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.

Rotisserie Chicken, Mashed Potatoes and Cardamom Roasted Cauliflower

 

I'm excited to announce my first ever give-away contest! For this meal-blog I'm plugging Olympia Local Foods and in exchange, they are offering a give-away of a hot, juicy rotisserie chicken and a $10 gift card at Olympia Local Foods.   More rules and details about this give-away can be found at the bottom of this page, below the recipe.

Olympia Local Foods is a business which I support, nearly weekly.  They are family owned by local farmers, who work in conjunction with other local farmers to offer area residents a convenient way to shop for locally grown and produced food items, with weekly in-store pickup.  You can even pay a nominal fee to have them deliver to your house. One of their signature items is freshly rotisserie-prepared, kosher, organic, pastured chicken by the owners of O.L.F. who also run Tachira Farms.

So for this recipe, I picked up a hot, savory bird, and also an organic head of cauliflower,  some red potatoes, and went home to come up with a recipe for an autumnal comfort food with a bit of a  sophisticated twist.