Cakey Comfort

Rainy days drive me to the kitchen for comfort foods. Comfort comes in the form of carbohydrates for me, apparently. A few days ago, I had some fresh cranberries (adore them) that needed to be used so I slipped them into a modified KAF coffee cake recipe. The original recipe called for dried cranberries and almond slivers. I like almonds, but seldom by them slivered. I do however keep a quantity of almond flour in the freezer at all times. I find it is a good way to slip in a depth of flavor AND protein to just about any quick bread, muffin, scone or pastry. The coffee cake was good, so good that Maiya managed to eat around said-offending, but brightly staining cranberries so she could enjoy the cake.

Today, the bananas demanded attention. Mike likes bananas, but only before any brown appears, so I am often making banana dishes with the overripe ones. I once again decided to go with KAF's recipe with some variations. I've used many other recipes, but I think this might be one of the best. This cookbook may be one of the ones making the trip next year with us.

KAF's Banana Bread with Modifications

*First, I doubled the recipe because I had 6 overripe bananas. Banana bread freezes well and keeps in the fridge so consider a straight doubling of below.

2 large eggs

3/4 c sugar

1/3 c vegetable oil

1 c mashed banana

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 to 1 tsp nutmeg (take the time to fresh grate/pound--so much better!)

1 2/3 c unbleached, all purpose flour

1 c whole wheat flour

1 c yogurt, buttermilk or sour cream (I used Stonyfield Low Fat vanilla tonight)

optional: 1/2 c chocolate chips and/or 1 c chopped walnuts (I have kids, so in went the chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In medium sized bowl, beat together eggs, sugar and oil. Blend in the mashed bananas and vanilla.

Whisk together the all the dry ingredients from baking soda to wheat flour, then sift to incorporate well. I don't sift much, but I do here as you don't want to mix the batter too much (it gets stiff and then creates a drier texture) so you want those leaveners well incorporated. My shortcut is to put everything in my big sifter and sifter through and then mix a little.

Add the flour mixture all at once to the banana mixture. Stir in quickly but thoroughly. Now, stir in the yogurt until just combined. Finally, stir in quickly the chips and/or walnuts.

Pour batter into a greased (spray it well) 9 x 5 loaf pan. Bake for about 1 hour, until knife/cake tester comes out clean from center. You can tent it with foil after 40-45 mins if it begins to brown to much. I like my bread a bit brown.

Place on rack and cool for a bit, then turn out of pans and cool more. It is a very moist bread and slicing warm can be challenging, but warm banana bread is worth the effort.

*Photos by our oldest. The first is from the Smithsonian exhibit on First Ladies. Mrs. Coolridge had a pet raccoon which the young photographer thought was worthy of a picture.

Back home

Yesterday, our CSA provided us with two green tomatoes. I couldn't help myself, even if I seldom fry anything now in an attempt at healthy eating. I sliced them about 3/8 inch thick. I felt they needed a little more liquid before breading so I sprinkled some white wine vinegar over the slices and then dredged them in a mixture of white flour, white cornmeal, salt and pepper. I then pan fried them in my cast iron skillet a few minutes on each side.

The taste: crunchy light fry outside with warm tomatoey inside. I sprinkled the slices with a bit more sea salt before eating. One daughter declared it so-so after one bite. The other daughter (the "may no veggies except edamane willingly pass these lips" one) managed one bite without too much gagging and a quick grab of the juice cup. But, Mike and I didn't care--we ate the rest.

Now, various recipes suggest buttermilk or even egg as a wash before coating. I suspect you would get a thicker coating with these approaches, but I think the thin coating works out just fine and you don't have to use as much oil. I've seen some recipes that dress up the fried green tomatoes with remoulade sauce, marinara or a parmesan/cheese approach. I do think a sauce could be nice, although tomato on tomato might be too much. Next time I might try a thin basil pesto sauce. Sorry, no pictures of the tomatoes today.

Gasp...

I know: an update! The last 6 weeks have found us a bit lost at sea, but we found floats, re-built our raft and are journeying again.

Halloween is an interesting holiday, isn't it? For those with a Christian faith, particularly the Protestant flavor, we find it a bit uncomfortable. Day of the Dead? All Saints' Day? Yet, shouldn't we think about the spiritual side of life and teach our children, albeit through a sugar-laden venue, something about this richness that goes beyond the physical?

Suffice to say, we've jumped into Halloween with the kids. MeiLin is in her girl mystery / spy stage and dressed as Nancy Drew. Quite clever and original. Maiya, ever the fairy/princess/all that is romantic, dressed as a gypsy. Mike and I decided to go retro (as we were co-hosting a 70s/80s party) and the consensus was we were Mike and Carol Brady. I don't have a really good picture of the my pants: velour orange bell bottoms, but I found them quite comfortable and swishy. I wonder if I can work those into my everyday wardrobe.

Realizations

• I need a new lens and an external flash to take great food pictures.
• I probably don't need to cook as much food as I do.
• I seem obsessed with cooking, eating, food.
• I have finally started running again, only to be cruelly punished by the running gods with a Jacob's hip after only the second day back.
• I have only two weeks until I will be living in a bathing suit for a week.
• What am I thinking making chocolate chunk bread two weeks before such an activity?
• Although, peach pie sounds nice for later this week...and I can always gimply run to offset.
• Sigh... more time on homework and reading and less on food would be wise.
  

Can't cook?

My sister-in-law often sends me news clippings. The latest story explained the recent boom in simplified cookbooks as well as cooking schools and new here-are-the-basics cooking shows. Apparently, we have a whole generation from the 1970s on that can't cook. This generation is now grappling with tightened pocketbooks and wants to use the farmer's market product to actually make a meal.

Now, I hadn't actually realized we had a culinary knowledge generational gap. Yes, I had heard about the loss of many home cooked meals, the ever-growing reliance on boxed mixes as cooking and the rise of fast food/take out/take and bake/take and eat. I do have a microwave and think it makes excellent popcorn and bacon with minimal fuss.

But, I had no idea that my friends couldn't cook. Actually, my friends can cook--at least I think they can. I may be selective, only pairing up with people who can cook or they may be particularly adept at buying pre-made and swapping containers. Hmmm, I've only actually cooked with a few of them.

My youngest and I spent a cool and drizzly day at the zoo. After reading the article and trekking the hills of the zoo with several kindergartners in tow, I decided tonight's meal must be a basic soup, one of those soups everyone should know how to make, but maybe they don't.

Bacon Corn Potato Chowder

Adapted from Barbara Kafka's lovely book Soup and my mother's 1970s Velveeta Cheese Bacon soup (w/o the Velveeta now)

1 1/2 lb of baking potatoes, peeled and 1/2" cubed

1 medium onion, chopped fine

1 1/2 cups water

Corn cut from 4 ears of corn

1 celery stalk, chopped fine

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup shredded Fontina or Gruyere cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Roasted peppers (I had broiled some pepper from our CSA - a mix of sweet peppers - I love the colors)

Hot sauce to taste

1. Place the potato and onion in a medium saucepan and add water. Bring to boil and then simmer, covered, 10 minutes.

2. Add in corn, celery, milk and cheese. Stir and bring almost to a boil. Partially cover and simmer for another 10 minutes.

3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

4. Serve with roasted peppers on top and hot sauce to taste for the adults. We had pitas, sprayed first with an olive oil spray before a short time under the broiler to make them crispy, as a side.

Just 5 More Miles

Kids love to do things, particularly things they think they shouldn't be able to do. This is a secret we parents must remember. Make the activity seem hard, too old, too much, just too and your child might surprise you.
This Labor Day weekend, we decided to take the new Fizzy Lizzy tandem for a better test ride, a two-day trip, out on the C&O canal trail to Leesburg, VA and back on the WO&D.

The result: 86 miles total, half on the lovely, shady and bumpy canal trail with a ferry ride across the Potomac and then half on the faster, more crowded paved trail. The girls switched back and forth between Fizzy Lizzy where they needed to pedal (or try to) and the Behemoth Screamer where they rested their feet up and were in danger of falling asleep!



We saw turtles, butterflies, a stray cat, a crane, a snake and all kinds of people and found a rockin' Carolina BBQ place right off the WO&D trail (just close enough for a Saturday out-and-back trip in the future, hmmm).

Oh, and if you really want them to keep going that 5 more miles, have a swimming pool waiting at the hotel or a Vitamin Water in the offering.

Rushed but Blessed Bread

I make bread. I have for 10 years now, maybe more. Every week, sometimes more than once a week, I feed a starter or levain by mixing in warm water and flour. The mixture bubbles and grows, sometimes to the top of the container and over onto the counter (if I have rushed and not dumped it into a bigger bowl even though I know it needs the space). If you are seeking a fake concrete, flour and water dried to an almost impossible hardness is your answer.

After feeding the starter twice, I separate a cup or so back into a Tupperware that then hunches down in the back of the refrigerator until I remember to feed it again. The remainder starter I use for bread, rolls, pizza dough, even on occasion waffles or cake.

Two days ago, I began this ritual again with one difference: my long-awaited, can't-even-believe-it-even-thought-it-is-sitting-on-my-counter Cuisinart food processor is here waiting to be used for the first time.

Now, given my past professional life and bibliophile nature, I really should be expected to read the operating manual prior to using the processor. I had glanced through it, but was more interested in the recipe section than the details on order of assembly, locking mechanisms and such. You can see where this is going, can't you?

I was rushed (ha! like that is a surprise), trying to help the girls with homework before the babysitter came, needed to take a shower and dress for the dinner. Yet, I really wanted to use my starter and get some bread dough made AND I really really wanted to use my new gleaming super-clean-never-will-be-that-clean again processor. I'll save you the floury details and simply state that I did every single step wrong the first time and had to redo. All this in a rush. My husband's comment later: "You were in a rush and you tried to use the new processor?"


To top it off, I of course had no time to actually bake the bread loaves, asking the babysitter to put them in the oven, push the timer button and take them out (like I ever use the timer?).
In the end, the bread didn't rise as much as it could have if I hadn't rushed it. Its squatty shape and tight crumb tell all. And, yet this morning we had fresh bread for breakfast.



Rushed (or Not) Bread via Cuisinart
Adapted from the Cuisinart recipe book

4 c white flour
2 c wheat flour
1 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
4-6 Tbsp butter, cut into little cubes
2 c of starter mixed with 1 cup warm water (or 2 1/2 tsp yeast with 1 tsp sugar and 1/2 c warm water proofed for 10 mins and then 1 c of cool water added)

1. With the large (11 cup!!) bowl of the food processor and the dough blade (note to self: put the dough blade in before the ingredients), process the flours, salt, salt and butter on the dough setting for 15 seconds. (Isn't this amazing--15 seconds!)
2. With the processor running on dough speed, slowly pour in the starter/water or yeast/water mixture until the dough forms and pulls from the sides of the bowl. Process for 45 to 60 seconds longer.
3. Pull out your amazing dough--I really can't imagine this. I actually think you should knead it a bit by hand to continue to work the gluten or process a bit longer. As I rushed my poor loaves, I can't say for sure what caused them to be a bit short. I'll experiment and get back to you.
4. If you used proofed starter, shape two loaves and place in greased loaf pans to rise for 1-2 hours or until almost at top of pan. If you used yeast, place the dough in an oiled bowl, let it rise 1-2 hours until doubled, punch down, shape into loaves and let rise another hour before baking.
5. Bake at 400 F for approximately 30 minutes or until light golden brown on top. Turn out of pans. Bake for another 5 minutes, then cool on rack or just slice open and enjoy with lots of butter and perhaps some local honey.

**The cat is not rushed and found sunbeams today.