Cleaning out the pantry.

Preface:

A sweet friend recently complimented me on how I had been baking and bringing food in realistic portions as of late. I definitely knocked that track-record off tonight.

Goal this evening: Bake.

What needed to be baked: Mint brownies (for someone's birthday).

What got baked: Mint brownie pie, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, banana bread, and blondies.

What sparked this plethora? Well, again, I needed to. AND, I hadn't baked in at least 9 days. There was a void in my life. AND, I had ingredients I needed to get rid of. With new job has come along no weeknights at GAP, so hello open Monday night!

What needed to get baked were the brownies (I told someone I would, so I had to). As I was perusing some cookbooks looking for a brownie recipe (because I DIDN'T want to make brownie pie) I came across a recipe for the Grit's blondies and I thought, ooh! Those look great!" And I said, "okay, I"ll make those too." Then, I remembered that I had purchased the wrong oatmeal (I picked up the Irish steel-cut kind, but grabbed the instant kind by accident...eww), but it had a cookie recipe on the back. So clearly I needed to make cookies! And my bananas were all spotted, so those obviously had to be baked into banana bread. And I couldn't find a brownie recipe I was crazy about, so I ended up settling for a classic, brownie pie.

End results:

The blondies were incredibly easy to make. I didn't have any walnuts so they went without, but I'm not disappointed.

The banana bread...I forgot a key ingredient. I haven't sampled it yet, but I don't have high hopes for it. But it's fluffy!

The cookies....good. Reallllly good.

And the mint brownie pie? Delightful.

Everything, except for the blondies, were made with ingredients I just wanted to get rid off. Bananas, I hate throwing them away. The oatmeal wasn't going to be consumed. And I used the last of some mint truffle kisses from the hoidays for the mint element in the brownies. Check.

Pantry cleaned out, all baking done in less than 2 hours (everything was in the oven or done by the 2 hour mark), and dishwasher running? Success.