Monday, July 27, 2009

This? This is why I will never rule the world. Or even the county.


On Wednesday, I discovered a ginormous zucchini in the garden. Judging from some I harvested last year, I figured I'd easily be able to make two loaves of zucchini bread with it. I decided I'd make one to take to my mom for her birthday, and one for me to eat for this week's breakfasts. To streamline the process, I wanted to procure a second loaf pan so that I could bake both loaves at once, so I went to Bed Bath & Beyond on Friday evening in search of a second Pyrex pan. I needed a loaf pan, smaller than a store-bought loaf of bread. A mini loaf pan, right? (If you can see where this is headed, you're more clever than I.)

BB&B no longer carries the Pyrex loaf pan I bought last year, so I compromised and bought a little aluminum Wilton mini loaf pan. All good, yes? Yes. Fast forward to tonight. I worked until 5, suffered the injustice that is the grocery store at 5:15, and dove into washing the dishes as soon as I got home. Fortunately, MB had washed half of the dishes yesterday. Unfortunately, I was left with the more time-consuming half, the tupperware and pans and odds and ends. From about 5:45 until about 7:45, I washed dishes and ate dinner and washed more dishes. Finally, finally, it was time to bake zucchini bread.

I wasn't really in the mood. My back has been killing me all day, and I was hoping to do a prenatal yoga DVD before bed, wah wah woe is me. But my sister and I are taking Mom out to see the Harry Potter movie for a belated birthday on Wednesday, and I really wanted to bring her the bread as a surprise. I have yoga class tomorrow night and won't be home until 8:00, so tonight was my best shot. Buoyed by the thought of a warm slice of zucchini bread before bed, I soldiered bravely on. I spent about 15 minutes grating the monster zucchini, measured out two cups of the results, and carefully prepared two identical bowls of dry ingredients.

Since I'm familiar with the baking time of the Pyrex pan, I decided to use it for the first loaf. When I went to get it out of the cabinet, I discovered my grievous error.

Loaf pan, mini loaf pan. Apparently not the same thing.


Well, bugger. And by this point it was 8:45. Zucchini loaves have to bake for 55 minutes. If I tried to make two, I'd be up until 10:45 at the least. My pregnant ass says No thank you to that. I did the only thing possible. I admitted defeat, plastic wrapped the extra dough, and slunk off to make fun of myself on the internet, all the while smelling the delicious aroma of the bread that I can't eat because it's for my mother. That, ladies and gentlemen, is real love. Happy birthday, Mom. Please enjoy this loaf of bread with a side of my suffering.


P.S. There is a giveaway on my book blog if anyone is interested.

Reading:  The Dangerous World of Butterflies:  the Startling Subculture of Criminals, Collectors, and Conservationists by Peter Laufer

Playing:  a Cowboy Junkies station on Pandora

4 comments:

  1. If you got a second mini loaf pan, you could double the recipe and just make 3 loaves instead of two!

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  2. Also, zucchini muffins are good too...just don't bake em for the full 55 mins.

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  3. God, wait for the back pain man. My special lady friend is currently in a back brace that looks a little bit like a corset. Pregnancy looks like lots of fun from the outside.

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  4. "With a Side of Suffering" is a great title for a novel. Or a memoir.

    If you have nothing better to do at some point, would you send me your zucchini bread recipe? I've got all these zucchini coming in my CSA box and need to use them up. I checked online but there are about 80 zillion zucchini recipes and I have no way of knowing if any of them are good. Since you made your zucchini bread for your mother, I'm figuring your recipe must be good. Oh, just thought of this: You might dislike your mother and deliberately give her overly salty zucchini bread with mysterious hard bits.

    holdenltd@msn.com

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