use real butter

I’ve got chocolate chunk banana bread and sour cream coffee cake cooling in the kitchen. Sour cream makes for a moist crumb. The coffee cake is for Suzanne who turned 30 on Thursday. Alex surprised her with an issue of 30 Magazine in which he compiled articles from her friends and family. She thought it was a REAL magazine! I can’t wait to get my copy of it (Alex is providing one for everyone who contributed). Suzanne is a huge fan of baked goods (all 80 pounds of her). Because I didn’t have enough rotting banana to make the banana bread, I picked up two more at Pavilions yesterday. I asked if they had any “brown” bananas. Produce Guy explained that they compost all of their rotting produce! How cool is that?! I can’t wait to have a compost pile. The amount of trash we produce will dwindle to almost nothing after recycling and composting! I wonder if I’ll have to grow vegetables on our deck? Otherwise I’ll just be creating a buffet bar for the local fauna.

I enjoyed chilling out with folks last night. It was a small turnout, which means lots of leftovers, but also a more relaxed atmosphere to hang out and chat. Some of the goods…

I noticed while cleaning up last night that the mousse looks a lot like brown vomit. A good thing not to tell people you’re serving it to, but who on earth came up with this recipe, I wonder? I didn’t like the CIA mousse recipe that much, mostly because it required 4 separate bowls and 3 whippings. Jeremy and I had an interesting discussion about organic coffee and how the flavor quickly falls off with elapsed time since brewing. Regular coffee doesn’t have this problem (he tells me – I don’t drink coffee). I wonder what sort of junk goes into non-organic coffee? Cooking for engineers has a great list of additives to foods. It’s interesting, and gross, and scary.Making chocolate shells because no one in Pasadena carried them pre-made. I actually liked playing with the balloons more than making the shells.



I guess that chocolate mousse isn’t so bad once you get over the mental image of brown vomit. I tasted some tonight and it’s very smooth with a good buttery mouthfeel, but not the bad buttery where it coats your tongue and you feel like you’re eating wax paper.

When you have rotten bananas:

Make chocolate chip banana bread (with mini chocolate chips!).



Jeremy is snoozing away. Rightly so, he got to bed at 5:45 this morning. I guess I’ll let him sleep this morning, dreaming his little astronomer dreams. There is plenty that needs doin’ to keep me busy…

I love to bake in the winter. Makes the whole house smell good. I like the rushing sound of the gas oven when I put a sheet of cookie dough in… choco-crisp cookie dough, that is.

The oven has had a workout today: banana bread, quiche, and 7 dozen cookies.