My thoughts on a page.

I’ve been a fairly useless wife for some time now, even though I’d never admit it to you know who. Take a measure of laziness, a teaspoon of ‘I hate housework’ and a bucket load of ‘I want to be on holiday’ and you will just about get what I’m like. However, this morning as I pushed himself out the door to work, something came over me. It was time to give back, to look after this fella a bit better.

So I decided I’d make an effort, but what would I do? Maybe buy myself something nice to wear, so he could appreciate the beauty he has landed himself? No too much effort.
Perhaps I could simply make the bed, or tidy the kitchen, load the dishwasher or hoover? Then I thought what would be left for him to do? So instead I decided to heed the old adage, ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’. Yes, great idea, I’d bake him something he would like.

After much thought, and the realisation that the majority of my recipes involve chocolate, I decided I’d better look online. You see, as in most parts of our life together, we prove opposites attract, I love chocolate and he loves healthy. At last I found what I wanted, a ‘super easy’ banana bread. How healthy was that? He’d be delighted.

I gathered all the ingredients, and with military precision I began to follow the recipe. Even when the old me nearly surfaced and was tempted to not bother ‘adding the flour and egg slowly while folding it in’, I resisted. In no time at all I was finished. I scanned the recipe to see if I’d forgotten anything, but no all was good. As I put it into my pre heated oven, (which the old me would also not really have bothered with), I was more than pleased with myself and, if truth be told, I even began to sing. A sure sign of self satisfaction. In thirty minutes I’d have lovely warm banana bread.

Walking away from the oven I decided I’d better charge my phone. This momentous occasion would surely demand a photo, or a whole series of them, similar to those I see on so many domestic goddesses blogs. I allowed myself to get a little excited, at last I’d created shareable content for facebook. Imagine how many would share my ‘made in a moment’ banana bread?

Well let me tell you my singing soon died a death. I checked on my creation bang on thirty minutes. It was slightly brown but definitely oozing liquid from the centre. Don’t panic, I thought, my oven is not the greatest and perhaps due to lack of practice had forgotten how to cook. ‘Give it a bit more time’ I thought.

So I did.

One hour later and dear God it was still not looking great. I began to wonder would it ever cook? By now two of my children had arrived home from school and joined me in watching the cake not cook, for another twenty minutes.

Bored and fed up we decided it had to come out. Thankfully it was now brown and there was no visible oozing. I turned it out onto a wire tray, as advised, and rested it (I’ve all the correct terms learned after my busy afternoon). My children were inclined to poke it, and laughed as it wobbled. One of them couldn’t resist tearing a piece off to reveal a goo. ‘Oh mum, it’s mank’ they shouted, ‘Yeuk it’s gross’. I made the fatal mistake to begin excusing my ‘creation’. ‘That’s the banana’ I said, ‘we have to wait for it to cool’.

So we did. Hours have passed since we took it out of the oven. It’s fallen to half it’s size and sadly we are still waiting for the gooey banana to cool. However if you can remember, the reason I bothered to waste my afternoon ‘creating’ was to speak to my OH through his stomach. I had hoped to say, ‘thanks for everything’ but I’m not sure what my gooey mess ended up saying. The good news is, my OH would eat anything. He has tasted it and at time of typing is not dead, so all ends well.

However I would like to caution those of you who may be tempted by recipes which begin with, Easy, Simple or Brilliant. I have proof they are most definitely not. Next time I think I’ll make the bed.

Photo BBC Brilliant banana bread.