A weekend is not a weekend without some baking...

...and it was a busy weekend!! I wanted to put together a baked-goods package for my dear friend Essie and also for a few coworkers in New Mexico, plus I was craving some homemade spaghetti and some quality time in the kitchen. Well, I got almost a full weekend of it!! Here's how it went down:

First I baked some bacon
to go with breakfast bagels.
J needed to eat. ;)

Mmm...breakfast bagels!!

After breakfast, on to Banana Bread.
I had quite a few frozen bananas in
the freezer, which I forgot to remove
to thaw the night before, so I thought
I'd try a quick defrost. First, it was
attempted to throw them all in a ziplock...and into a sink full of water.

But that was only thawing out the
bananas on the outside of the bag.
The ones in the middle were still
a bit in their frozen state. Next step
was to remove them from the bag and
place them directly into the water.
I was afraid that the skins would soak
up too much of the water, affecting the
bread dough... but this worked quite well.
And was quick too! Although I did have
most of them thawed via my previous attempt.

I skipped the "mash" part of the recipe.
It's kinda silly if you ask me. Just takes
another step and more precious time. So I just
dumped the bananas directly from their skins
into the mixing bowl and mixed away.The bread baking away...Smelled soooooo good!!The larger loaves took a wee bit
longer to completely cook.But...ooo, they were good!!Lots of dishes...
...means lots to wash and dry.What does chocolate...and gummy bears have in common?
Chocolately goodness!!