Going Banana (Bars)

There are days I should not be allowed in the kitchen.

Today was one of them.

For lunch, I decided to try out a new recipe (first mistake) for a tuna (second mistake)-noodle casserole. It could be that this recipe, in the hands of any other cook would be just fine, and not the bland, yet colorful, left-overs-for-days nightmare that I created. It could be that I tend to use recipes as “guidelines” rather than “directions” when I am cooking, adapting them to family likes/dislikes and ingredients on hand.

It could be that I completely changed the taste of this casserole by subsituting sauteed, fresh peppers for a jar of roasted peppers (both of which are vegetables and both of which are disliked by the boy child). It could be that I angered the pasta gods by substituting penne pasta for fusilli pasta (potato, potato).

Or it could be that any recipe which combines tuna (which the boy child dislikes), and green beans (see: boy child/vegetables/dislike) was doomed from the start.

The husband, who likes to eat much better than he likes to cook, declared the casserole was “tasty.” This was a bold-faced lie and we both knew it. He continues to lie to me this way because I am currently enjoying a 60% success rate in terms of tasty cooking. I am coming off a string of hits including, but not limited to potato soup, monster bars, and scotcheroos.

The boy child, on the other hand, has not figured out the link between bolstering Mom's ego and a continued supply of monster bars. Within an hour, he was digging through the freezer searching for un-frostbitten pizza rolls.

Undeterred by my lunchtime loss, I decided to try a new recipe for banana cake. “Baking,” unlike “cooking,” is a mystical art that is part chemistry, part sorcery. I make every attempt to follow the recipe carefully, if not obsessively, while baking.

I mashed the bananas and set them aside; I mixed the dry ingredients and set them aside; I creamed the butter until it was light and fluffy. I added the eggs.

Only when I noticed my light and fluffy butter becoming bumpy, clumps of butter surrounded by snotty egg whites, did I realized I had forgotten to cream the sugar and the butter before adding the eggs. During my brief stint as a half-baked home ec teacher I drilled that important step into the minds of my students. But it was too late to turn back. What was the worst that could happen? I knew the worst that could happen, and it did.

Instead of the “smooth, slightly thick batter with some lumps” the recipe said I would have, I had a runny batter with a lot of gloopy, curdy lumps.

I was frustrated, because I had waited all week to try out this recipe. But my frustration was half-hearted, because I am the only one in the house who actually likes banana bars/cakes/bread. And if I'm being honest, the only reason I like them is because I can use up the ripe bananas, relieving some of my guilt over letting them go to waste.

The good news is the banana cake turned out ok. It is banana cake, after all, not brain surgery. And the cake features a thick layer of cream cheese frosting.

Cream cheese frosting makes everything better.

Everything except tuna casserole. (But I wouldn't bet against it.)

Master Iron Chef UnWrapped Kitchen Throwdown

The following is an actual, honest-to-goodness assignment that I am going to give my students tomorrow. By doing this I believe I am incorporating 20th Century Learning benchmarks, facilitated by technological interface practices, in a cross-curricular, hands-on learning environment that reaches out to marginalized students to better help them achieve their full potential. Or it's just a cheap ploy to entertain myself while creating a fun lesson plan with marginal learning outcomes but maximal blog-post-ability. Ish.

The Great

Convenience Mix

VS.

Homemade

SMACKDOWN

(AKA: Mrs. Salemink is Cleaning Out the Cupboard)

Why?

1. Foods & Nutrition 2 is wrapping up a unit on convenience foods, and Baking is learning about... well, baking. Duh. Really? Do I need a reason? Have I ever had a good reason for any assignment? There was that one lesson about that one thing... but other than that one.... We've done similar things before, but never on this scale. This... will... be... EPIC.
2. Mrs. Salemink has had 4 hours of sleep from 6:30 a.m. Saturday to 7:32 p.m. (oops, 8:14 p.m.) Sunday, and is not expecting to get to bed until at least 10 p.m. And she is really, really old. She is not able to go without sleep for this long any more, people. Give her a break.

3. The vast majority of you are probably going to be tired and cranky in class on Monday as well. The rest of you get to reap the benefits of our poor sleep-management skills.
4. We are having yet another “not normal” week of class scheduling, and I'm running low on creativity. Hard to believe, but true.
5. Because I'm the teacher and I said so. What are they going to do? Fire me?

The Assignment:

1. EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU (yes, YOU! BY YOUR OWNSELF. Without a partner.) will go online and find a HOMEMADE, COMPLETELY FROM SCRATCH RECIPE for one of the following cake/brownie/quickbreads from the provided list. You WILL (BY YOUR OWNSELF. Without a partner.) email me a link to said HOMEMADE, COMPLETELY FROM SCRATCH RECIPE by the end of the class period. *See Random Rules and Frequently Asked Questions section below.

The Smackdown:

After democratically selecting (you will vote, I will over-rule) 2 box mixes and their homemade recipe counterpart:

1. Each class will be divided into 4 kitchen groups. Two groups will prepare the box mixes. Two groups will prepare the homemade.
2. If you can't come to an agreement on who's doing what, I will randomly select you. Or we may do this again and switch roles. Depends on how much you annoy me.

Random Rules:

1. Box mix selection (and thus homemade recipe as well) will be first come, first served. In other words Foods 2 gets a better deal. Life is not fair. Get over it.
2. YOU WILL, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU (yes, YOU! BY YOUR OWNSELF. Without a partner.) will go online and find a HOMEMADE, COMPLETELY FROM SCRATCH RECIPE BY THE END OF THE CLASS PERIOD. Or you will receive an “I.” Your grade point will crumble, you will never graduate high school, you will develop a severe case of acne, “bacne,” halitosis, pit-stank and athletes foot and you will wake up with the over-all funky body odor of the average, post-gym 7^th grader, for all of eternity. No amount of showers shall cleanse you. You shall become a pariah amongst your people. Look it up.
   You may also turn into a zombie. And not the fun kind. You will become the really icky, oozy kind that everyone can outrun. You will be locked in a cage where people will poke at you with sticks. They will make countless YouTube videos and SnapChat stories about you and you will never collect a cent of royalties or receive any “likes.”
   If you are lucky, you will spend the rest of your life living in a van, down by the river. By your self. Not even the other zombies – or stinky 7^th graders – will associate with you.
3. You will not whine.
4. YOU WILL DO ALL YOUR DISHES or you will receive an “I” and the consequences will be the same as #3 above.

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Do we have to? Yes.
2. Why? Because I said so.
3. But, Mrs. Salaaaaameeeeeenk, I'm tired. So am I. And I'm older and crankier than you.
4. But... but... but... Nip it. Nip it! You can't see me, but I'm making the universal “nip it” sign with my hand as if I could grab your little pouty duck lips and hold them shut. With superglue. Or DuckTape. I'm not picky.
5. Quit rolling your eyes. That's not #TheBEARway.
6. How d... Because I'm psychic. Now get to work.

How I have never been named Teacher of the Year is completely beyond me.

That's How My Cookie Crumbles

Not to brag or anything, but (Spoiler Alert: Bragging Ahead!) I make awesome cinnamon rolls. My cinnamon rolls are so light and fluffy you'll think St. Peter himself took them out of the oven just in time to greet you at the pearly gates.

My caramel pecan rolls have made a grown woman (me) cry. My breads and rolls are airy and flaky at least 90% of the time. I once made a batch of kolaches so buttery and rich that they made even the most die-hard kolache haters love kolaches.

So why can't I make slice and bake cookies?

My point is I can bake. I can bake the heck out of things. Just call me Queen Betty Jo Crocker-Pillsbury.

So why can't I make slice and bake cookies?

I can bake. But sometimes I don't want to bake. When I get a hankering for a hot, gooey, chocolate chip cookie (preferably with pecans) I barely have time to preheat the oven, let alone mix thoroughly. When I'm jonesin' for a cookie, the time and effort required for homemade, is more time and effort than I have.

All those aforementioned rolls, buns and breads have nothing to do with me being some sort of baking savant. I'm not the dough whisperer. All I do is read and follow the recipe, cross my fingers and hope for the best.

With slice and bake you don't even have to follow a recipe. There is no measuring. No proofing the yeast. No letting the dough rest or punching it down.

There are only two vital instructions: “Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake 11-12 minutes.”

How can two more minutes possibly make the difference between an oozing lump of raw dough and a dried-out charcoal briquet?

And yet, that's what I made. One dozen mummified, chocolate chip hockey pucks.

Chockey pucks.

I needed a cookie fix bad. I made a special trip to the store, dusted off the cookie sheets, and even waited for the oven to preheat. Soon the aroma of baking cookies filled the house. I ran to the oven when the timer (I used a timer!) went off, but those anemic, melty blobs were far from “golden brown.”

Back in the oven they went. Two minutes on the timer.

In an instant, the house-warming smell of baking was replaced by the house-clearing stench of carbonized cookies. I tried to snatch edibility from the jaws of defeat by quickly transferring the cookies from the pan to the cooling rack. But the damage was done, and the cookies were over-done.

“Ohhh, they're fine,” I told the Little Prince. “Just a little on the done side. See? Not a speck of black,” I said, showing him the bottom of a cookie. And it was true. Somehow they managed to burn from the inside out. There was no visible sign of burnt-ness. That's what made the taste test such a surprise.

The Little Prince stood by my side, waiting expectantly for my reaction as I took a bite. (Would I gag? Break a tooth?) I didn't say a word, but my labored chewing (and the loud crunching) must have been clue enough. He smiled and patted my arm, then took a handful of Oreos and snuck out of the kitchen.

My wonderful husband picked up two cookies and disappeared into his office. I haven't checked his trash can, but I wouldn't blame him if he threw the cookies away. That was my first thought when I bit into my cookie.

The Princess returned home. “Mmmmm, what smells so good?”

“Burnt cookies.”

“They smell delicious. It can't be that ba...”. She took one look at the chockey pucks and made herself a bag of microwave popcorn.

My Grandma once ruined a pan of Rice Krispie treats. I don't know if it was the marshmallows or the cereal or what, but those were the driest, most tasteless desert I had ever eaten. Until my last batch of slice and bake cookies.

I've been told that Grandma used to bake angel food cakes. From scratch. Multiple cakes at a time.

I wonder how she would have done with slice and bake cookies.