Sep 19 2010

Foo’s Banana Bread

I spent this weekend laying low due to several days of migraines. It’s been months and months since I’ve had one. No fun at all. Thankfully I have medication that works, it just leave me in a zombie like state.

I spent yesterday looking through cookbooks while Dan worked on his car in the garage. I contemplated doing many things. I settled on reading and baking. I kept staring at the 5 organic bananas that had turned from a lovely shade of yellow to speckled brown/almost black. I have been buying small organic bananas to throw into smoothies for after my longer treadmill sessions. Anything over 6 miles gets a smoothie. I’ve been sticking around 5 miles for most of the week and actually took 2 days off due to the headaches. I didn’t want the bananas to go to waste, so I decided to make banana bread. I had a recipe from Dan’s Dad, one from his Grandmother and a scribbled one that I’d had in my recipe box for years. I combined ingredients from all three to create my own pretty easy recipe.

The Ingredients:

2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Cup Butter
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
2 Eggs – beaten
2 Cups Mashed Ripe Bananas – This used all 5 small bananas
1/3 Cup Apple Sauce – I used sweetened because it’s all we had – not pictured, was a last minute decision
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/8 Teaspoon Cinnamon
3 Grinder Twists of Fresh Nutmeg – probably close to 1/8 Teaspoon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt.

In a seperate bowl, mix the brown sugar and butter together until creamy. I microwaved my butter a little and then used a fork to hand mix.

Once mixed, stir in eggs, mashed bananas and applesauce.

The bananas looked pretty good for being so dark and ugly on the outside. I used a fork to mash them.

Make sure you get everything blended (by hand). Then add the vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg and stir again.

It’s important to not overwork the batter. Just make sure everything is moist and that there are no clumps of flour.

Pour batter into loaf pan. I sprayed my pan – didn’t have any shortening to grease it. All 3 recipes called for greasing the pan. Bake in oven for 65-70 minutes. Mine took the full 75 minutes. I tested it 3 times with a toothpick. Once the toothpick came out clean, I removed the pan and placed it on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.

Then I flipped the loaf pan over and it fell right out.

That never happens…

The house smelled amazing. I buttered up a piece and OMG, it was incredible. It had the perfect crusty outside and the inside was super moist. I was worried that I’d be able to taste the applesauce, but it was straight banana goodness.

A perfect lazy Saturday snack. Dan came into the kitchen after putting his new engine back into the car and was covered in car grease and grime.

I asked him to pose for a photo as a joke, but then he actually grabbed a piece with his filthy hands… hah! hah!

Sidenote: Dan and I got the subscription service working on the blog. The link to subscribe is in the right navigation bar at the bottom.

Off to enjoy my Sunday, hope you are all having a nice one.

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=1513

Sep 17 2010

Oatmeal Cranberry White Choc. Chip Cookies

I kept seeing the same Ocean Spray Craisins cookie recipe in their magazine ads.  I would flip through my food magazines and the giant cookies would stop me from page turning. I think it’s hysterical that the cookies in the ad are so huge. When you look at the instructions it says to drop dough by “rounded teaspoons” – Those are small cookies. I’m a “rounded tablespoon” cookie girl. When a recipe says it makes 2.5 dozen, I’m lucky to get 1.5 dozen.

The Ingredients:

2/3 Cup Butter or Margarine, softened – I used Trader Joe’s organic butter
2/3 Cup Brown Sugar
2 Large Eggs
1.5 Cups Old-Fashioned Oats – I used Quaker
1.5 Cups Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Six Ounce Package Ocean Spray Craisins  –  I used Trader Joe’s dried cranberries – hah! hah! – thanks for the idea and recipe Ocean Spray.
2/3 Cup White Chocolate Chunks or Chips – I could only find chips at the Nugget market

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together in a medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy.

It took a while for mine to get light and fluffy.

My mixer is a handheld POS – looking forward to getting my grandma’s old school KitchenAid stand up mixer out of storage – where it’s been since we closed out her estate. My kitchen and dough will be so happy for it to join us.

Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt in a separate mixing bowl.

Add butter mixture in several batches – mixing well after each addition. Once I got the batter all mixed, I divided it into two bowls. Dan is not a fan of white chocolate.

I put Ghirardelli Chocolate Chips in one of the batches for him. The other batch had the white chocolate chips.

I got my tablespoon sized cookie balls onto my ungreased cookie sheets and into the oven. I baked them for about 12 minutes.

They didn’t flatten out as much as I thought they would. The magazine photo showed Frisbee sized cookies 😉 and I thought mine would look as perfect, LOL. It would be so fun to be a food stylist – love watching those competitions on the Food Network’s Food Challenge.

Cookies for Santa… (You’ve got 98 days until Christmas)

Cookies for Dan…

At first I thought they were a bit too cake like – but after they cooled down, they got more chewy. I was really pleased with the combination, but then again, I’m a white chocolate fan in small amounts. Dan grabbed one off the cooling rack before he even knew what they were for. I gasped in horror and then pretended that they were for some imaginary bake sale. He just started laughing and then grabbed another.

I’m still a fan of regular old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies, but these definitely hit the spot.

What’s your favorite kind of cookie?

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=1483

Sep 15 2010

Cheesesteak Kebabs

Sorry for the delay in posts. We’ve been working hard to get the blog moved over from the “free wordpress” site. I purchased the Foodiddy.com domain back in May when I first started the food blog. It was time to put it into action. Not the easiest thing to do… lots of ughs! Thankfully Dan is uber smart and he figured it out – before I started throwing cookbooks and spatulas, hah!

Now onto the recipe and food…

I sure did get my use out of my September Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine. Cheesesteak Kebabs was the third recipe I’ve made from the issue. I knew it would be a hit with Dan and it looked easy enough for a mid week prep. It was listed under “Dinner for 10 Bucks (or Less) – nice!

The Ingredients:

4 Tablespoons Butter – melted
2 Tablespoons Flour
1 Cup Milk
1 Cup Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Salt and Pepper – to taste
1/2 Pound Sirloin Steak – cut into 8 strips – didn’t quite follow that instruction – I used top sirloin fillets
1 Green Bell Pepper  – cut into 16 pieces – I used multi-color mini peppers, because I already had them
2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil – I used Olive Oil
6 oz. Crusty Bread cut into cubes – I used Trader Joe’s Sourdough Baguette

Preheat grill or pan to medium high and then get the cheese sauce going.

In a medium saucepan, heat half of the butter over medium-high heat. Whisk in the flour and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes.

Lower the heat to medium and slowly whisk in the milk until the mixture thickens and starts to boil.

Then stir in the shredded sharp cheddar until smooth – season with salt and pepper and then cover on very low heat to keep warm.

I seasoned the meat and then chopped it into strips and threaded the pieces onto the wood skewers. If using a BBQ grill – soak the wood skewers in water before placing the meat, veggies and bread on them.

I then prepped my peppers…

…and got them onto skewers as well.

I brushed the steak and peppers with olive oil.

I also seasoned with more salt and pepper before grilling.

I got my bread cut up and I brushed the remaining melted butter onto the pieces before grilling.

Arrange the peppers and bread on the grill or grill pan and cook, turning, until charred on all sides – 5-7 minutes.

Then arrange the steak on the grill and cook, turning once, for about 3 minutes for medium rare. Mine took a little longer since my pieces were thicker than pictured in the magazine.  Serve the kebabs with the cheese dipping sauce.

I took a photo of the platter that housed all portions – but I broke them out onto individual plates for the two of us.

Definitely a “hit” with both Dan and I. We both went back for seconds. The cheese was perfect for dipping…

Super tasty finger food. The only think I would do different the next time around, is to actually cube my bread instead of just cutting baguette slices in half and I would also slice my meat thinner for a more “cheesesteak” consistency.

I have one more recipe from the magazine to try before moving onto my October issue. I also just got my first Food and Wine Magazine – a subscription that I got as a birthday gift. Super excited about that.

Hopefully you found your way over to the new blog digs – if so, please leave me a comment to let me know that you made the switch. Thanks so much for your continued support, I really appreciate each of you so much.

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=1462