Do you want chopped nuts?

Today was baking and gardening day at 28 Naberezhni Lane. Tanya gardened and I baked.

Her flowerbeds are filling in rapidly as every day she plants more and more different kinds. I'm not sure what all she put in today. We went to the big central "Sunday" market today. it was held a day early as tomorrow being Paskha (Easter) everything will be closed. We filled two bags with vegetables and I went to the car while Tanya went to look for Paskha bread. I waited and I waited until she finally showed up with two bags, one of special loaves for Easter and one of flower bedding plants. Of course.

What did you buy? Some shit. (No kidding?) Ok, I ignored it then, after a smart ass answer like that. Turns out that was exactly what she had bought. самшит (Samsheet) a Boxwood tree. I have been teasing her about that all day.

I started the afternoon with banana bread. The recipe I have (from the internet) wants to dirty every bowl in the house. Mix little bits of things separately and then blend, fold (spindle and mutualate) all together at the end. I never know if the people who post the recipes are just showing off or if it is to get back at all the bureaucrats who give us VIP (Very Important Paper) and tell us do NOT blend, fold spindle or mutualate.

I try to follow recipes so far as ingredients are concerned but rarely follow the mixing directions. It is like keeping your peas and potatoes separate on your plate - they are all going to be mixed in the end anyhow. This batter turned out very stiff and not as big a batch as usual. The bananas were too small or too green or something. Like my Mom's brown bread, I could have fired the two loaves through the side of a wooden ship with a small cannon. But they tasted fine.

The last item on the ingredient list was chopped walnuts. Having progressed to that point in every batch I made, it always comes as a shock since I have to go to the passage way and get the walnuts (gathered from our tree last fall) and shell the damn things. I am moving that item to first on the ingredient list. Well, after smushing the bananas. It is called BANANA Bread after all.

Then I found a chocolate chip cookie recipe somewhere and decided to try it, since we had chips we brought from Canada. Did you know that 50% of all cookie recipes made in America are chocolate chip? This time I was smart and shelled and chopped the walnuts first.

The recipe said I was supposed to drop the cookie dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Drop? I couldn't pry it off the spoon. I added another egg so it would be a little malleable. Ungreased? The baked cookies stuck to the cookie sheet like poop to a blanket. Next batch, I jimmied them loose before they got cold.

Lastly I made my favourite cookie - oatmeal raisin. These I had made before but this time the dough was wetter than I remembered so I added some more flour. I also greased the cookie sheets - to no avail. Stuck tighter than a ... Pried loose, they resemble dry porridge with raisins.

If I can find wax paper, I am using it on my cookie sheets next time.

The pot of chicken soup I cooked for supper to surprise Tanya made up for less than eye-pleasing baking.