The other day I was talking with my sister on the phone. We talk often, but only see each other about once a year if that. She lives across the country in a different time zone.
I multi-task pretty well, but this is not the case when I’m on the phone or cooking. As my husband can attest, I’ve thrown away a number of wrecked things because we were talking while I was baking. I end up using the measurement for the ingredient listed below. Use baking soda instead of baking power. Or leave out an ingredient altogether.
My sister and I were having a pretty in-depth conversation and she knew I was baking. I was baking banana bread and wanted to double the recipe. I doubled the sugar and oil with ease and mixed it together. Beat my eggs and mashed up my bananas (7 total). No problem.
When I got to the dry ingredients the doubling math took its toll (and I’m pretty good at math). We stopped our conversation literally until I got all the dry ingredients measured and mixed in. I apologized for not being more focused on our conversation. She laughed and said the neatest thing.
“If I were in your kitchen we would do the same thing. We would stop the conversation momentarily and then we’d start right up again.” She’s right.
We sometimes lament the fact that we don’t live closer and can’t cook together, meet for lunch, or have family meals together. Yet this day we cooked bread together and this miracle called the telephone made it seem like she’s just across town. ☺
P.S. Here’s my banana bread recipe.
Banana Bread
½ c cooking oil
1 c sugar
3 eggs, beaten
3 ripe bananas, mashed
2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 Tbsp milk
½ tsp vanilla
½ c nuts (optional)
Preheat oven to 350°. Beat oil and sugar together. Add eggs and bananas. Beat well. Add dry ingredients, milk and vanilla. Mix well. Stir in nuts. Pour in greased pan (9x5x3). Bake 1 hour. (Insert toothpick to check for doneness. Should come out clean.)
