Entry the thirty-seventh: Baking insanity

No, no, I'm not perfecting a recipe for insanity on a cookie sheet; I've gone insane and baking is my way of expressing it. ("Gone," you say? "What is this 'gone' Elinoire speaks of? Hasn't she already been there for as long as I've known her?") Ahem.

Proof of my mental condition:



"That," you might say to yourself, "is a whole lot of banana bread." And you'd be right. (About the quantity. I'm just pretending I didn't hear that earlier comment about how long I have or have not been crazy.) Especially if you were including the eight loaves still in the oven. It's ridiculous. And even a little bizarre because banana bread is not a traditional December goodie.

(Not that I think you wouldn't be muttering to yourself if I baked twenty-seven loaves of fruitcake.)

But I digress.

Here is the reason I bake and distribute banana bread every December:



These are bananas that were bought during the last year and then ignored for a just a little too long. I like bananas that are tinged with green and my husband likes them when they're all yellow with maybe one or two brown spots. These were left in the fruit bowl until they became spotty and unappealing (to us, anyway) and then tossed in the back of the freezer. That's why they're totally brown now and even a little frosty. When they're thawed they're perfect for baking.

Except these are the bananas I had left over after my bout of baking insanity. These are the extra bananas that ended up in my parents' composter.

We're definitely buying smaller bunches in 2007.