After reading an article about the thirty-seven ingredients that make up a Twinkie I was reminded of how positive food allergies can be. By the time gluten, dairy and corn are ruled out of the ingredient list most packaged products don't make the 'safe-edible' list. Pardon the photo, I"ll update it soon. This recipe is a sure-fire packaged cake rescue. Again, don't tell anyone what these don't have, and all they'll taste is the "YUM!"
This weekend treat yourself to an indulgent treat, French Toast made with banana bread or a sandwich made with banana bread, peanut butter, honey and sliced bananas. As a bonus the house will smell divine for hours beyond the bake time.
Banana Bread
Adapted from Fannie Farmer Baking Book by Marion Cunningham
Two 8x4 loaves
2 ½ c flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 c shortening
2 c sugar (brown will make this bread very dark, moist & even sweeter)
6 ripe bananas (over ripe even better)
4 eggs
1 c walnuts (optional – omit for Jenna!)
Preheat oven to 350
Put bananas, shortening, eggs, and sugar in food processor. Blend until smooth.
Add flour, salt, baking soda and walnuts. Blend until smooth.
Divide between two pans lined with parchment paper.
Bake for 70 minutes or more until toothpick comes out clean. Loaves will be a dark brown. Impatient?Use small loaf pans and make more loaves - shorter baking times, closer to instant gratification.
Cool in pan for 5 minutes then place parchment lined loaves on cooling rack.
Excellent to make banana bread French toast with or banana bread pudding. In Texas I saw sandwiches made with peanut butter & honey. Bacon slices optional.
French Toast
Dip slices in egg batter, cook on teflon grill, enjoy with or without maple syrup.
Banana bread pudding will happen closer to Yule.
In the 80s and 90s a favorite gathering spot was the Gemini. An alternative restaurant known for a spiced house tea and daring food options like a curried chicken salad with strawberries. That is, daring for a suburb west of Denver. The house iced tea was easy to drink by the glassful, tucked into a big booth, chatting with girlfriends or doing tarot readings for each other. Wired on caffeine from gallons of house tea, we'd split a Blondie brownie. Each serving decadent, warm, and surely full of butter, chocolate chips, nuts, plus the sweet surprise of chopped dates.
The restaurant is long gone, but the craving for a Blondie happens fairly often. Blondies are a brownie's paler sibling; a bar cookie grown up to be a chocolate chip cookie's bigger, sturdier brother. This winter it was time to recreate this favored treat. Redolent with warm brown sugar, vanilla, and gooey bittersweet chocolate chips these bar cookies are an aroma therapy category all their own. Mixing up in the time it takes the oven to preheat, it is pure bliss to sit in the kitchen with a cup of tea, basking in the scent of them baking. If I'm really lucky the scent lingers in the house, rich and smooth.
One pan makes nine servings that are half-size from what the huge slabs Gemini used to serve. Lately, I've taken to quartering each serving so the pan yields 36 Blondies. What I don't eat or give away the day I bake them get frozen. Popped from freezer to the microwave for 30 seconds they instantly resurrect to gooey decadence.
No stand mixer? No problem! As long as the sugar and palm shortening are thoroughly mixed the rest of the recipe calls for minimal mixing.
3 oz or ½ cup shortening
4 oz or ½ c + 2 tbsp light brown sugar
4 oz or ½ c + 2 tsp cane sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
4 oz or 1 cup gluten free flour mix (I use Pamela's)
1 ½ tsp baking powder (corn & gluten free I use Hain)
½ tsp sea salt
2 oz or ½ cup crushed walnuts
2 oz or ½ cup chopped dates
2 ½ oz or ½ cup bitter sweet chocolate chips
Preheat convection oven to 325 (350 if not convection)
Line 9x9 baking pan with parchment paper.
Mix shortening, sugars, and vanilla in stand mixer on medium, occasionally scraping down the bowl, until well creamed, verging on fluffy.
Scrape down the bowl.
Add in eggs, beating on medium-high for 2 minutes. Scraping down the bowl.
In separate bowl whisk together flour mix, baking powder, and sea salt until well incorporated.
Add gluten free flour mix to the bowl, mix on low until just blended.
Detach paddle to hand stir in nuts, dates and chocolate chips until just blended.
Spatula into parchment lined pan, pushing stiff dough into corners.
Garnish with additional nuts, chocolate chips and dates.
Bake for 30 minutes, rotating half way through baking time. May take longer to bake at higher altitudes.
Cool for about 5-10 minutes then devour at will.
My neighbors are wonderful people. Besides being cool, fun, and nice, this week they've shared their harvest bounty with me: fresh herbs and zucchini! I know, I'm the only person who is thrilled to get zucchini. It is just so versatile. Cakes, bread, soup, stir-fry, and now risotto. Fresh herbs too. My growing space only has an sheltered Eastern exposure where herbs languish, so gifts of herbs and veggies are most welcome.
While standing over a warm stove top for an hour stirring isn't necessarily convenient on a week night after work, risotto makes it well worth the time. With air conditioning and a tall kitchen stool it is much cooler that grilling! Plus if you live at lower altitude the cooking time can go down by a third or more.
Keys to a creamy, lustrous risotto are:
completely coat and warm the risotto in the oil and onions
then deglaze with the white wine
only add a cup of broth at a time and it must be hot, almost boiling when you add it, keeping the temperature in the pot steady.
Stir, stir, stir
If you are fortunate to have kitchen minions aka kids, they can help stir in shifts, between getting home work done. It isn't unusual when I have girl friends over to enjoy a glass of Crios Torrontes, take turns stirring while catching up. For me it is soothing to be in the moment (or hour) sipping a glass and contemplating what else to make with my neighbor's bounty.
Zucchini Risotto with Lemon Thyme
2-3 tbsp olive oil
½ onion, finely chopped
2 small cloves of garlic, minced
1 c arborio rice (I prefer Lundberg organic)
1 c chilled white wine
6 c hot fluid – either veggie broth, chicken broth or water, your choice
8 oz chopped zucchini
small bunch lemon thyme I used the leaves of six to eight 6” stems
white pepper to taste (Penzey's is my preferred)
sea salt to taste
Warm a 7 quart dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add the chopped onion and saute until the onions are translucent.
Add the garlic, saute for a couple minutes to release the flavor.
Add the arborio rice to the the pot, stirring well to completely coat with the olive oil. While the rice starts to toast, put two cups of the broth in the microwave and heat to the boiling point.
After the rice has toasted for a couple minutes – so the pan is fairly dry and the rice isn't sticking or getting scorch spots – add the cup of white wine to deglaze the pan. This will also help the thick starch coat on the rice break down faster.
Once the wine has absorbed, add in the first two cups of heated broth/liquid. Stir the pot slowly and continuously until the rice absorbs the most of the fluid, about 15-20 minutes.
While stirring, heat the rest of the broth one cup at a time.
Each time the liquid is mostly absorbed, add another cup of the just boiling broth, until all six cups of fluid are incorporated into the pot.
With the sixth cup of broth, add the chopped zucchini to the pot. Continue stirring.
Drain and rinse the beans. Add them to the pot, stir another five minutes to warm the beans.
Ladle into bowls, sprinkling each serving with lemon thyme leaves.
Salt and pepper to taste.
