Citrus Spice Banana Doughnuts

To quote Pink Floyd, "Hello ... is there anybody out there?" As if becoming a mom didn't distract me enough from blogging recipes the last 3 years, my blog has languished further due to a year of personal loss, when my beloved mamma died unexpectedly last May.  As hard as it has been, we have still had to cook meals, and feed our families, albeit at times with far less inspiration and interest. However, my sister and I have found great connection with each other and our mom, in the kinship and catharsis of going through her 40 years worth of recipes. This became especially necessary in preparing traditional holiday treats,  and many of our mom's personal culinary inventions as we have mourned her absence during those special seasons of the last year.

 

Today it's been an extra dreary rainy, gray spring day, and I felt an urge to bake a banana bread  with my almost 3 year old boy,  but as he insisted on "Helping" far more than I asked,  he also added fresh ground pepper to the recipe.  So in order to salvage it I added a few additional spices to enhance the citrus and banana flavors.  And then I thought to bake the dough in doughnut pans instead of as a loaf.  It did not disappoint! However,  I only have one photo,  so you'll have to imagine the rest!

The original recipe,  which I departed from, was found in  Good Kitchen Magic.

Ingredients:

4 mashed bananas
1 egg
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup sugar (could probably be reduced by half if your bananas are bigger)
1 orange, zested
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/4 - 1/2 tsp fresh ground ginger
1/2 tsp fresh ground cardamom
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder

Directions: 

Blend sugar,  egg, oil and bananas together well,  and add zest of 1 orange,  1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper  [My son's  idea!], 1/2 tsp fresh ground ginger and 1/2 tsp fresh ground cardamom [my idea!]. 

Add 2 cups flour and 1 tsp baking powder while stirring. Continue to mix until smooth.  Distribute into doughnut pans, level to the top edge,  as they'll rise while baking.  Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes until lightly browned.

They're delicious warm from the oven, but I would wrap them in air-tight foil or plastic or a zippered bag or container to keep them from drying out too fast if you can't eat them right away.

Cranberry Citrus Oatmeal

 

Every year for Thanksgiving, I make a variation of the standard Cranberry-Citrus sauce recipe (that is often on the back of the bag of cranberries.) I inevitably end up with huge amounts left. Last year, I started adding it to my oatmeal as a way of using it up, and it was really good! You could also use this sauce as a condiment to roasted chicken or pork, or even grilled salmon. The standard recipe doesn't call for any seasonings but I find it satisfying to add fresh ginger and cinnamon to this sauce.

  

 

Lemon Curd

If you're not familiar with lemon curd, this is a very classic British lemon-spread to put on scones, or other pastries. (Try it on pancakes, or in homemade Danish, for instance.) Lemon curd is bright, smooth, velvety and rich, and it pairs so well with a hot cup of Earl Grey. 

This is a breakfast staple at my parents' house, so I've grown up eating it, but this very batch that I'm sharing with you here is the FIRST time in 42 years of living that I finally got around to making myself. And it was super easy, and very fast. I think zesting the lemons took 1/3 of the total time.

Mango Coconut Almond Granola

A few years ago, I got tired of buying a box of granola for $4 every few days because we eat it a lot, and I kept thinking about the cost per ounce, and how absurd it was that we'd maybe be able to get 8 bowls worth on our yogurt which ends up being like 50 cents per 1/2 cup, give or take. I knew it would be cheaper to make my own, especially since I have that magical item in my purse that allows me to shop like royalty; I'm talking about the CostCo card!

After some loose inspiration from a recipe in Real Simple, I doubled the batch so it would last us at least 2 weeks, not to mention I constantly alter ingredients, embellish a bit and switch things around as I'm inclined to do.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana smoothie

Well, we have had a nice snowy week a few weeks ago, followed by a nasty ice storm, which led to 380,000 homes or so without power (that was the last estimate I had heard anyway) so for quite a while I was not cooking much nor blogging, since we had no internet for a while, but the other day I thought that I wanted to upload my version of a well known smoothie from an establishment (which rhymes with Samba Loose, lest I be sued for copyright infringement) ... My version deviates a bit from theirs because I don't use sweetened yogurt (less sugar that way) and I don't use soy milk.  Actually, I don't use soy products in general, aside from soy sauce, and well... that would just be weird in a smoothie!

I'm taking this opportunity to also plug one of my favorite house hold appliances, which is the Cuisinart Smart Stick which makes single serving smoothies, grinds spices, coffee, makes peanut butter from scratch, whisks cream, and purees soup and guacamole with ease. I love it!  It's also easy to clean up, since the attachments can be removed from the motorized top, and several of them can be run in the dishwasher.  So click on the link and  buy yourself one.  You'll love it, too!

Now then, here is the basic recipe, which is quite off the cuff, but can be easily adjusted if you want more peanut butter, or more chocolate, or a thicker or thinner texture, just by adding a splash more or less milk.

 INGREDIENTS:
1 ripe but not mushy banana (just a nice yellow one!)
1/2 cup of skim or 1% milk (give or take, depending on desired texture)
1/2 cup plain, Greek Yogurt (or other plain yogurt)
2 tbsp peanut butter
2 tbsp chocolate syrup, or plain cocoa powder
1-2 ice cubes, optional (or slice and freeze your banana a few hours before making)

Puree, and ta-da!!! Delicious, and affordable.  Not to mention lower in calories than the 700-calorie bomb at Samba Loose.  I estimate this to have about 450 calories, and only the "nut fat" which makes for a nice breakfast or protein packed afternoon pick me up.  Serve it up in a nice frosty mug for a little extra deliciousness.

QUICHE

I love Quiche, and usually have good success in making it… this one turned out a little bland, but I think it was mostly just lack of salt, so aside from that, it was fine.  Also, whole wheat flour does not make the best pastry crust, I’ve discovered, since it’s not very elastic and hard to roll out without it just crumbling & cracking.  So use at least half of the portion of white flour, if not all.

 

 

INGREDIENTS:

Pie Crust:
1 stick of salted butter
2 cups flour
2-3 tablespoons ice cold water

Soften butter at room temp for easiest crust making.  Mix flour and butter together until distributed evenly.  Sprinkle in ice cold water, one tablespoon at a time, pausing to knead together in between.  Add more water as needed, but the dough should be firm, and fairly dry to the touch, not squishy or sticky like a pizza dough.

Chill the dough for about an hour (another step I lazily and hastily omitted last night for lack of time) which helps it be more malleable.  After it’s chilled, roll it out on a flat surface into a round, and place it in a pie plate.  Crimp the edges if you are a fancy-pants sort of pie crust maker.  Me, I was just hungry and wanted my dinner, so I didn’t bother with a decorative edges last night, plus as I said earlier, the whole wheat flour wasn’t working very well.  I basically had to just press it into the pie plate and try to make it hold together… It almost reminded me of a graham cracker crust in texture.

Use a fork to poke lots of holes in the bottom so it doesn’t bubble up too much.

Bake the pie crust at 400 for ten minutes, and then take it back out.  If you have fancy fluted edges to your crust, take a long strip of aluminum foil to cover the edges with it so they don’t burn during the second bake-time when you fill the pie.

Quiche Mixture:
6 eggs
Approx. 1/2 cup of milk and/or cream
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1 cup of shredded cheese (I’ve tried various cheeses, and they all have their own benefits.  Cheddar, feta, gruyere, Swiss, and last night I used Mozzarella)

Mix all together in a large bowl with a whisk

Vegetable or meat fillings:
Any number of veggies work well, but be aware that most veggies are high in water content and can make the quiche very soggy.  I usually solve this by sautéing my veggies in a skillet first, to let some of the water evaporate out.  Options on the veggies are bell peppers, chives, green onions, mushrooms, onions, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, asparagus… chop them up finely, and sauté them for five to ten minutes in a little bit of oil until they’ve “reduced” a bit.

Meats that are good in quiche could be anything from smoked salmon, bacon, black forest ham from the deli, sliced into thin shavings & slivered, or even shrimp (although I’m not a huge shellfish fan…) Just making suggestions.

In my quiche last night, I used up the rest of the green onions and bell pepper from my Pad Thai the other day, as well as sautéed baby spinach leaves.  I didn’t have meat, but bacon would have been really good with this combo.  

Scoop the veggie and/or meat fillings into the pre-baked pie crust, and then pour over the egg mixture.  Bake for about 25-30 minutes at 400.

Half the fun of a quiche is just experimenting with combinations, of cheese, meats and veggies.  It’s really just a glorified omelet in a crust, but it’s so good, and can be as good for dinner, breakfast or lunch.

 

Technorati Tags: quiche,eggs,cheese,main dishes,breakfast,dinners,lunches,vegetables,bacon,bell peppers

Potato and Carrot Frittata

The subheading on this blog says recipes are more of a recommendation, and since I’m not a trained chef, and often learn by experimenting, I have to share this funny little anecdote which eventually led to the development of my potato and carrot frittata. A few years ago, when I was a newlywed, I tried making hash browns, even though I had never made them before. (It is rather funny since it’s one of the most simple things in the universe, and I had at that point already been cooking for over a decade, and making delicious dinners and whatnot. Breakfast foods were just a new endeavor for me, after years of being single, and eating cereal or bagels in the morning. ) Back to the story: What I ended up with was a gray, gluey mess. As I deduced from my grave error, when you grate potatoes, you should always rinse them in a colander to get the extra starch off. At that point, most people would have gone to Denny’s for hash browns, but I wanted to figure out how to fix that. So the next time I rinsed them, drained them, and then I heated up some olive oil, and threw my spuds in the big cast iron skillet. Within a few minutes, they started to brown up nicely. On ONE side. But I still had poor luck in flipping them over.

So the next time, I made one more tweak, which was to pour scrambled egg mixture over the top of the browned potatoes, and cook that through. I tried flipping that as well. Not so easy. Then I finally started researching frittatas online, and discovered that it’s quite okay to ‘finish’ them in an oven to get the top solid.

The moral of the story is that learning is part of cooking, and if hadn’t made those mistakes, I wouldn’t have come up with this, which is easily one of my favorite breakfast foods.

INGREDIENTS (enough for 2 people who eat a large breakfast, or 4 diminutive breakfast eaters.)

6 eggs, and 1/3 cup milk whisked together in a bowl

3-4 medium sized red potatoes, peel still on
1 carrot
5 fresh basil leaves or 1 tsp dried basil
1 tbsp fresh chopped chives
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
2-3 tbsp olive oil

DIRECTIONS:

Peel and grate the carrot, and then grate potatoes either by hand, or with a food processor with a grating attachment if you have one. (This speeds up the process greatly when you’re really starving for breakfast, not to mention saves you from having bits of your knuckles in the frittata!) Rinse grated potatoes thoroughly in a mesh sieve or colander until the water runs clear. Let drain until the potatoes are fairly dry. Meanwhile, preheat a large skillet on medium high (cast-iron would be preferable, but any skillet with an oven-proof handle will do.)

Mix the carrot & potato gratings together before adding them to the hot oil. Spread them out in the skillet so they’re evenly thick.

Lower the heat to medium, and periodically check that the potatoes and carrots are not burning or sticking. Adjust heat as necessary. When things seem to have heated & cooked through fairly well, and the bottom starts to brown (check with a spatula along the edges) pour egg mixture over the top, making sure to coat everything. Lower heat a little more, and let the egg mixture set up. Sometimes this is sufficient and the top of the egg mixture will set up just fine, but if the bottom cooks faster than the top, preheat your oven to 375 and put the whole skillet in the oven for a few minutes until the top is firm.

Sprinkle with minced herbs, salt and pepper, and serve up with a side of breakfast meat like bacon or sausage. Sometimes I also put cheese on top, like cheddar, or feta, which is also quite good.

My Rad Berry-Spice Whole Grain pancakes

Yes, I will just say they’re my rad pancakes, because I don’t know for sure what the original recipe was, or whose it was, and so many modifications have gone into this that I’ve created something fairly different and healthy! Rather than a lot of refined carbs, this is mostly whole-grain and delicious. And we eat these, or variations of these, almost every Saturday morning while watching Spongebob. Yes, we’re 36 and home-owners. We like SpongeBob.

INGREDIENTS:
1 cups flour (I usually do half white/ half whole wheat)
2 tbsp ground flax
1 tbsp brown sugar or honey (if using honey, add it when all wet ingredients have been mixed in)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
A dash of nutmeg
1 cup milk + 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 egg
2 tbsp oil (although this can be omitted with good success)
1 cup berries (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, huckleberries...whatever sounds good to you!)

Beat all ingredients together, and fry pancakes on buttered griddle or skillet at medium heat. Drop berries into the top of the pancakes as they’re frying. Flip when edges are bubbly.

For a variation on the above, omit the spices, and mash one banana into the pancake mix, and sprinkle chocolate chips on the uncooked side of the pancakes before flipping them over. Extra good.

And at Thanksgiving / Christmas time, I substitute 1/2 the cup of milk with 1/2 can of pumpkin. It’s so awesome. Just sayin’s all.