I was all set to write something else today, but that can wait until tomorrow, because you are gonna love this one! Let me preface it by saying, I am not, nor ever have been, nor really strive to be a domestic goddess. I can fix a place up nicely, I can clean, but mostly I'm just OCD and controlling about making sure everything is in its place, so often that people are fooled when they come over and mistake me for some kind of June Cleaver. I’m great at staging and faking. I have no green thumb; I can't sew, suck at ironing and usually screw up the laundry. I make Mac n Cheese that is over or under cooked EVERY time, can’t peel a potato and blame it on being left handed, and my tastes buds are even lacking because I would be more than happy to eat soggy cereal for the rest of my life 3x a day.
One time about seven years ago I was talked into entering a bake-off. All I know is somehow I made Tuxedo Brownies from the Pampered Chef cookbook, added my own chocolate drizzle because I thought without it, the recipe was too plain, and amazingly made it as a finalist. BUT I SLAVED over that recipe and it took me ALL day to perfect. This is an accomplishment I am both proud of yet still a little shocked at the possession of my body by some un-identified person…..
Tonight, I got home from work and it was HOT. We HAD to turn the a/c on darn it. Don decided to take our son to a $5 movie and I didn’t think I could sit through a movie without falling asleep from all the in and out of a/c I did today. I was all set to work-out, blog and maybe take a swim. But then that weird body possession thing happened again and I could hear myself asking the girls if they felt like baking homemade banana chocolate chip bread?!! Of course they were trying to ask me questions to make sure I was REALLY
their Mom, and finally said Yes, of course they would!
I looked up a recipe online and asked Don before he left if we really had all the ingredients it asked for and he told me we did (didnt phase him a bit -sorry to say he is used to my in-abilities in the kitchen) and left shaking his head and wondering where his wife had gone off to? Here is how the baking process went:
Aiden read me the recipe from the laptop, Avery gathered the ingredients while staring at me oddly and wondering how I KNEW what the items were.
We didn’t have 2 loaf pans, so I was stuck with a round cake pan.
I didn’t pay attention to the wording of the recipe until it was too late and realized they meant for me to use the mixer not my large spoon and a mixing bowl – the girls picked up on this before I did and asked me why I wasn’t using our nice Kitchen Aid mixer (I thought that was for decoration ONLY they once declared) and at this point I told them it was better to just do it by hand. They stopped believing me when I switched hands ten times then asked them to mix for awhile because my arm was so sore.
Everything seemed smooth other than the long hand-mixing process until Aiden read out loud the Buttermilk part. REALLY? Who has Buttermilk?? I did what only I could do, I used 1% instead. Then Avery handed me a tablespoon for the baking soda instead of a teaspoon and of course it didnt occur to me how big it was - afterall, HOW would I have KNOWN?? (don’t worry, I was able to get most of the extra out) At this point I knew I was in trouble so exact measuring went by the way-side and I “winged” it from there on out figuring this was going to end up in the garbage anyway. I dumped in more chocolate morsels everytime a mistake was made, because chocolate is very forgiving. (Now let me bring you back up to the part where I’m a little OCD – I did all of this while mixing in the bowl
in the sink, so none of the flour dust got anywhere, I wiped the counters down in-between each ingredient added, and I even ran the vacuum once.)
We nervously waited for the bread – not even sure you can call it BREAD at this point, and I kept looking for the consistency of cake due to the pan that I had to pour the “batter” into.
45 minutes later (more or less) I pulled it out of the oven, stuck a fork in it and was AMAZED that no batter came back out, it didn’t deflate, and it was a nice cookie dough color but at a bread consistency in a cake pan – yes, confusing figuring out exactly what you would call what I just made. We carefully cut ourselves a slice and ……
IT WAS GOOD!!!!!!!!!
They wanted seconds!!
Me, on the other hand had the tiniest piece, and as I type my heartburn is getting out of control and obnoxious. I can’t even look at Baking Soda without getting massive heartburn.
So, today I started out with a little Monday Blues,(maybe I'll share that one next week) was then surrounded by heat, and finally decided on being a little domestic if I do say so myself. How are you?
This is my Grandma who I call Nannie. She has passed, but I still think of her every single day. Isn't she beautiful? She and my Grandpa, "Poppies" were together since they were 14! The were the kindest, most wonderful people - I am so lucky to have had them in my life. Funny story - among MANY - Nannie had breast cancer (I know, not funny yet) and she had her breasts removed, so she had "falsies" in her bra, which I never really knew about. Well one day Don and I were playing cards or dice with Nannie and Poppies, drinking Vodka and Tonics and sitting on the floor in their tiny living room of their sweet tiny house, and having a side-splitting good time when I see her take off and escape to the kitchen. Se called me in, and proceeds to hysterically laugh and tell me how her falsie fell out of her bra and slid down her arm and she luckily caught it in her hand, tucking it back into her sleeve before any of us could notice it. And she's laughing! So, I did too and we thought it was a lucky save. Then we laughed because Poppies was known and Mr Lucky Pants because he wore the same jeans and always won every game we played. I told her she must have somehow gotten into Mr Lucky's Pants and we roared with laughter some more until the men told us to get back out there so they could beat us at our game...... I
