Banner Banana Cream Pie & the Chuseok Holidays

This pie was all sweetness :)

A sweet cookie tart crust sealed with white chocolate (which kept the crust perrrfectly crispy for an entire day), sliced bananas, and pastry cream lightened with whipped cream (I definitely know how to make that now)…

And topped with more white chocolate curls.

Bananas and cream (and white chocolate!) – how can you go wrong?

I shared this with my new “colleagues.” We are all in the process of choosing where to be placed for the next two years. I don’t think I’ve ever mulled over a decision this long, this intensely. Well, that’s not true. I always mull over things forever and as if my life depended on it. I just always seem to make the wrong decision... Perhaps this time I should make a decision and then do the opposite. Will that set things right?

Anyway, it’s really nice to know that there are 14 other people in the exact same position as I me (well, maybe not exactly the same; I’d like to think they have better decision making skills). Nothing mitigates turmoil like knowing others are in it with you!

***

The Chuseok holidays were five days long this year, which seems to happen once in a blue moon. I thought about cooking up something special for the exceptionally long holiday. But that requires a lot of prior planning, and I’ve been quite busy of late with the decision-making and all. But then I couldn’t do nothing...

So, I decided to just catch up on my baking! I made a ton of crusts (all sorts), and a lot of puff pastry. Unfortunately, the puff pastry making experience was even worse than last time (butter actually melted off in layers). I am learning that crust-making skills are not transferable to puff pastry making. So crust-making skills, arduously acquired, are really only good for, well, crust-making. Argh! Luckily, the chicken stock I made for the upcoming chicken pot pies came out better :) I’ve had a chicken carcass (from my chicken-deboning phase) in my freezer since March and I finally put it to good use.

Chuseok dinner featured pesto, which I tried making for the first time. I love herbs, I love pesto – it was delicious!

On the down-side, my basil plant looks denuded now. Like really. A few months of basil-growing, gone in a few bites!

And I baked all my crust scraps into cookies. This freed up my freezer a lot!

All in all, I’d say it was a pretty productive break. 

If only I could make a decision about my placement…