Sometimes you have to get past a little unpleasantness at the start of the day and move on. This morning Andy came into “my” kitchen (where I was cooking breakfast), turned my French toast, and reheated my bacon in the microwave. I thought he was ruining it, but in fact I had undercooked the bacon, and the French toast was tough. So it’s just one meal out of life and it’s just a few minutes of arguing over whose kitchen it is and who’s a control freak. Then you have to get back to the business of living life and loving each other.
Tag: cooking
Made the most delicious banana walnut bread
We had ripe bananas and walnuts in the house, so I decided to make banana walnut bread. I had never made it before, so I Googled for a recipe. I found and used this banana walnut bread recipe from Martha Stewart. OMG nom nom nom!
Andy’s Red, White, and Blue Parfait
How could I be with this guy for seven years and not have had “his” red white & blue parfait? Last time he said “I think I’ll make ‘my’ such-and-such” was about something else he made in this 13×9 Pyrex dish– “My breakfast casserole” —after we had been together for six years! You got any other tricks up your sleeve, honey? 😉
Ah, the splendor of chocolate!
I baked this confection using this flourless chocolate cake recipe. Is it delicious? Oh. My. God is it delicious! I had originally bought these eight mini Hershey’s Special Dark bars to eat as little desserts, but today I decided I wanted to bake a flourless chocolate cake for the first time. I found the recipe above which called for four ounces of bittersweet chocolate, so these “8-.49 oz bars” filled the bill perfectly! We also happened to have Hershey’s cocoa (natural unsweetened) in the house as well as sugar, unsweetened butter, and eggs (we’re a baking household). Oh, boy is it good! I’m so glad I decided to bake it.
One thing I would recommend, though, is to follow the recipe and use an “eight-inch” cake pan as opposed to this 9″ cake pan, because the smaller the pan, the taller the cake. And this one could stand to be a smidge taller. Other than that, «magnifique»!
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’m making three dozen of these tonight with this recipe:
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 cups uncooked regular oats (I used cracked, toasted Coach’s Oats)
- 1 12-oz package Nestle’s Toll House semisweet chocolate morsels
- 1 cup pecan pieces
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350º
- In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla, beating well.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, stirring well. Add oats; stir well.
- Add dry mixture to butter mixture and stir until well blended. Gently stir in chocolate morsels and pecan pieces.
- Drop by rounded tablespoons 2″ apart onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper (I used wax paper on two of the baking sheets and nothing on a non-stick baking sheet, and it worked fine.)
- Bake for 15 minutes or until peaks of golden brown appear on top.
- Cool on pan 5 minutes or until firm
- Cool further to desired temperature on wire racks.
(I took this photo in April, but I’m making more of them tonight!)