Banana Bread Take 5

Since arriving here in Moncton, I've had more time on my hands than I know what to do with. Ray and I have been sharing his car (don't get me started, that's a whole different post that I'm too worked up to write about right now) and I have access to it when he doesn't have meetings. This means that I'm home quite a bit during the week. I absolutely LOVE banana bread and have been on a quest to make a great loaf. If you don't already know, I'm not all that great in the kitchen. I can get by, but tend to make a huge mess and nothing ever turns out exactly as it should. A few weeks ago I asked Ray to get me a receipe for banana bread and he got one from his mom. The next day I was excited to get baking since I thought we already had all the ingredients. You see, none of this stuff here is mine. Ray has four canisters on the counter.

I assumed that the largest one with the white stuff in it was the flour. So I got 2 cups and put it in the badder. I noticed a cardboard square in this flour and thought it was just one of Ray's weird things to keep the flour fresh or last longer (it's not that unusual for me to think that since he keeps his bread in the fridge to make it last longer). Well, the banana bread didn't turn out...at all. When Ray got home he kinda laughed and I blamed the failed bread on the receipe. I asked him why he kept cardboard in the flour and he asked me to point out where the "flour" came from. He pulled the piece of cardboard out and said that it was waffle mix...not flour. OK, so the receipe wasn't bad...I had just made waffle bread.

I decided to give it another go, using actual flour this time. I ended up trying this receipt a total of 4 times. It said to bake for 1 hour or until the top was brown and cracked. Every time the top would be brown but the middle wasn't cooked all the way through. I called my mom on Sunday and she gave me her receipe for banana bread. So I made loaf number 5 yesterday...yet again a failed loaf! The same old story, it was all brown on top except the middle wasn't cooked AND I left it in longer than the receipt called for. Look, I'm not THAT bad of a cook!!! I know how to follow a receipe.

That brings us to last night. We were making a turkey fillet (looks just like a boneless chicken breast) in the oven. It really should only take 20-25 minutes to cook...it took 45 minutes and I still wasn't convinced that it was cooked all the way. I conclude that we've got a bad oven, NOT a bad cook.