Banana Nut Muffins

I am the queen of forgetting that I bought bananas. I have such good intentions in the grocery store, and then I get home and the poor bananas lay on the kitchen table, slowly rotting, turning black, and eventually attracting fruit flies. Thanks to this bad habit of mine, this recipe for banana nut bread or muffins has become one of my favorites. This was adapted from my 93-year old grandma's recipe, which originally called for "oleo" and definitely did not include whole wheat flour.

Ingredients:



Group One:
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 ½ cups chopped walnuts


Group Two:
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
2 eggs
2 mashed ripe bananas


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine group one ingredients and set aside. Cream sugar and oil together in a bowl. Add eggs and beat well. Add bananas, then flour-nut mixture, and beat until smooth. Lightly coat a muffin tin with non-stick spray or oil. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees. My oven runs hot, so they were definitely done after 10 minutes in my kitchen. Allow muffins to cool on a rack.

If you would prefer to make bread instead of muffins, pour mixture into a greased loaf pan and bake for an hour at 350 degrees.

**A tip for "chopped" walnuts: When I first made this recipe, I would end up with pieces of walnuts flying all over the kitchen as I attempted to chop them on the cutting board. I searched for years for a nut grinder comparable to the one my mom had when I was younger, and was thrilled when I finally found this at Bed, Bath, and Beyond:

If you like walnuts and use them often, this is a very handy tool to have in your kitchen. I put ground nuts on and in a LOT of things now that it's this easy

A Mediterranean Morning

It's grocery day in my house, so of course I woke up starving to a mostly empty refrigerator. Trying to come up with something to fill my belly before I head to the store as a ravenous beast (we all know that's a bad idea!), I decided pizza dough, cheese, and the contents of my spice cabinet were enough to throw together a quick meal.


Admission: I did not make this pizza dough. I am engaged in a continuing search for the perfect pizza dough recipe, but in the meantime I decided to try out the frozen pizza dough from my local grocery store, Heinen's. Papa Joe's pizza dough comes in one-pound bags in their freezer section and it tastes fantastic. I hope someday to make pizza dough this good. Today, I cut the dough in half to make two recipes.


My first creation today was the best. A friend of mine with Lebanese heritage recently blessed me with a bag of the Middle Eastern spice mix "za'atar." Za'atar can include many different things depending on the country or family, but always seems to involve oregano, thyme, sesame seeds, and sumac. Upon this friend's advice, I stretched out the dough as if I was making a pizza, covered the dough with olive oil, and sprinkled a pretty heavy coating of za'atar on top. After baking in the oven for 15 minutes at 400 degrees, it resulted in this awesomeness:

It may not look like much, but this bread tastes incredible. It is savory and salty and it was so easy to make that I think it may become a standard snack in my house. I ate almost the whole thing before my second creation was out of the oven.

With the other half of the pizza dough I was aiming for a white pizza, mainly because I had no tomatoes or sauce. Again, I stretched the dough to my preferred pizza size/thickness, spread olive oil on top, and covered with spices - this time, half a packet of my favorite cheat, the Knorr pesto spice mix. I rubbed the pesto into the oil/dough with my hand so it evenly covered the dough, and then sprinkled about a cup of grated Romano cheese on top.* I again baked the pizza at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, and ended up with a pretty but somewhat mediocre pizza.

I think the pesto mix was actually why this pizza failed. Don't get me wrong, I still ate it, but it was REALLY salty. I think in the future I will just add individual Italian spices from my cabinet, or buy some fresh basil instead. The cheese and dough have enough salt in it that you do not need the extra salt from the pesto.

*My favorite cheese ever is Romano cheese made by Locatelli. It is so full of flavor that it never lasts long in our house. We put it on almost everything, and have stopped buying those sad green cans of Parmesan cheese.

References:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/07/spice-hunting-what-is-zaatar-how-to-use.html

http://mideastfood.about.com/od/middleeasternspicesherbs/r/zaatar.htm

Beer Bread

We had a lot of visitors during the holiday season, and it seems everyone brought beer. The bottom shelf of our refrigerator actually cracked recently from the weight of all the extra bottles. Rather than getting drunk every night to use up the excessive amounts of booze in the house, I decided to start making beer bread. This recipe was ridiculously easy and delicious. The original recipe came from Epicurious.com with a few alterations on my part.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Ingredients:

2 cups bread flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

3 T sugar

1 T baking powder

1 t salt

1 bottle (12 ounces) beer at room temperature

1/4 cup butter (melted)

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add beer all at once and mix as little as possible - batter will be lumpy. Spray or grease a loaf pan (9"x5"x3") and pour batter into pan. Pour melted butter on top of dough, ensuring to completely cover the loaf. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted in loaf comes out clean.

I used Yuengling Lager for my first loaf and it worked beautifully. The bread tastes great on its own and is a little bit sweet. The next time I make it, I plan to add roasted garlic and Italian spices to the dough, replace half of the butter with olive oil, and maybe mix a little grated romano cheese in as well. My stomach is growling just thinking about it!