The overripe bananas that regularly grace my counter-top know their fate. My family knows it too. I am the only one who is delusional enough to believe me when I say, “Today we will make banana bread, so don’t throw these out!” Sometimes I am grounded enough to realize that it is not feasible to bake anything that week, but I still hold firm in my belief that I will get to it. So I stick the bunch in the freezer. I can hear the bananas mocking me. The fruit flies too. The other bananas welcome them to fruit purgatory.
“Don’t throw these bananas out—I’m going to make bread!”
I love to send homemade treats in my kids’ lunches, or to serve when friends come to visit. In my mind I am a professional baker, or a hipster version of June Cleaver. One that makes everything from scratch and is perfect at everything. I thought muffins or bread from a mix are something to be ashamed of in a time when people are even making their own granola bars and crackers. CRACKERS!!!! So I buy the mixes and hide them in my shopping cart under the lettuce, with “Mommy’s candy” and the tub of chip dip. Or I cling to the notion that I am going to make that 12-step recipe, which is of little comfort each morning as the empty lunch bags are staring me down.
Luckily the people at Robin Hood have come along to save the day! Not to give me all the rich people’s money that they stole from the tax collector, but my fingers are still crossed on that one. They have a line of mixes, called Robin Hood® Quick Bread Mixes, that will let me make bread, muffins, pancakes, or even biscotti in a hurry, without compromising on quality or homemade taste!
Hey, what’s good enough for professional chef Leslie Steh is good enough for me! I might even demand that the kids call me Chef Mommy when we make it. It will be a refreshing change from “Why is Mommy crying?” and “Don’t worry, I’m sure it will still taste great even if it does look like it got run over by an 18-wheeler.”
The kids like to bake way more than I do. I find it doesn’t come very naturally to me to do anything in the kitchen, beyond eating and hiding from relatives. So I get pretty tense when a recipe is complicated. Mommy is no fun when she is tense. The volunteers at the snack program I used to run could probably verify that for you. Luckily they all agreed not to press charges if I just turned in my apron and hairnet.
With a house full of ADHD, we all have short attention spans. It doesn’t help that we can see literal squirrels from our kitchen table.
Now the squirrels even watch US!
So between Mommy’s weeping and “naughty words” and our inability to focus, we need our baking projects to be quick and uncomplicated. In other words, not this:
With the Robin Hood® Quick Bread Mixes we can have it from box to oven in five minutes, with minimal mess since we only need to add water, eggs, and oil. The mixes are available in stores, and are offered in five flavours: Banana Flavoured, Chocolate Chip, Lemon Poppy Seed Flavoured, Cinnamon Swirl, and Gluten Free Banana Flavoured. You are also free to add your own twists, such as nuts, chocolate, or fruit. For even more options, look on the Robin Hood site for delicious looking recipes. Don’t look when you’re hungry though.
I may have licked my screen.
It’s becoming clearer now how my blog got its name isn’t it?
Disclosure: I have been compensated to write this post. But I believe wholeheartedly in the right to easy, delicious baked goods. And that chocolate chip loaf absolutely counts as breakfast. Also that it’s perfectly okay to make an extra loaf to leave out for the tooth fairy!
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