ABCs of Baking: Banana Nut Bread

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Shannon

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.

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

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Shannon

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.

Gourmet Gator Juice

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Shannon

Marathon 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 →

Pump up the Jam: Cranberry Orange

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Shannon

As favors for our wedding last year, Jason and I decided to make a bunch of different homemade jams and give each guest a jar. Why this occurred to me, when I had little to no experience making jam, I have no idea. But aside from some bad pre-wedding dreams of giving botulism to everyone I loved on the same day, the plan went miraculously well.

So when I realized a couple weeks ago that I didn’t know how to bake, I resolved to make some jam for the Havemeyer Sugar Sweets Festival rather than botching a pie or cake. Jam, to me, is easier to deal with than baked goods because you can taste it and make adjustments before you’re done. Plus, the process of sealing the cans is a little like a mad science experiment. I am always inordinately pleased by that little sucking sound that the lids make when a vacuum forms inside the cooling jars.

For those of you who find the idea of preserving something intimidating, here are the basics: you put some sweet or sour stuff in a jar, you wipe off the rim and screw one of those two-piece canning lids on it, you put the whole thing in boiling water for a while, and then it pretty much takes care of itself. (Okay, there are a few more details you should probably mind, but not many. If you find yourself having botulism nightmares, check out Putting Food By by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg and Beatrice Vaughan as a good resource book.)

Anyway, the fun part is making the jam itself, and for the festival, I went with an autumn theme: apple pie jam and cranberry orange jam. Here’s the recipe for the cranberry variety, which has a yummy sweet-tart thing going and a beautiful ruby hue: Continue reading →

Baking 101: As Easy As…

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Shannon

Proof that I baked a pie! And that it bubbled over.

I can cook, at least at a level at which I can be reasonably confident of eating and enjoying the result, but I can’t boast the same self-assuredness about baking. A friend and co-worker recently asked me to bake something for the Havemeyer Sugar Sweet Festival (more about this awesome upcoming fundraiser in future posts) and blanching, I realized that, food blogger or no, I don’t know how to bake a damn thing.*

So this fall and winter, I’m going to try to teach myself to bake, and you will have the pleasure of watching all my mistakes. I considered doing a “Julie and Julia” sort of thing in which I try to go through all of the recipes in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that my mom gave me when I moved out of the house more than a decade ago, but there are like four or five whole sections in there filled with just baked goods, and really, who has the time? At any rate, I figured that whether I was seeking the alphabetical or philosophical beginning of any dessert list, apple pie would appear near the top. Besides, we had a lot of apples in the fridge.

I came home with the ingredients for a Dutch apple pie and felt sort of ashamedly intimidated and decided to nap for a little while. Finally, though, screwing up my courage, I embarked on a crust. I had forgotten to buy shortening (doh!), so I used butter, and I also don’t have a pastry cutter, so I used a fork. Let’s just say that this was not ideal, and it was not the most beautiful piecrust in the history of piecrusts. But from there, the process got easier, maybe because I decided to start drinking beer while I peeled the apples. By the time the whole thing was assembled, it looked, if not impressively perfect, at least substantial. I had also made a colossal mess and used up a ridiculous amount of time. Apple pie, unlike Rome, can be built in a day, but if I’m the one constructing it, there better not be too much else going on. Continue reading →

Lasagna Roll-ups…Olé!

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Shannon

In the dog days of summer, most people are loath to turn on their ovens, but I always think of it as lasagna weather. My sibling’s birthdays in July and August were occasions upon which they were allowed to control the culinary fate of the rest of the household. Ryan birthday comes first and, sensibly enough, he always decreed that my mother should make Lasagna Roll-Ups. Dawn, forced into making a choice a mere fourteen days later and feeling pressure to change it up, usually went with Chi-Chi’s Mexican Restaurant. (Despite her yearly pleading with my father not to reveal to the singing waiters at Chi-Chi’s why we were there, we have many photos of my sister as a sullen teenager with a sombrero crammed on her head, scowling at a softball-sized serving of fried ice cream with a candle stuck in it.)

I have nothing against Chi-Chi’s but I always felt like my sister got a raw deal, being robbed annually of those lasagna rolls. This recipe has ruined me for any other variety of lasagna. When I first tasted the layered version, it seemed like a slapdash disaster compared to the firm cheesy bundles that my mother would pull sizzling from the oven. Below, I’ll post my Great-Aunt Mary’s original recipe as well as a video showing how you can tweak it to your own tastes.

And here’s the original recipe. Continue reading →

Independence Food Contest Victor!

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Andrew

It was PitchKnives’ 4th of July challenge, but that was nothing new to me.

Two summers ago, my wife and I threw a 4th of July party and asked everyone to bring some food to share. Most people brought the usual stuff — pasta salad, guacamole, beer — but one friend arrived with a loaf of homemade “Red, White, and Blue” bread, which looked as though it had just been lifted from the display window of a European bakery. It was delicious, filled with chopped sundried tomatoes and topped with slabs of

Zingerman’s blue cheese.

I assumed she’d spent hours in her kitchen, kneading the thing herself, put she told me confidentially that she’d only put a half an hour of work into the process. The secret? Jim Lahey’s “My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method,” a cookbook that allows you to bypass the difficult parts of the bread-making process. All you need is time (for the bread to complete its slow rise) and a cast iron pot.

To be specific, you’ll also need the following:

3 cups unbleached bread flour

1 and 3/4th cup water

3/4th cup teaspoon active dry yeast (Fleischmann’s is a good brand)

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cup chopped sundried tomatoes (you can use olives, too, in which case you’ll probably want to omit the salt)