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.

Entry the thirty-second: It starts...

What, you ask? What is starting, exactly?

Holiday baking, that's what.



Except very little actual baking occurred tonight. I used my wonderful KitchenAid mixer (one of the best birthday presents ever!) to put together um... hold on, I'm counting on my fingers... SEVEN batches of gingerbread cookie dough. My husband thought I was kidding when I told him to buy 5 jars of molasses -- Ha!

My husband set the cat bed up in the kitchen doorway and first Mirabelle then Sylvie obligingly smooshed into it. I feel sure they were cheering me on.



Next week I will descend upon my parents' (larger, nicer, more modern) kitchen like a gingerbread dervish and roll out and bake all this dough. My parents don't mind this because
1. It's a nice way to hang out
2. Their house ends up smelling like gingerbread
3. They get to eat all the mistakes and extra bits.

My mother really likes it when I appropriate their lovely double oven for my cookie madness. The ensuing cheer always knocks the "They-put-Christmas-stuff-up-in-the-stores-in-August-and-that's-just-wrong,-wrong,-WRONG" grouchy mood out of my dad. Once he's experienced the healing power of baking cookies, he brings the boxes of Christmas decorations in from the garage. My mom can never make any headway in this department before baking day.



Happy December!