Estaste on routine sunday walks.
it's been a long time.

i love this dress.
i love the color, and the embroidery, and the wide neckline.
but there was always something about the sleeves that threw me off.
they were just so hot.
and not the good 'hot' sorta hot: the kinda hot you want dress sleeves to emanate.
but just hot, too hot for summer & too hot to wear under a jacket.

on numerous occasions i discovered this dress in the back of my closet, pulled it out, remembered the sleeves, and put it back.

and, i dunno, i still like the sleeves.
they were kinda cute, in their fullness and half-length and buttoned existence.
after i cut them off, i kept them.
katie wore them as leg warmers for a while,
now they are resting in my scrap bag.
their day will come.

anyways
the alteration process was quite simple:
i cut off the sleeves,
measured a little,
snipped a little more
pinned the raw edge under,
ironed it down
& sewed it in place.

because of utter and unpractical laziness,
in an attempt to escape spinning a bobbin for the sewing machine,
i decided to hand sew it.

it was fun, but i realised after a few centimeters,
why they invented sewing machines.

also:
who can have a bad day with this beautiful face, plastered against your stomach?

no one. no one can.
it's impossible.
cheers value village.
you've made my life.

i used to think i was not like them
but i'm beginning to have my doubts,
...

i spent my time watching

i decided on the way home from toronto today that blogs are stupid.

i am not yet sure why, i decided that.

i'll let you know if i figure it out.


the spaces that had grown between us.

was this, what we hoped for?

http://r3.ca/0OHl

thank you dear sir, for becoming a part of my life.

little pieces

who ever said this was everything?