Not cooking, but baking ... Banana Bread

The Boy has been asking for banana bread for a while now and I finally did something about it. The journey to banana bread is a long and windy one. :-)

For starters, bananas are really, really expensive here due to the floods that we had from Cyclone Yasi. The cost of bananas rose to about $15 per kilo. It's back down a bit now but even then, the bananas for the banana bread cost $10.78. To say The Boy was shocked was a surprise.

Then we went away for a month to the US and have been back and forth between The House and The Apartment since.

For those who know me, they will know I do not like baking. All that measuring, all that exactness. Plus, if you've read my other posts, you know I like to improvise and adjust things according to taste. That can't be done with baking. Bah!

Anyhow, being the good little wife that I am (ha ha ha ...) I looked up a recipe for banana bread and made it for the boy.

The first time was a bust because the bananas were not ripe enough. Don't get me wrong, it rose beautifully, smelled wonderful and tasted lovely, but just not banana-ey (is there such a word?) enough. We ate it anyway. It was lovely warmed up with gobs and gobs of butter.

Take two was much better. I had bought the bananas and I carefully nurtured them to the point of extreme mushy ripeness. They were so gross! but very good for baking. :-)

I woke up early this morning and The Boy has gone out for a long walk. I decided to bake and have the banana bread ready for breakfast when he got home from his walk. Ah ... fresh banana bread for breakfast!

Here's the RECIPE I used:

Ingredients:

• 125 grams Butter chopped and soft
• 180 grams Dark Brown Sugar
• 350 grams ripe bananas
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon sugar
• 250 grams plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 3 tablespoon WARM milk

Instructions:

• Prehead oven to 180dC
• Grease a bread tin and line it with baking paper
• Then, cream butter & sugar in a mixer, then scrape down sides
• Add all other ingredients and mix until well mixed
• Pour into bread tin and bake for 55 minutes or until a cake skewer comes out clean

The only thing I have done differently is that I checked the banana bread regularly before the 55 minutes was up - once at 30 minutes, then again at 45 minutes because my oven runs hot. At 30 minutes, it was quite brown on top, but split and gooey down the middle. At 45 minutes, it was almost done, so I left it for a few more minutes.

The Apartment smelled wonderful.

Are you a fan of banana bread or even baking in general? What's your favorite baked good that you can never resist when you see it in a store? Are you one to indulge or do you have tons of self control?

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F-F-F-Friday - again!!! ... and I'm talking kitchen stuff

I find it rather difficult to believe that it is Friday again. The time has just flown. I have had not time! No time at all!!!!!!!

We're still setting up The House, so that's what you're going to be hearing about today.

The kitchen it almost done now. We've got all the dishes put away and there is still an entire cupboard available for storage space, of which I have no idea what I will do with. I don't have plans on getting more stuff for this kitchen aside from a few baking trays, pans and some roasting dishes. That won't take up an entire cupboard.

Today, we went out to Howards Storage World which is just a wonderful place of useful organi-zed-ness. Lots of wonderful organizational gadgets for the OCD neat freak in me.

We got some spice racks for The Kitchen in The Apartment. Hopefully they will fit. They are going onto the inside of the pantry door. I'm pretty excited about that since our first foray into spice racks for the pantry was a bust. There was concrete behind the plasterboard walls in the pantry and so we ended up not being able to put up the spice racks we got from Ikea.

But I digress ... I was talking about what we were doing to the kitchen in The House.

I've got some knife magnets going up under the cabinets to hold my knives since the knife blocks are two slots short. They aren't great knife blocks either, so I think they will end up in reserve for overflow knives. That said, the knifes in the kitchen need upgrading. They are rather awful. Note to self: bring up knife sharpener to The House.

There is also a kitchen paper towel holder which we've acquired. That's going onto a wall under the cupboards as well. It'll free up some real estate on the kitchen counter and look much tidier.

Above the sink, we've got a shelf and some spice racks going in. These were originally purchased from Ikea to go into the pantry in The Apartment which led to said bust above.

All very exciting!!! Now if only The House is tidy enough that the table in the kitchen can be cleared and moved back to it's original position. I did take a picture of the messy table using the camera from the iPad but the wretched iPad itself won't let me post it on the blog. Bah!

Of course, all this said, I'm going CRAZy from the stress, the mess and the bouncing back and forth between The House and The Apartment trying to get it all set up and sorted. I am estimating at least another 3 to 4 day weekend, if not 2 more weekends to have the place looking tidy and livable. Right now, there are boxes everywhere.

Once again, aside from breakfast, there has been no cooking. Sorry folks, I'll be back to recipes and food pretty soon, but I just need to get past this phase of our life first.

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Postus Interruptus

I want to apologize in advance that posting in the coming couple of weeks is likely going to be rather intermittent because we're still in the middle of moving, packing and unpacking and splitting our time between The Apartment and The House. It's rather hectic.

On top of that, there's still not Internet at The House, though I've organized to have it set up. That's going to take a couple of weeks too. Once that's set up though, even when I'm up at The House, posting will have some semblance of regularity.

Very sorry for all this, I'll be back soon.

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Oatmeal ... the breakfast of champions

Okay, so maybe it's not EXACTLY the breakfast of champions but it's a pretty darned good breakfast, in my opinion, anyway.

It's a pretty ordinary breakfast for all intents and purposes. At Perkins, when we were there for breakfast, I remember asking them if they made their oatmeal with milk or water and they said "it's made with water, in the microwave". Not exactly a ringing endorsement. I think they would much rather I order a big breakfast of pancakes, sausage, bacon and eggs. (Psst! The oatmeal is healthier). I mean, on their menu, oatmeal is a side order, it's not even a real menu item

For whatever reason, The Boy decided to buy a box of oatmeal thinking that it was cereal. He thought that he could just put some milk over it and call it breakfast. I suppose he could have done that, but it really would have been rather awful - again, my opinion.

Do remember that oatmeal is a particular favorite of mine, as far as breakfasts go. When we were in the US recently, we had breakfast at Perkins most days and most days I ordered oatmeal. I might have had one breakfast where I ordered the Magnificent Seven and another where I shared one of The Boy's pancakes when he ordered the Tremendous Twelve.

This morning, The Boy happened to be home and he wanted to try the oatmeal (cereal to him) for breakfast. I could not in good conscience just tell him to go ahead and pour milk over the oatmeal flakes and eat it, so I (like the good little wife I am) went ahead and cooked up the oatmeal for him.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Uncle Toby's Oats Multigrain (it has oats, barley, wheat, rye and buckwheat in it)
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries (I used Craisins)
• 1 tablespoon Stevia
• 1 1/2 cups soy milk
• 1/2 cup water
• Cinnamon
• Honey

Instructions:

• I dumped it all in a pan and heated it till it boiled, stirring regularly.
• When it reached the point where it was thick and creamy, I stopped and served it.
• When in the bowl, I topped the oatmeal with 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1 teaspoon of honey.

Note: If the oatmeal is too thick, add either water or milk to water it down.

It turned out delish. The cranberries were a nice touch and added a different texture to the oatmeal. Also, this multigrain oatmeal had some depth to it. It was not all creamy and smooth, but because of some of the grains also added a bit of crunch, which was quite nice.

You can experiment however you like with oatmeal. Add raisins, dried fruit, use different types of milk (I use soy since I am lactose intolerant) and even sprinkle with sugar or drizzle with maple syrup.

It's a warm hearty breakfast, particularly comforting on a cold winter morning. On top of all that, it's very good for you, plenty of fibre and is known to reduce cholesterol.

It's got to be better for you than this:

... and a whole lot less calories too!!!


Tell me, what do you like for breakfast? Are you someone who likes a good hearty start to your day or do you just run out with a cup of caffeine in your system?

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F-F-F-Friday - still not quite home

I'm away again. We are setting up our place in the wine country and have been up here all week.

My apologies for the missing Wednesday post. I don't have Internet up here and I'm relying on my iPad for connectivity. It's super slow and inconsistent as all heck. There is one particular spot in our living room where it's a dead zone. Move the iPad two feet to the right and it works. Funny thing is, it's right in the middle of a three seated sofa we used to have, so The Boy would sit on one side and I would sit on the other and in between, our iPads connect to commune with the Internet. Bah! I need to get an Internet connection set up here. Then we'd have wifi.

This post is really about our life as it is right now. It's a bit hectic. Our trip the the US to visit family was wonderful, but being away for a month has left a lot to catch up on. This week we are in wine country but mostly we're stuck in the house sorting and organizing.

When we bought the house it came with some furniture but it was all rather crappy furniture. Serviceable but when you parked your butt on the sofa and you were too enthusiastic about it, you very well could find yourself traveling across the living kroon floor 'cos the sofa was so light, it would move the instant you put any weight on it, plus is was not very comfortable. That said, it was furniture and we lived with it for a good 5 or 6 years until now.

We've taken our good furniture out of storage and decided to set up the house more permanently. The old furniture has been donated to a charity, who were delighted to receive it, since they were just setting up and furniture store to sell furniture, the proceeds of which would go to fund a shelter for battered women - a very worthy cause.

Being away from home, and more importantly away from my computer means that I don't have access to my photos and all my other blog posts which are cooking and recipe related. This means you are going to have to put up with a post that has nothing to do with cooking at all.

So far, we have been here since Tuesday and we've had one day of the charity coming over to collect furniture, which led to us going to bed at 6:30pm after dinner because we had given away all the furniture, except for the beds. We lay in bed and read, played on Facebook and read some more until we got tired and went to sleep. I think The Boy also played like a gazillion games of Sudoku.

We've had one day of our furniture being delivered, which was totally insane since there was a lot of furniture and about 90 boxes of books that came out of the library. I think we will have a problem there because we have more books than shelves because quite a few of the shelves have been commandeered for other non-book related purposes.

On a very important note, the mirror to my dressing table did not get found and hence was not delivered. This does not make me a happy girl. In fact, I went on record with The Boy to say that I was not happy and rather frustrated. I'm slowly getting over it.

After the delivery of furniture came the unpacking. O-M-G!!! Is there a lot of unpacking to do. There are like a gazillion boxes ... oh wait, I've already mentioned that! It's now Saturday night (I know, I know, I'm doing a F-F-F-Friday post! I'm going on the assumption that it is still Friday somewhere in the world!)and thankfully, after an entire day of plugging away, all the kitchen related boxes have been put away and all the boxes from what used to be my office have been opened and emptied out onto the dining room table. That's it though, I'm calling it a day. The stuff on the dining room table will have to wait.

Right now, I feel rather out of sorts, so I apologize for what is already turning into a rather long and rambling post. I am tired, but not really tired. I am bored, but not really bored. I do not know what to do with myself. The Boy suggested I blog, so here I am. One can only lie in bed reading for so long!

I have not done much cooking since we've been back from the US. I've made breakfast a few times, but let's face it, that cannot be considered cooking. (I am going to attempt a copy and paste of a previously written post tomorrow - wish me luck - to post, for more regularly scheduled programming and less rambling. The good news is now I have a kitchen set up in the house in the wine country, from now on to be referred to as The House, as opposed to The Apartment which is in the city (where my beloved PC resides and the good kitchen stuff also lives).

Now, the kitchen ... little "k" as opposed to The Kitchen, which is in The Apartment. The kitchen (little "k") is rather spartan. We've brought up a good set of dishes, quite a few, actually, so on that end we're set, though if we were to entertain more than 10, the plates will start being rather mismatched. The knives in this kitchen suck! They suck BIG TIME!!! They are some rather pathetic Wiltshire knives that you can buy from the grocery store for about $6 a piece (a real bargain) but as knives, they suck! They don't stay sharp, nor do they cut well. The steel is too thick, they don't sharpen well and there is no balance in the knife at all, unlike my Global knives, which are just perfection, or my Wushtoff panini knife which is just sexy as all get out or my black mirror finish Ceramic knives which are like super cool, murdering ninjas. In short, the knives up here, in the kitchen, reek. I will need to do something about it pretty soon, which is either bring up some extra knives that I have in The Kitchen which I'm not currently using or ask The Boy real nicely for a set of Global knives for this kitchen.

All that said, I have pots, I have pans, I have sucky knives, I have some spatulas and even sprung for a lemon squeezer yesterday, so I think I have enough to turn our a meal here. I'm planning on doing a few dinner parties up here, inviting some of our local friends over to eat. I will cook and of course, they will bring the wine, and since they all work at wineries and have damn fine cellars themselves, I'm expecting some good shit to be brought for drinking with the meal! Win!

Anyhoooo ... we are here till Monday and then we head back to the city and The Apartment.

*sigh* ... I miss my PC ...

Boiling vegetables ... hot water? cold water?

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming after the trip ... (there will be more US eating experience posts coming, I promise!)

For a cooking neophyte like me it is always exciting and amazing the things that I used to do, take for granted and now learn.

Take boiling vegetables, for example. I have always been of the mind that vegetables need to be plonked into hot boiling water and then boiled a certain period of time, and removed from the boiling water. The amount of time it spends in the hot water determines if it's cooked, crisp or mushy.

What I have recently learned was how WRONG I was. I mean - seriously! I was wrong. And I'm big enough a person (okay so I'm tiny, coming in at 5'2" but anyway ....) to admit that I was previously incorrect in my knowledge.

Depending on the vegetable, you either boil in hot or cold water. Huh? Say what?

Here's what I learned:

If it grows above the ground, you heat the water until it's boiling and then plonk the vegetables in and boil away - timing depends on the vegetable and the quantity. Examples include broccoli, beans, asparagus and other vegetables that grow above ground.

If it grows below the ground, you fill a pot with cold water, plonk the vegetables into the pot of water and then bring the water to a boil while the vegetables are in the water. Then boil for however long till the vegetable is cooked. Examples include potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes and anything else that grows below ground.

Interesting, eh? Well, I certainly thought so.

Why, you ask? I do not know. Not because I was not told, but because I forget the reason. If you really want to know, ask me and I'll find out for you. If not, just take it from me - above ground = hot, below ground = cold.

Now, being the contrary person that I am, I don't like boiling my vegetables. I prefer to steam them. Does not make a lick of difference whether you boil or steam them, so long as you don't over do them. My usual mix for dinner is carrots, broccoli and if in season, snow peas and asparagus. Since the carrots are below ground veggies and the other stuff are above ground veggies, what I do it this:

• I assemble my steamer and put the pot with cold water in it on the stove.
• Then I put the carrots into the steamer section, while the water is still cold.
• I put the water to heat and bring it to the boil.
• Once the water has boiled, I let it steam for about 2 or 3 minutes (since carrots take longer than other veggies anyway).
• After that, when the steam is nice and hot and going strong, I plonk in all the other veggies and give it another 2 or 3 minutes, maybe 4 if there are a lot of them.
• At the end of that, all my veggies are ready and cooked the way they were supposed to have been cooked.

My favorite way to serve steamed veggies is with a dash of Chinese sesame oil and soy sauce. Yum!

What's your favorite way of cooking vegetables? Do you prefer them one way over another? 

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Fresh fruit salad

After almost a month in the US, I've come home with a strong craving for fresh fruit and vegetables, which I got very little of while away.

I am used to snacking on fresh fruit and having lots and lots of vegetables with my meals, so eating in the US was a bit of a culture shock for me, since most of the meals were very meat and carb driven.

Take for instance the meal that I pictured in my last post - meat, a small side of some kind of over-boiled vegetable (this one corn kernels), mashed potatoes, a bread roll and gravy. It's a heavy meal and not nearly enough vegetables.

My meals at home tend to have at least half, if not more of the plate covered in vegetables, whether a lightly tossed salad or steamed vegetables.

As a result of my rather different eating habits while away, this morning my breakfast consisted of a lovely large bowl of fresh fruit, cut into bite size pieces for a fruit salad.

The fruit salad included a lovely rich honey yogurt, which I could not eat, being lactose intolerant - I gave it to The Boy. Instead, I decided to drizzle it lightly with some honey, which made it simply delicious!

A fruit salad is one of the easiest things to make in your kitchen. You need a sharp knife (yes, really ... sorry about stating the obvious! *grin*) and an assortment of fruit.

This morning, I had rock melon, honey dew melon, strawberry, orange, granny smith apple, kiwi fruit and watermelon.

Cut into bite size pieces, drizzle with honey, eat while still cold.

Sometimes, people will add some granola or muesli for crunch and yogurt, if you can have it, is a delicious accompaniment.

Do you eat your fruit and veggies? How many portions a day do you have? Any favorites that are a staple in your fridge? My fridge always, always have celery, carrot, broccoli and apples in it. Then I add seasonal fruit and veggies whenever I can for variety.

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Honey! I'm home!!! ... with meatloaf!

Well, I finally made it home, after being away for close on one month. We had originally only planned to be away for 3 weeks but after being very, very, VERY sick with the flu for two weeks while away, we decided to extend the trip (because we could!).

We had a great time while away and I sampled my way through St Paul, Minnesota and ate a lot of what I would call middle-American food. Just your standard, average home American fare - nothing fancy, but wholesome and good.

The Boy's mother is a fantastic cook and she cooked up some lovely meals while we were there. I had intended to cook while over there, but there are challenges working in someone else's kitchen and she was rather sparing in her use of utensils and appliances (no cutting board! only used a paring knife for everything she cut up! Gasp!!). I loved her cooking and even said to The Boy that his mother was a much better cook than he made her out to be.

One of the meals that is very popular in the US is meatloaf. We don't eat it much here but I've made it once for a dinner party and we had it a few times while in the US.

When I made the meatloaf, the response I got from The Boy was "it's different from the way my mother makes it" to which I smacked him across the head.

Here's the RECIPE for the meatloaf dish that I made. I'm sorry, but I don't have any pictures of my dish.

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef (leaner is better)
• 1 4 ounce / 120gm can mushrooms (reserve juice)
• 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 center cut bacon strips
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon basil
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 2 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese
• 1 8 ounce / 250 gm can tomato sauce

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 375F / 190C degrees.  Add water to mushroom juice to make 1 cup.  Fry bacon until crispy, drain and crumble.  Set aside.
• Combine beef, 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, egg, mushroom juice, garlic powder and salt in a large bowl.  Mix well.  On wax paper, form meat mixture into a 8x12 inch rectangle.
• Sprinkle meat with parsley, oregano, basil, thyme and 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs.  Spread bacon, onion, mushrooms and cheese evenly over meat.
• Roll meat into an 8 inch wide loaf.  Place meatloaf into an 8 inch glass bread pan or glass baking dish.
• Bake for 60 minutes.  Pour tomato sauce over meatloaf, and cook for an additional 15 minutes.
• Let meatloaf sit for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

I did this because it was different from just serving up a chunk of mince beef. I liked that it had mushrooms and bacon through the centre, which made it very tasty.

Believe it or not, I didn't really do anything different to the recipe, though one thing to note, it was a little difficult to roll up into a loaf. That said, it did turn out well and very tasty, thanks to the bacon and the tomato sauce.

More to come on my eating adventures while in the mid-west of the US of A once I get over the jetlag.

Have you done any traveling recently? Been away for a short while or a long time? How did you feel when you arrived home?

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