I've lost count. How about you? (Actually it has been 25 days since we started social distancing.) The *numbers continue to be staggering with no end in sight. Even though I am accomplishing things (that's important to me since I base my worth on what I accomplish) it seems like all I do is get up and then go to bed. Last night I heard from Friend Carol of friends who have not left their houses. Their children are bringing groceries and leaving them at the door. I couldn't survive if we didn't at least take drives. I have been inside stores only a couple of times. Wayne has been a few more times. Last night we decided that even though we were trying to help out some local restaurants by ordering out, we probably shouldn't do that since it's always possible the workers could be infected.
This morning I am trying something different. I woke up before seven as I usually do, dozed back off for a bit, as I usually do, but this time I decided to get up and not go back to sleep until 8:30 or so. I will see how today goes. I have never liked sleeping late even though I am not an early riser. Probably when I was teaching I had to get up before seven, but seven is a good time for me to get up. Wayne is just the opposite - he loves staying up late and then sleeping in which retirement allows him.
Anyway this morning I am up and it isn't even 8 yet. I checked my emails and Facebook and decided I would share my thoughts here since it has been over a week. I find the days are hard to keep straight but for today, my phone will help me out.
Believe it or not, several days ago I decided I would do something "normal" for a change. It has been so normal for me for the last eight years, it's hard to believe it has not been normal for several months.
What is she talking about now - you may be thinking. I will give you a another clue - probably the main reason is that we have been away so much the last few months with traveling.
Guessed yet?
Well, the answer is I decided to bake something. I take pictures with my phone and it dates everything so I can look and see when I did it. We still have a little bit left so I know it wasn't too many days ago. I did give Friend Fran some. Some of us in Blankets of Hope have been making face masks for a rehab/assisted living place that Fran's daughter Sheila is the activities director and I have been taking the finished masks over to Fran's for her. Since I had made the cake, I decided to share some of it with them.
According to my phone, I made the cake four days ago on April 3rd. I have been continuing to try to lose some weight (and that's another reason I haven't been baking much lately) and can't go to the Fitness Center I recently joined so I knew I wanted to make something with less sugar. I buy the sugar-free cake mixes to use when I am making something mainly for us so I thought I would check out The Cake Doctor and see what Anne Bryn had to offer.
Didn't take me long at all to pick out her Banana Chocolate Chip Cake. I had the (sugar-free) yellow cake mix, frozen bananas, and mini-chocolate chips. I don't really understand when people use a cake mix and still add additional sugar. Anne added 1/4 cup. I would have used 1/4 cup stevia, but didn't have that much so I used 2 tablespoons of stevia/sugar blend. Even though it was in the sheet cake section, she said you could make it in a Bundt pan. So that is what I decided to do. It was a little difficult to get it out of the pan and then turn it back over so you could have the nuts on top, but I managed and only smashed it a little bit. If you served it in the pan and made it in the 9 x 13 - inch pan, it would be perfect.
Anyway, it was so-o-o-o-o good. Super moist. Love the mini chocolate chips and banana flavor. Fran and Sheila both loved it, too. (Didn't hear if Ted, Sheila's husband did, but that's okay. They might not have shared with him.😀)
BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP CAKE
1 cup mashed bananas (from 2 to 3 very ripe bananas)
1 package plain yellow or vanilla cake mix (I used a sugar-free yellow cake mix)
1/4 cup sugar (I used 2 tablespoons sugar/stevia blend)
3/4 cup oil
1/2 cup sour cream (I used light sour cream)
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup (6 ounces) miniature semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup finely chopped pecans
powdered sugar for dusting
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly mist a 9 x 13 - inch metal cake pan and then dust with flour OR you may use a Bundt pan. Set aside.
Place the mashed bananas, cake mix, granulated sugar, oil, sour cream, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on low speed until the ingredients are wet, about 30 seconds.
Scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase speed to medium and beat for 1-1/2 more minutes.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl again.
Fold in the chocolate chips and
pour the batter into the pan. Make sure you use that spatula to get every little bit of that delicious batter.
Smooth out the top and sprinkle the finely chopped pecans evenly over the top.
Bake until the top springs back (43 - 48 minutes for the sheet cake and 50 to 55 minutes for the Bundt cake)
Remove the cake from the oven and immediately sift the powdered sugar over the top so that it can melt and form a glaze. (I didn't do this right away but I could have. I was trying to find a way to remove the cake from the pan and then flip it over so the nuts and powdered sugar glaze would be on top. It was still delicious though.) Let the cake cool at least 20 minutes before eating it.
I haven't talked much about the "new normal" for us but I will do that another day. The sun is trying to peek out of the clouds and that lifts my spirits but I will share the latest numbers as I did in the last post. As I said at the beginning, they are so staggering. (The numbers in parenthesis are the numbers from the last time I reported them.)
Coronavirus Pandemic Reporting 4/7/2020 (3/28/2020)
United states
Confirmed cases 368,653 (102,361)
Deaths 10,942 ( 1,613)
Global
Confirmed cases 1,323,923 (602,148)
Deaths 75,094 ( 27,989)
Here is my latest design for a Blanket of Hope.
This morning I am trying something different. I woke up before seven as I usually do, dozed back off for a bit, as I usually do, but this time I decided to get up and not go back to sleep until 8:30 or so. I will see how today goes. I have never liked sleeping late even though I am not an early riser. Probably when I was teaching I had to get up before seven, but seven is a good time for me to get up. Wayne is just the opposite - he loves staying up late and then sleeping in which retirement allows him.
Anyway this morning I am up and it isn't even 8 yet. I checked my emails and Facebook and decided I would share my thoughts here since it has been over a week. I find the days are hard to keep straight but for today, my phone will help me out.
Believe it or not, several days ago I decided I would do something "normal" for a change. It has been so normal for me for the last eight years, it's hard to believe it has not been normal for several months.
What is she talking about now - you may be thinking. I will give you a another clue - probably the main reason is that we have been away so much the last few months with traveling.
Guessed yet?
Well, the answer is I decided to bake something. I take pictures with my phone and it dates everything so I can look and see when I did it. We still have a little bit left so I know it wasn't too many days ago. I did give Friend Fran some. Some of us in Blankets of Hope have been making face masks for a rehab/assisted living place that Fran's daughter Sheila is the activities director and I have been taking the finished masks over to Fran's for her. Since I had made the cake, I decided to share some of it with them.
According to my phone, I made the cake four days ago on April 3rd. I have been continuing to try to lose some weight (and that's another reason I haven't been baking much lately) and can't go to the Fitness Center I recently joined so I knew I wanted to make something with less sugar. I buy the sugar-free cake mixes to use when I am making something mainly for us so I thought I would check out The Cake Doctor and see what Anne Bryn had to offer.
Didn't take me long at all to pick out her Banana Chocolate Chip Cake. I had the (sugar-free) yellow cake mix, frozen bananas, and mini-chocolate chips. I don't really understand when people use a cake mix and still add additional sugar. Anne added 1/4 cup. I would have used 1/4 cup stevia, but didn't have that much so I used 2 tablespoons of stevia/sugar blend. Even though it was in the sheet cake section, she said you could make it in a Bundt pan. So that is what I decided to do. It was a little difficult to get it out of the pan and then turn it back over so you could have the nuts on top, but I managed and only smashed it a little bit. If you served it in the pan and made it in the 9 x 13 - inch pan, it would be perfect.
Anyway, it was so-o-o-o-o good. Super moist. Love the mini chocolate chips and banana flavor. Fran and Sheila both loved it, too. (Didn't hear if Ted, Sheila's husband did, but that's okay. They might not have shared with him.😀)
BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP CAKE
1 cup mashed bananas (from 2 to 3 very ripe bananas)
1 package plain yellow or vanilla cake mix (I used a sugar-free yellow cake mix)
1/4 cup sugar (I used 2 tablespoons sugar/stevia blend)
3/4 cup oil
1/2 cup sour cream (I used light sour cream)
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup (6 ounces) miniature semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup finely chopped pecans
powdered sugar for dusting
I just have to share another picture of it in the cake pan. This is why I didn't get the powdered sugar on it right away. I was trying to find flat things big enough but not so big I couldn't still handle them while trying to flip the cake out of the pan.
I haven't talked much about the "new normal" for us but I will do that another day. The sun is trying to peek out of the clouds and that lifts my spirits but I will share the latest numbers as I did in the last post. As I said at the beginning, they are so staggering. (The numbers in parenthesis are the numbers from the last time I reported them.)
Coronavirus Pandemic Reporting 4/7/2020 (3/28/2020)
United states
Confirmed cases 368,653 (102,361)
Deaths 10,942 ( 1,613)
Global
Confirmed cases 1,323,923 (602,148)
Deaths 75,094 ( 27,989)
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