Monthly Archives: November 2012

ABCs of Baking: Banana Nut Bread

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banana nut bread

The obvious next step, alphabetically, after apple pie...

Alright, let’s get this out of the way first—YES, I was the one who told you all the bananas are dying. Clearly, I haven’t managed to completely wean myself off of our delectable tropical friends. While I was training for the Race That Never Was, Jason often bought me bananas as a good source of potassium after a run. But somehow, no matter how many he purchased, it always seemed to be one banana too many for me to finish before they turned off-puttingly brown and mushy. I’d heard long ago that when this happens, you’re supposed to peel the banana and stick it in the freezer to use later for banana bread, and I’d adhered to that wisdom. Of course, that solution supposes that you can bake, so I’d always just sort of skipped the last step and had been left with a Ziploc bag of scary permafrost bananas to throw out every time I changed apartments.

frozen banana

Um, not the best way to do this.

But no longer! This time I yanked those babies out of the freezer, along with one that I’d neglected to peel. (I was in a hurry, okay?) After letting them defrost, I managed to free the unpeeled one from its skin. And the defrosted bananas really were easy to use in the recipe.

One baking technique that I have yet to master is trusting that something is cooked all the way through when the recipe says it will be. I think I overdid it on the banana bread a little, and I was worried that it would be dry. But luckily, it seems to be a pretty forgiving baked good, and it tasted quite yummy, especially after it sat overnight. For breakfast, Jason liked slices of it toasted, making it crispy and buttery on the outside, moist and cake-y on the inside. So dive into the freezer and give it a go:

Continue reading →

Red State, Blue State, Red Bread, Blue Bread

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Red, White, & Blue Bread slices

Mmmm...bipartisan and delicious

Nothing makes me as tired and hungry as political punditry, and all of those election maps blazoned across TV and computer screens today reminded of a contest-winning recipe we posted a few months back. If you haven’t yet tried the Red, White & Blue Bread recipe submitted by rising Nashville star Andrew Leahey, well…consider it your civic duty to make up for that oversight now. The carbs will keep you going until the votes have been counted, regardless of whether your political leanings are more the color of sun dried tomatoes or a blob of bleu cheese. Be on the lookout for more bread tomorrow as I forge ahead in my efforts to conquer my baking fears.

Concrete Jungle: Easy-Peasy Seed Saving for Next Year

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I’ve been meaning to save my own tomato seeds for years.  It always felt like one of those things that was not merely a good idea but a full-on AWESOME, supremely Jay kind of thing to do.  But, probably for curious reasons that are worth me pondering further in solitude, I never found the time to learn do it.  It was proving to be a bit like learning to bend notes on the harmonica.

Except that bending notes on the harmonica is really tough, and saving your tomato seeds is shockingly easy.

All you do is…

  1. scoop seeds out of your tomatoes and cover them in a cup with maybe an inch of water,
  2. cover the opening of the cup with a paper napkin or towel to let them breath,
  3. remind yourself over the coming days that the mold soon growing across the water and your seed goop is perfectly normal,
  4. remove the seeds after a week or all of the seeds have sunk to the bottom of the glass on their own,
  5. wash them clean in running water,
  6. dry them on the counter, turning to make sure all sides dry,
  7. and pop them in the freezer wrapped safe in an envelope, stored for planting next Spring.

Like most vegetable (i.e. – fruit) seeds, tomato seeds are covered in a protective waxy coating.  In the wild (and this is all my personal deduction), this coat ensures they survive until they’re safely nestled in the ground.  Then the weather and soil wear the coating away so the seeds can sprout into new plants. Continue reading →

Gourmet Gator Juice

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tall glass o' gator juiceMarathon training, at long last, is tapering to an end, and despite my quest to find the ideal running food, the mere idea of packaged bars and goos and gummy things has seriously begun to turn my stomach. The one power product that I still looked forward to after a long run was Gatorade, but then one morning not so long ago, I watched someone drinking a bottle of it and thought, “No one should be drinking anything that is that shade of anti-freeze blue.” Suddenly, the fictitious flavors like “Rain Berry” and “Glacier Freeze” in the refrigerator case of my corner bodega seemed ominous rather than refreshing.

And then we went to The Grocery in Carroll Gardens. The Grocery is one of those restaurants that we don’t usually talk about on this blog, not because it is not delicious, but because it’s the kind of upscale grub that is already championed by publications like the New York Times, publications that have actual restaurant critics with actual expense accounts.

Anyway, we were treating ourselves to dinner in their lovely garden, and one of the co-owners, Charles Kiely, brought us a little scoop of hibiscus sorbet to finish our meal. When we raved about the yummy, tangy flavor, he told us that he developed it when he began to have qualms about what was really in Gatorade. “So I made hibiscus tea and put a bunch of salts and sugars in it,” he said. “We drink it all summer.”

That seemed like too good of an idea not to try it myself. Continue reading →