Day: December 27, 2015

Post-Christmas baking.

Banana Bread 1

Today I realised I had a bunch of bananas going off a lot quicker than I had bargained for, due to the extreme heat we’ve been having.  I usually freeze these to use in smoothies, but standing in the kitchen in my pj’s this morning, I decided some of them had to be used to make banana bread.

I love banana bread, but like most cakes and other sweet treats, only make it very occasionally.  Mostly because I live alone, so i’m the only one around to eat it!  So as much as I love baking, I have to contain myself to doing it every now and then, for moderation’s sake.

I have two quite different ‘favourite’ banana bread recipes.  One is quite sweet and cakey – very much a traditional cafe style banana bread.  The other is a bit more ‘rustic’, and not so sweet – and has the advantage of being very easy to make.  I don’t have to drag the mixer out or do anything complicated – it’s pretty much a two-bowl affair, and easy to clean up.  This is the one I made today…sooooo yummy!

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From the garden.

Beans

Over the past week, it has been so hot here in Melbourne (getting up around 40 degrees celcius) everything around the place, including me, has been wilting.  Then in true Melbourne style, when the change came through and the rain and the cold rolled in, the mercury plunged to down around 19 degrees…I tried to keep the garden hydrated during the heat but sometimes it was like pushing, um…you know what, uphill.  So I was very glad for the downpour, and water I don’t have to pay for!

During the extremes of weather, and of course the Christmas madness, i’ve had little time/inclination to devote to the garden, so I snuck out this morning between rain showers, and after a very, very refreshing 12 hour sleep, to pull a few weeds, tie a few things back, and do a bit of harvesting.  Today I got some bush beans, some broad (fava) beans, and some curly lettuce.  Yum!

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