Banana Pumpkin Bread

*Guest Entry*

4 ripe bananas (2.5c mashed)

1 pie pumpkin, roasted (yielded 3c mashed)

2 cup sugar

2/3 cup melted butter

4 eggs

4 cups plain flour

2 teaspoon baking soda

3 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp clove

1 tsp nutmeg

1 cup pecans, roughly chopped

2 pinches of salt (which I forgot to add so I added a couple grains to each mini loaf a couple minutes after popping them into the oven and stirred it in... let's hope for the best)

7 greased mini loaf pans (I tried out Baker's Joy for "greasing")

Preheat the oven to 300F.

Follow pumpkin puree recipe from October 2014. And allow to cool completely. (Brian prepared this two days before and put in the refrigerator.)

Combine the pumpkin and mashed bananas until homogeneous.

In a separate large bowl, combine the sugar, butter, and eggs, and stir until well mixed.

Add the fruit and vegetable mixture to the sugar, butter, egg mixture and mix well.

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, spices, and salt).

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients while constantly stirring.

At this point, the bread batter seemed to be somewhere between cake batter consistency and dough. I hope that's right!

I transferred a heaping cup of the mixture to 3 of the loaf pans and kept adding until there was about 1.5 centimeters of room to the top of the pan.

Then I added the chopped nuts to the remaining mixture and stirred.

I then repeated the same process into 3 new loaf pans, but then I had extra for a 4th, so I just filled that one up too.

It took 54 minutes in the oven to bake. (I checked in at 30 mins, 40 mins, 44 mins, 48 mins, 50 mins, one loaf passed the wooden toothpick test so I took them all out, but another one was a little wet, so I put them all back in and checked 4 minutes later at 54 mins). So it wasn't in a closed oven for 54 minutes straight, just FYI.

As for the verdict... it'll have to wait. These are Christmas presents for various people. Regardless of how successful they are, I'll be making a second batch this upcoming weekend for a second wave of Christmas presents. If I'm lucky, there will be an extra that I can have myself.

Pineapple Chicken with Cabbage Stir Fry

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Stir Fry Ingredients

2 tbsp wok oil

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tsp raw ginger, crushed

1 tbsp soy sauce

6 cups shredded cabbage blend with carrots

1 red bell pepper, julienne slices

~9 hollow parts of green onions in 5-10mm diagonal cuts

Salt to season

Heat 1 tbsp of wok oil. Add garlic and ginger and stir until aromatic. Add red bell pepper and stir for a few minutes until somewhat softened. Add cabbage, 1 tbsp wok oil, and soy sauce. Stirring occasionally until cabbage starts to wilt. Add green onions and salt to season. Stir until preferred stir fry texture.

Fried Chicken Ingredients

1lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs, 1" cubes

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup flour

1 tsp ground pepper

1 tsp salt

1 pint reusable vegetable oil

Heat 1 pint of vegetable oil on medium-high heat (to what I would call "deep frying temperature"). Mix together flour, salt, and pepper in bread bag or Ziplock bag. Dunk chicken cubes in eggs. Then place wet chicken cubes into flour (~6-8 pieces at a time). Shake to coat and then place raw coated chicken on a plate. Continue until all the chicken is coated in flour. Drop 10-14 pieces of chicken in hot oil. Allow the pieces to turn light brown before flipping over (to keep the breading intact). Allow to cook through (like 5 minutes). Transfer out with a slotted spoon to another plate lined with paper towels to soak up the grease.

Pineapple Sauce Ingredients

1 cup water

1 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 cup pineapple white balsamic vinegar

Juice (only) from one can of 8oz Dole pineapple rings in juice

1 tsp raw ginger, crushed

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 tsp corn starch

2 cups pineapple chunked into small/medium bite-size pieces

Toasted sesame seeds

Bring water, soy sauce, vinegar, and juice to a simmer. Add ginger and continue to simmer until aromatic. Add brown sugar and continue to simmer. Add 1 tsp of corn starch and bring to a low boil for about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to check consistency (add more corn starch if desired). Add pineapple chunks to sauce on low heat. Add fried chicken as prepared above to sauce. I brought it back to a boil to burn off any extra water to thicken the sauce a little more without adding more corn starch. Then reduce. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Verdict

Since I couldn't find a recipe to follow/tweak, this was a true experiment. By combining previous techniques from my Clementine Chicken recipe and new ideas from reading through a bunch of recipes that just weren't what I was looking for, I have come up with something quite grand. Also, we picked up copious amounts of pineapple white balsamic vinegar and wok oil at Olive & Vinegar in Greenville a couple weekends ago; I was determined to do something with it. Overall, I am quite pleased with this meal. The sauce could have stood to be just a little thicker, but I'm always overly cautious of adding too much corn starch (because I have definitely ruined a meal or two by doing that). So, I was fine with it for how it turned out, especially after it cooled down. Also, I had no idea how long each of the 3 components were going to take to cook, so I started all 3 at the same time. The sauce and chicken took about the same time, but the cabbage stir fry could have waited at least 10 minutes after I started on the other two. By multitasking, I created a huge mess, but it was well worth it! 

Beet Pesto Spread

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Visit the Roasted Sweet Potato & Beet Salad blog entry for instructions on how to roast the beets for this...

3 red beets, roasted
6 cloves of garlic *recommend scaling this back to 3 cloves in the future*
3/4c walnuts, roasted (~7 minutes)
3/4c grana padana cheese, shredded
1/4c oil olive
zest of a lemon
juice of a lemon
1 tsp salt

Add the ingredients to a food processor and pulse several times until the ingredients are well combined. It should be a spreadable paste consistency (like hummus). Serve over crackers, toasted italian bread, on a sandwich, etc.

The texture of this was great... however, the garlic truly overpowered this spread. I would recommend using 1/2 the garlic or even 1 clove of garlic to 1 red beet. There was A LOT of this spread & unfortunately, it didn't all get used.

Paleo Crock Pot Chili Recipe

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I literally followed this recipe from http://www.paleonewbie.com/paleo-crockpot-chili-recipe/ but with a few SMALL variations in the ingredients. Other than that, I followed her instructions, so visit her website. But I'll still document my efforts... 

2 lbs. of ground sirloin

1 onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 red and 1 green bell pepper, both diced

1 cup of carrots, finely diced

1 cup of celery, diced

1 jalapeno, minced

(1) 28-ounce can of crushed or stewed tomatoes (from Bob's garden)

(1) 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes

(1) 15-ounce can of tomato sauce

3 Tbsp. of chili powder

1 Tbsp. of oregano

1 Tbsp. of basil

2 tsp. of cumin

1 tsp. of salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. onion powder

1/2 tsp. of cayenne

About 4 strips of cooked bacon, crumbled

1 or 2 avocados, diced

Browning stage... 

Chopping stage...

Mixing stage...

Eating stage...

Yes! This chili is SOOOO good! It has a super hearty feel without the beans. The vegetable blend in here works so well & the avocado on top helps balance out the heat (without the need for adding cheese/sour cream). Definitely worth repeating! 

Roasted Sweet Potato & Beet Salad

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Of late, I've had a fascination with beets... probably because I don't ever remember eating them as a child, so they are a "new" thing to me.

"They don't really taste like dirt. When your kids turn their noses up at beets, tell them it's not the soil that gives beets their earthy flavor—it's the geosmin. An organic compound produced by microbes in the soil, geosmin gives off a smell like freshly plowed earth or a field after a rainstorm." - http://grow.cals.wisc.edu/agriculture/five-things-everyone-shoud-know-about-beets

So beets taste like how a rainstorm smells... cool!

Anyway, I have done a ton with beets lately... I'll start with the one I am most proud of...

3 red beets (beetroot & greens)

1 large sweet potato

chardonnay garlic grapeseed oil

rosemary

salt

walnuts

creamy Boars Head feta cheese

cranberry pear white balsamic dressing

Optional: drop with grilled/roasted chicken breast

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Cut the beet stem/leaves off close enough to the beet to give yourself enough to grip. Scrub the beets and then wrap the wet beet in aluminum foil (I've been using parchment paper as a barrier between the foil and the beet... because aluminum foil has been getting bad press). Transfer to a cookie sheet and bake for like 50-60 minutes.

While the beets are cooking. Quickly prepare the sweet potato. Scrub the sweet potato and then cut into centimeter size cubes (leaving the skin on). Transfer to a bowl. Toss with some chardonnay garlic grapeseed oil, just enough to lightly coat each piece. Sprinkle in rosemary and salt (seasoning to your preference). Transfer the sweet potato cubes to a cookie sheet, spreading out so it's all one layer and not touching. Pop in the oven & every 10-15 minutes stir around/flip over the cubes. This will bake for about 45 minutes.

While the beets & sweet potatoes are roasting, prepare your beet greens. Separate the greens from the stem. Place the greens in a white bowl and run cool water over them, washing them thoroughly. Drain out the water and repeat until you only have clear water in the bowl. This may take several cycles. Then chop up the greens for the salad.

Once the beets are done and have cooled off to a temperature where you can handle them, put on some gloves! Take the beets out of the foil and literally peel the skin off with your fingers using light pressure. The skin will come right off. Then cut the beets into centimeter size cubes (similar to the sweet potato).

Assemble the salad. Greens, beets, sweet potatoes, walnuts, and cheese. Drizzle cranberry pear white balsamic dressing on top & enjoy! 

Chocolate Almond Butter Cups

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I wanted to make homemade peanut butter cups around the holidays to give out as gifts. As I was reading up on various recipes, I stumbled across one using almond butter and honey. This sounded very interesting to me so I gave it a try.

5 oz Toll House dark chocolate 53% morsels

3 oz Toll House milk chocolate morsels

1/2 cup natural almond butter

2 Tbsp. honey

1 Tbsp. powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. fine grain salt

sea salt flakes for topping

assorted mini cupcake liners

Before you start in on the chocolate, combine the almond butter, honey, sugar, vanilla, and salt together. I believe I had to end up adding a little more confectionary sugar to get everything to stick together and "ball up". After that, break apart a teaspoon of the mixture and roll it in your palms until you have a small ball. Repeat until gone. I popped these into the fridge to keep their form while I prepared the chocolate.

Melt the chocolate in a double broiler (which is a bowl resting on top of a pot of simmering water). Stirring until smooth.

Place your liners on a cookie sheet. Spoon enough chocolate into the bottom of the liner to coat it along with some of the edges. Tilt and twist the liner around as to completely coat the bottom of the liner and the edges. Then place the mixture ball in the center of each of the chocolate lined liners. After that, spoon more chocolate over the ball as to completely cover it in chocolate. Once all the chocolate is spooned out, I lightly tapped the cookie sheet on the counter, using the vibrations to even out the chocolate on top. While the chocolate was still wet, I sprinkled the sea salt flakes for topping. Then pop it in the fridge to set.

I was amazed at how easy it is to make a homemade almond/peanut butter cup.  I handed them out as Christmas presents this year. Honestly it was so long ago, I cannot remember if the recipients liked them or not... but I did! 

Eggplant Dirty Rice

There's quite a backlog of recipes to enter... just because we haven't posted anything in a good while doesn't mean we haven't been on our culinary expedition. We've just been having too much fun to officially document our experiments. 

Eggplant Dirty Rice with Slow Cooked Chicken Thighs

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4 chicken thighs, bone-in, skinless, organic

1.5c chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

Put the above ingredients in a Crockpot and cook for 6 hours on low.  At 5 hours in, pull chicken apart to let sit in the juices and discard bones & gristle.

1/4c canola oil

1/2 tbsp chardonnay garlic grapeseed oil

5 celery ribs, finely chopped

2 small/medium yellow onions, finely chopped

salt to season

2 small/medium Italian eggplants, cubed (3/4-in)

1 tbsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp cayenne

3 garlic cloves, diced

1 tbsp ketchup

1/4c soy sauce

1.5c jasmine rice

2.5c chicken broth

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a large sauté pan, heat canola oil until shimmering. Add celery, onion, and salt. Cover and cook over low heat until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Uncover and cook over moderate heat until the vegetables are lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Add the eggplant, thyme, peppers, and season with salt. Drizzle the grapeseed oil.  Cook over moderate heat until the eggplant is softened, about 8 minutes. Stir in the garlic and ketchup and cook for 1 minute. Add the soy sauce and mix well. Stir in rice and broth and bring to a boil.

Transfer to a lightly greased casserole pan, cover, and bake for 17 minutes, until the rice is just tender. Remove from the oven and let stand, covered, for 10 minutes. Fluff the rice and serve with the chicken.

(Is it even) Optional: Crumbled feta cheese (a must!)

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I absolutely love this recipe & have made it a few times now, but not recently so my immediate thoughts about this dish are gone with the wind.