This post is brought to you by the letter "B"

Well, now there's all this pressure to be entertaining. Hmph. Speaking of entertaining, I had my father visiting this weekend. My mother tells me he likes super-ripe bananas, so I went out and bought some. He ate one, leaving me with five. ("Yes, we have no bananas" was a favorite song of my mother's. I still have no idea what it means.) Which means...banana bread! (And maybe banana pudding somewhere down the line, but I don't know how that's going to work out.)
My favorite banana bread recipe is Big Bird's. Yes, that Big Bird. The recipe is from a Sesame Street book, part of a series of...I dunno, 26? I'm pretty sure it's out of print, so I'll post my version of the recipe. I've tried a few other recipes, and none of them are good. Or maybe I was just brought up to prefer a really moist and dark banana bread.

The first step is mashing three ripe bananas to kingdom come. As shown in the lovely image below. It gets better, really. Or at least briefly. Just looking at the pictures alone will show a distinct narrative arc of not pretty, pretty, and not very pretty. Add 1/4 cup melted butter. Mmm. Then add 3/4 cup of honey, 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 1.5 cups of flour. (Big Bird suggests whole wheat flour, but I generally just use white flour and am all the unhealthier for it. I am not a role model like Big Bird.) Having stirred that altogether, pour into an oiled loaf pan and placed in a preheated (you did preheat, right?) oven at 350 degrees. Bake for one hour, although after one hour my loaf feel apart when I took it out of the pan. So use a loooooong toothpick to poke through the whole loaf to check for doneness. Cool briefly in pan, then let finish cooling on wire rack. Let's linger for a while on the pretty picture. Well, apparently the banana bread doesn't want to linger, but wants to get a move on. Or I need steadier hands.
Shoulda baked it longer. I tried cooking it a little longer in a turned-off oven after I got the top half off and then pushed it back in. It didn't really work very well, but was definitely moist and tasty as ever.
In conclusion, children should be allowed to watch television as it leads to things like the best banana bread.

August oranges

My roommate is somewhat...particular, so I made him a tried and tested cake for his birthday, even if wasn't as ambitious as previous birthday cakes. The first time I made it, he and I ate it so much that it gone within the day, leading my other roommate to wish she had taken more sooner. It's a light, airy cake and has an quasi-caramelized base and very orangey, and comes from Chocolate and Zucchini.
This shot is of the surface of the moon. Fine, it's the cake pan buttered and sugared. It was hard to refrain licking the pan already.
The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of orange juice, or about the juice of one orange, plus the zest of one orange. I always assume my produce will not be the same size as anyone elses, so I bought two oranges; the worst possible scenario then means I have fresh fruit. Panic! Anyway, it look me one and a half oranges to get the half cup, although I don't have a real citrus juicer either which may have contributed to a low yield. Here are the ravaged and destroyed oranges. One of the reasons I think I like baking so much is that I get to eat the raw batter or dough. This recipe is exceptional in the fact that the batter doesn't taste very good raw. (Believe me, I always lick the bowl when I'm done, and most raw doughs taste excellent. I also assume in this day and age that raw eggs are pretty safe. Or, at least, I've fended off salmonella up until now.) Out of the oven, the cake is supposed to cool for ten minutes in the pan, then you flip it over onto a serving plate to finish cooling, and the caramelized part is on top. It's a really lovely cake, although I think I would flip it over to a rack to finish cooling instead of a plate next time. The plate doesn't allow for much cooling, and means the cake ends up sticking to the plate a lot. Still, my roommate's birthday was successfully celebrated, and thusly ends the summer birthdays. Whew.