When something out of your control is on your mind, what can you do? It's in my nature to fixate; I fret. I find that baking is a good diversion. I think working with measures and technique gives me something different to focus on. Helps to keep my mind off smoking cigarettes too.
Usual sight in the kitchen: overripe bananas. Decided to whip up some banana nut muffins for the week.
I used three bananas in different states of overripeness and Tyler Florence's recipe as a starting point. Walnuts instead of pecans and added half a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. The chocolate came from Trader Joe's—a little too sweet but no funky tastes—go ahead and buy it, it's fine. When I wasn't sure if a half cup was enough, I topped each muffin with a couple chips before baking. These came out great. Nice and rich. I baked it for the full 20 minutes.
Another thing I did while washing my bakeware was to steam a pot full of artichokes. I had my iPod on shuffle throughout, as usual.
In related news, I think it's time to take my cookie sheets up a notch. I'm using two pieces of equipment right now. Both are inappropriate for the type of cookies I make most often. An insulated cookie sheet—typically not recommended for chocolate chip cookies, but I won't get rid of it because it's perfect for preventing sugar cookies from over-browning. The other cookie sheet is actually a dark-finish jelly roll pan—no good for chocolate chip cookies either. The dark color browns the cookie too fast and prevents it from giving it a good spread. Friends who have recently received batches of my baked items in the mail can tell which pan their cookies were baked on. What I'm going for next is a solid piece of light finish bakeware and a roll of parchment paper. Not ready for the Silpats. I think I'm going to cash in some credit card points and redeem it for something nice. Also have my eye on cast iron skillets. Stay tuned for upgrades.
Another thing that's good to focus on instead of worrying: blogging about bakeware.
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