Since I've been working so hard the last few days I gave myself the afternoon off. What that really meant was cooking and cleaning. I've been reading a lot of cookbooks lately so I was really looking forward to baking something. But what?
When I walked into the kitchen I was greeted with the scent of very ripe bananas. Aha! Banana bread coming right up! I can't stand the smell of bananas and I can only eat half of one before I gag. But throw a banana into a baked good and I'm in love. I mashed and mixed and popped it in the oven. Because it's such a wet, heavy batter it takes forever to bake. It was torture! And hour of delicious, warm, vanilla-banana scented joy wafting up the stairs while I cleaned. Even worse is that the recipe calls for an hour cooling time before eating. What?! I had it slathered in butter and popped in my mouth as soon as I could handle the loaf. Heaven.
But I wasn't finished yet! I wanted to bake more! I eye-balled the big fresh loaf of french bread on the counter and remembered I saw a recipe for making your own croutons. Why the hell not? Sounds like fun. Mix a little olive oil, salt, fresh garlic, fresh grated Parmesan and the cubed bread. Bake for about 25 minutes.
More heavenly smells! I adore garlic and again, I was eating my crunchy cubes of baked yumminess as soon as it was cool enough to handle. And later again on my salad. Mmmmmm, perfection.
I just wish I hadn't baked them both within a few hours of each other. When tell people I just baked banana bread and garlic croutons the first reaction is, well...eewww. Two tasty but very disparate flavors that would do well to have their own day of glory.
Wow, I'm hungry now. Think I need a slice of warm banana bread. And no croutons :)
