Florida Adventures, part 3 ...

... the final adventure (until Thanksgiving). I've had a wonderful trip, but its definitely time to go home. All this travel in the past month has quite worn me out. I look forward to a couple weeks in New York before the craziness of back to school ensues. Of course, tomorrow morning I will get the distinct pleasure of having airport craziness ensue at 7:00 am (leaving the house at 6:20 am!). A 9:00 am flight seemed like a great idea three weeks ago but was it really? Stay tuned to find out.

Anyways, tonight I made banana bread using my mom's recipe. When I was growing up, this was THE banana bread. It could often be found as an after school snack, or even dessert if I was really lucky (we weren't a big dessert during the week family). It is a quick and easy recipe, mixes right into one bowl and can easily be adapted. My mom traditionally makes it with raisins, which is a delicious variation. Today I subbed chocolate chips for raisins, both because I do love a chocolate chip banana bread (or anything really) and because my mom is serving it as a dessert option at a dinner tomorrow. And we threw in some oats, but that too is optional. The bread is equally divine without. I would perhaps not suggest trying all three variations at once, that might be overkill, but feel free to substitute your own preferred banana bread flavorings (rum, coconut, nuts or whatever).

This is the banana bread batter heading into the oven.














And this is the final result -yum!












Banana Bread
Mom's recipe


3 ripe bananas (4 if small)
1 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups of flour
1/4 cup melted butter
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup oats (optional)
1/2 cup of chocolate chips (or to taste, also optional
1/2 cup of raisins

Mash bananas with fork. Stir in other ingredients. Pour into buttered loaf pan (ideally 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches). Bake for one hour in a preheated 325 degree oven.

Technorati Tags: vegetarian, Baking, banana, quick bread, chocolate chip

Strawberry Bread

I really wasn't going to make anything today. I don't know if its the newness of the blog or if its receiving lots of CSA goodies but I've been active in the kitchen lately and wasn't feeling it today.

But then, I picked up the CSA loot.

1 lovely bunch of Swiss Chard
1 bunch of winter savory
2 heads of lettuce
7 asparagus stalks
.6 pound of sugar snap peas
a bunch of radishes

2 pints strawberries
2 quarts of cherries
8 apples

Well, it all looked pretty good. Minus the strawberries. They were on their last legs five minutes ago. So after coming home and putting away all the produce, chopping and washing one head of lettuce and making baggies of cherries to be consumed ASAP, I tackled these errant strawberries. I peeked into The King Arthur's Baking Companion to see what strawberry recipes might be inside. There was a recipe for a Walnut-Strawberry Quick Bread. Since we were nutless - I went ahead and made a Strawberry Quick Bread. Which, true to its name, came together quite quickly. Which was a good thing, as I was very tired.

I won't be tasting this bread, as it will go off to M.'s office with him tomorrow. So, we'll have to see how the hungry coworkers like it ...

(Walnut-) Strawberry Quick Bread
makes 1 loaf


Notes from cookbook authors:
We just love this bread no matter which way we make it: all starwberry, all rhubarb, or a combination of the two. We also used half a cup of applesauce in one recipe with great success when we ran short of strawberries.

Notes from me: It was fast, and quick to throw together. And smelled delicious while baking!

1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon lemon zest (or 1/4 tsp lemon oil)
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups mashed strawberries
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour (or spray with cooking spray) a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the walnuts, flour, sugar, soda, salt and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, whisk together the lemon zest, eggs, strawberries and vegetable oil. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients, whisking until well blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 55-60 minutes, until a ccake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the bread in the pan for 15 minutes, and then remove from pan and transfer to a rack to cool completely (1 hour or more). For best flavor and easiest slicing, wrap bread while slightly warm and let sit overnight.

Rhubarb variation - Use 1 1/4 cups cooked rhubarb in place of the strawberries, to make a slightly tart bread. Start with 2 1/2 cups sliced rhubarb. Cook over medium heat (or in microwave) to make about 1 1/4 cups rhubarb sauce. If you only use rhubarb (no strawberries) increase sugar to 1 1/4 cups. You may substitute rhubarb for some strawberries, and without increasing the sugar.

Technorati Tags: strawberry, baking, bread