Wow, it’s been a while. Have some banana bread

I hadn’t realized that it’s been almost a month since I posted last.  It’s all grading all the time here so there really hasn’t been much of interest to post. The semester’s over next week so hopefully things will pick up around here then.

In the meantime, have an adaptation of my standard banana bread recipe.

Really Good Banana Bread II

1/4 c. margarine, softened
1/3 c, sour cream
1/2 c. white sugar
1/4 c. light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 c. dark brown sugar, lightly packed
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. Penzey’s Baking Spice*
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. mashed banana
1/3 c. vanilla yogurt

Cream the butter, sour cream and sugars together. Add in the eggs and vanilla, mixing well. Add in the dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in the bananas and yogurt. Pour into loaf pan and bake at 350 for 50 minutes – 1 hour.

* Or you can use Penzey’s Cake Spice or  1/2 tsp. cinnamon with a dash of nutmeg and a dash of allspice

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Carroty Goodness

A friend shared a truly yummy recipe for zucchini bread with me last summer.  The zucchini is long gone but I found myself some extra carrots today and thought – why not?  So I made carrot bread and it turned out to be delicious.  It’s even 5-year-old approved.

Carrot Bread (makes 1 loaf)

1 egg
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. crushed pineapple
1 1/3 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon AND 1/2 tsp. nutmeg (or substitute 1 tsp. Penzy’s Baking Spice if you have it)
1 c. grated carrot

Mix together the egg, sugar and oil. Add the vanilla and pineapple and stir well. Sift the dry ingredients together and add to the wet ingredients. Mix well. Stir in the grated carrot.

Bake for 50 minutes at 350 degrees.

Let cool and serve plain or with butter or with whipped cream cheese.

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Biscotti

I made quite a bit of biscotti over the past month – some for us and some for gifting.  I’ve had a few requests for recipes so I thought I’d post them here.

The chocolate biscotti is from Farmgirl Fare: Easy Chocolate Biscotti.  I made it exactly by her recipe and we had some plain and some iced with white chocolate.  I added peppermint extract to one batch, instant coffee to another and cinnamon to a third.  All were delicious though I didn’t add enough coffee to really taste it well.  I think it would have been better with espresso powder.

The gingerbread biscotti is Barb’s Gingerbread Biscotti which I found as I looked for diabetic-friendly recipes.  The only thing I changed was to add about 2-3 more tablespoons of flour and not refrigerate the dough.

The cinnamon spice biscotti is my favorite.  I adapted it from an almond biscotti recipe substituting pecans and changing the flavorings around.

Spice Biscotti

2 eggs
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. Penzey’s Baking Spice OR 1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. finely chopped pecans
1/2 c. cinnamon chips

Mix the eggs, sugar, and vanilla together in medium-sized bowl.  Sift the flour, spice, baking powder and salt together and stir in until well combined.  Add the pecans and chips. The dough should not be too sticky. If it’s still really soft and sticky add another tablespoon or so of flour.

Shape the dough into a log around 4″ wide by 12″ or so long.  I bake this on a pizza stone but if you don’t have a stone you can use a cookie sheet.  If you use a cookie sheet I recommend using parchment paper because you’ll probably want to move it off the sheet to slice it.

Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.

Let cool for around a half hour to an hour.

Using a serrated knife (bread knife) slice the log into around 1/2″ slices.  You should get around 18-20 slices from the log.  Lay the slices flat on the stone or cookie sheet so that one of the cut sides is up.

Bake again at 275 degrees for 20 minutes.

Let cool and drizzle with melted white chocolate or white candy melts.

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The tale of the ginormous sweet potato

Once upon a time there was a ginormous sweet potato.  Here it is with a Diet Coke for scale:

According the receipt from the grocery it weighs 3.87 pounds. An almost. FOUR. POUND. sweet potato.

It was only slightly smaller than ChaosGirl’s head.

After cutting off the ends it barely fit in my 1.5 qt crock pot.

After cooking I ended up with 4 cups of mashed sweet potato (and a cupcake).

What do you do with that much sweet potato?

Why, sweet potato pie of course! 4 cups of sweet potato will make two pies but I gave one away before I remembered to take a picture.

This is a custardy pie made with cream and eggs that has a light taste and a crunchy pecan topping.  Recipe after break…

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Cookie PSA

If you’ve not signed up for the Food Network’s 12 Days of Cookies you’re not too late – they started today. They email you a new cookie recipe every day for 12 days.  Coconut Macaroons, yum!

Happy Baking!

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Things and stuff and muffins

I know content has been kind of light here lately.  It’s not even that there is a lot going on – in fact it’s pretty much the opposite. There’s not really anything going on that’s worth blogging about.  It’s still hot.  ChaosGirl still has a broken arm (though she did get out of the cast and into a splint last week).  I’m still knitting on the same two socks (though I did finish one last night but didn’t take pictures).

I’m cooking some. I made some lovely blueberry muffins with some berries from the local farmer’s market last week.

Blueberry Muffins

2 c. Jiffy Baking Mix (or Bisquick or whatever)
3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs, lightly scrambled
1 c. vanilla yogurt
1 c. fresh blueberries
2 Tbs. flour or baking mix
3-4 packets of Sugar in the Raw

Combine the 2 cups of baking mix and the sugar in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the eggs and yogurt. Mix until just combined.

Toss the blueberries in the extra 2 tablespoons of baking mix and fold into the batter.

Spoon into muffin cups and sprinkle the raw sugar over the top.

Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes and check for doneness.  If you made larger muffins they may take up to 30 minutes to cook through.

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Long time No recipe

And this isn’t even a “new” recipe – it’s more of a hot weather hack of an old recipe.

Any of you still have a bread machine hanging round? In an effort not to turn on the oven and add to the heat I’ve started playing with my bread machine for non-yeast breads. It turns out that with only a little adjustment the Yogurt Banana Bread works really well.

Yogurt Banana Bread – Bread Machine Version
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 c. vanilla yogurt
1/3 c. vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 c. mashed bananas

Add dry ingredients to bread pan. Layer wet ingredients over the top except for the bananas. Place ban in bread machine. Turn to Dough setting and let it mix for about 3 minutes. Pause the machine and scape down the sides of the pan and make sure there isn’t any flour still sitting in the bottom of the pan. Let it mix for another minute. Add the bananas and mix for one more minute.

Scrape down the sides of the pan. Turn the machine to the Bake cycle and start it up. It should bake for 1 hour.

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Random Bullets of Cooking

I got sqaut for interesting blog fodder today so you get random bullets of cooking 🙂

I cooked quite a bit over the weekend.

• The Lemon-Garlic Chicken in the crock pot lost all the lemony flavor by the time it was done. I’ll try it again someday on the grill.
• The Cheesecake Brownies had some crust “issues” – basically the brownie layer under the cheesecake layer cooked too long. I’ll try them again cooking for a shorter time.
• I made really yummy pancakes.
  • Take your standard box of buttermilk pancake mix and mix it up according to the box directions for the “10-12 pancakes” amount. Add 1 mashed banana (bordering on over-ripe), 1/2 c. mashed strawberries (also bordering on over-ripe), 1 tsp. vanilla, and 1 Tbs sugar. Cook according to box directions. Yummy with or without syrup.
• I also made really good and easy dinner which turned into yummy pasta salad.
  • Marinade boneless, skinless chicken thighs in Italian dressing and grill
  • Sauté sliced fresh zucchini, fresh asparagus cut into around 2″ lengths, chopped garlic, chopped onion, and sliced mushrooms in olive oil with some salt and black pepper.
  • Cook a bag of Parmesan filled dry tortellini (I used the Trader Joe’s), drain and add 1/2 a can of Hunts Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes and about 1/3 of a bottle of Trader Joe’s Italian dressing.
  • Eat warm and seperately for dinner then dice up any remaining chicken and toss it along with all the other leftovers into a big bowl and stick in the refrigerator for pasta salad.

I did finish the first River Rapids sock but do I have pictures? Nope. I should just wait and show you both of them when I finish the second one. That means I probably ought to start the second one doesn’t it?

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Another Roast Recipe

I made pot roast last night because I found a nice one on sale at the grocery. It went in the crock pot as usual but with some different-than-normal accompaniments. This is based on a recipe that I found in one of those checkout aisle books but I didn’t have some of the ingredients it called for so I substituted and here is what I came up with.

Onion Pot Roast

about a 1.5 lb beef roast (I had a 2.5+ lb roast, trimmed it down to fit in my 4 qt crock pot and cut the extra roast up into stew meat)

2 large sweet yellow onions sliced into rings and the individual rings separated
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-2″ lengths
1 c. low sodium beef broth
1 c dark beer
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 tsp balsamic vinegar

Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste

Place onions in crock pot.

Heat up a skillet or grill pan over medium high heat. Sprinkle roast with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Sear the roast on both sides for less than 1 minute per side.  Place roast on top of onions.

Place carrots around roast.

Mix remaining ingredients together until brown sugar dissolves and pour over roast.

Cook on low for 6-10 hours.

When you are ready to eat, drain off the liquid and place in a sauce pan. Add a slurry of 1 tbs corn starch mixed with a bit of cold water. Stir well and keep stirring as you bring the liquid up to a boil.  Let it boil for just a minute to thicken the gravy then turn the heat off.  The gravy will be slightly sweet from the brown sugar.

Serve with mashed potatoes.

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More comfort food

This is what is in my crock pot right now. Things aren’t going well with my dad.

Crock Pot Comfort Spaghetti

• 1 large can crushed tomatoes
• 2 regular cans Italian style diced tomatoes
• 1 can tomato paste (I use low sodium)
• 1/2 c. beef broth or red wine
• 1 can sliced mushrooms (regular or portabello but not the mushroom sauce stuff) OR 1 package fresh sliced mushrooms cooked down in butter or olive oil (regular or baby bellos)
• 1 package dry Italian salad dressing mix OR 1 tsp each dried Rosemary, Basil, Thyme, and Oregano, and 1 Tbs white sugar
• 1 Bay leaf
• A dash of fresh grated nutmeg
• Salt and pepper to taste

• 1 lb ground pork (if you can find the Italian seasoned kind all the better), browned and drained
• 1 lb ground chuck (or in our case, venison), browned and drained

• 2-3 tbs olive oil
• 1/2 large sweet onion, chopped
• 4-5 large garlic cloves, diced
• 1 rib celery, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 c. finely chopped red, green and yellow peppers (I use the frozen mixed peppers)

• Optional: 1-2 c. shredded cheese (Velveeta if you really want comfort food, otherwise Mozzarella, Mozz/Parmesan mix, Mozz/Parm/Asiago mix, whatever works for you.)

• Cooked spaghetti

Place the tomatoes, tomato paste, mushrooms, broth/wine and seasonings in a 6 quart crock pot.

Brown the meats in a large skillet making sure you don’t have any big chunks. Drain. You could even put the browned meat in a food chopper for a few seconds to make sure the pieces are small. Add to crock pot.

Wipe out your skillet a bit and heat your olive oil. Add the chopped vegetables and sauté over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the onions are clear and the garlic starts to brown a bit. Add to crock pot. Mix well.

Cook on low for 5-6 hours. Stir and taste. If you used dried herbs instead of the Italian dressing mix you may want to add more herbs at this point and/or more salt and pepper and/or more garlic (especially if you have the roasted garlic in the little jar or some of the individually frozen cubes of minced garlic or garlic paste from roasting garlic cloves yourself). I also added about 1-2 tsps of Red Hot at the end to kick it up a bit.
Cook for another couple of hours.

Find and remove the bay leaf.

Stir in the cheese if you want it and give it a few minutes to completely melt. You’re not adding it on top but incorporating it into the sauce. You could probably add 1/2 cup cream instead if you really wanted an even creamier texture but I’ve never done that.

Serve over cooked spaghetti. Preferably with garlic cheese bread and a nice sangria.

Yes, this makes a ton but it will freeze. If you’re planning to freeze it I’d recommend starting with fresh meat as opposed to thawing frozen meat, cooking it, and re-freezing it.

* If you want to fit it into a 4 quart crock pot just use 1 lb of meat total, omit one of the regular sized cans of Italian tomatoes and use less of the seasoning mix.

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