Last weekend I came down with an odd gastric virus that made me slightly unhappy over the weekend, then seemed to disappear, yet came back with a vengeance Tuesday night. Now it's packed up and totally gone.
However, I went out Monday and bought a bunch of bananas. They didn't get eaten and are now all nice and freckly, so I decided to make some banana bread. I'm the only person I know who likes freckly bananas, and I wasn't about to sit there and eat six at one sitting.
If truth be told, I used to cook a lot, especially during my first marriage. My first husband thought I was a wonderful cook, and would even ask me to stock the freezer with steak and kidney pies before I left for an occasional trip back to Texas from wherever we were overseas. And when I first looked at Chez Melina before buying it, one reason I wanted the house is because it had one of these stoves.
Like most people I know, I prefer cooking with gas as I always burn up my pans on electric stoves. And the stove had a nostagic appeal, as I grew up in a home with an identical model. (Its finished products never had a lot of appeal; this was because my mother was, and is, a terrible cook.)
But I digress. Back to the banana bread.
After returning to Chez Melina with all the ingredients, I realized that the preparation time was not going to be the 15 minutes as shown on the recipe card. This is because:
- I had to evict the resident cat and clean the kitchen counters first.
- I decided the floor needed cleaning, too.
- I spent 20 minutes locating the appropriate pans and bowls.
- I spent another 10 minutes washing all pans and bowls because they were dusty.
However, the banana bread is now in the oven and Radar the cat is happily licking the bowl. Watch for updates on the finished product. I have high hopes.