Banana Bread

Yield: 2 8" loaves
Source: Betty Crocker's 40th Anniversary Edition Cookbook

Lately I find myself purchasing bananas 7 and 8 at a time even though I full well know that I'll never get them eaten by the end of the week. It seems I subconsciously want banana bread.

1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (one stick) butter, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (3 to 4 medium)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup chopped pecans

Place oven rack in lowest position and preheat to 350°. Grease bottoms only of 2 8" loaf pans.

Mix sugar and butter into a paste, add eggs one at a time. Add bananas. (I don't mash them, instead I put the mixer on about 3 and toss chunks of banana into the whirring beater. It's quite fun, I highly recommend it.) Pour in buttermilk and add vanilla. Beat until smooth. Blend in remaining flour, baking soda, and salt until just combined. Stir in nuts.

Pour batter into pans and bake for about 1 hour or until tester comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of each pan to loosen the sides. Remove from pans and allow to completely cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Meatloaf

Yield: 3-4 large meatballs
Source: Betty Crocker's 40th Anniversary Edition Cookbook

This is based on Betty's original but I find that a full size meatloaf just takes too long to cook on a weeknight. Breaking it up into smaller portions prior to baking shortens the cooking time quite a bit. Use 3 ramekins for 1/3 pound portions or 4 smaller ones for 1/4 pound portions. 

1 pound lean ground beef

1 t fresh or 1/2 t dried sage

1 t salt

1/2 t ground mustard seed

1 t fresh ground pepper

1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs

1 small onion, diced

1 clove garlic or 1/2 t garlic powder

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 T Worcestershire sauce

1/2 c tomato jam, barbecue sauce, or ketchup + 1 T per ramekin 

3 or 4 8-12 oz ramekins

Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly crumble beef into a large mixing bowl.  Toss in sage through garlic and combine with your fingers. Be careful not to overwork the meat. Add tomato jam to the meat, don't mix it yet. Measure milk into a large liquid measuring cup, whisk egg and Worcestershire sauce into milk. Once combined, pour over meat and lightly work with a large fork or your fingers until fully incorporated. 

Prepare 3 or 4 ramekins by greasing the bottoms (I realize this seams odd but it will help with clean up later). Divide the meat mixture evenly and form into loose balls, put one ball into each ramekin. Top each one with 1 tablespoon of tomato jam. You could also add a pice of uncooked bacon here, everything's better with bacon.

Load the ramekins into a small cookie sheet and place into the oven. Cook 3 larger ramekins for 45 minutes or 4 smaller ones for 30 minutes. 

When the meatloaves are done allow to cool for 5-10 minutes. Remove the meatloaves from the ramekins (I used a small metal spatula). Small meatloaves are ready to serve. Large ones can be served as is on a bug burger-style or cut in half width-wise first.

Sweet and Spicy Black Bean Dip

Yield: 1 8x8 Pan
Source: San-Man Gardens

While wandering the City Market today I spotted one of my favorite vendors... and she had samples. This dip is the sweet, spicy, creamy match your tortilla chips have been dreaming of. And it's ridiculously simple to make. The recipe is tweaked a bit here.

1 15oz can Black Beans (rinsed and drained)
1 8oz brick of Cream Cheese (softened)
5-6 Green Onions
1 8oz jar of your favorite Jalapeno Jam (guess where I get mine)
1 cup Mexican Blend Shredded Cheese

Slice the green onions into fine rings, all the way up to the green. Reserve some of the darker green ends, a tablespoon or so. Whip the cream cheese in the mixer until soft and creamy. Add the green onion to the mixer and whip to combine.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and carefully fold in the black beans with a spatula until just combined. Don't mash the beans. Spread the cream cheese-onion-bean mixture into an even layer in a 9x9-ish pan.

Open your jam, I used San-Mar Gardens Jalapeno Mango (hit a farmers market in your area and support your local jammer), give it a good stir to loosen it up. Spread the jam evenly over the cream cheese.

Sprinkle the shredded cheese over the jam layer and garnish with the reserved green onion slices. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Serve with tortilla chips.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: About 36 Cookies
Source: Allrecipes.com

This is my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, it's the only one I ever use. I'll make them with chopped pecans and dark chocolate chips for me, or leave out the nuts and use milk-chocolate chips when making them for The Kid. The baking soda and hot water thing sounds weird, I know, but it gives the finished cookies this almost shiny outer shell with crispy edges and a chewy center. I'm Queen of the barely cooked cookie and these are perfect. They will keep for a couple of days in a sealed container (anything with real butter starts to taste odd to me by about day 3) or months in the freezer. I actually prefer them straight out of the freezer.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups all purpose flour
2 cups chocolate chips (your choice)
1 cup chopped nuts (your choice or not at all)

Preheat your oven to 350° and grease two cookie sheets.

Cream the butter and sugars until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water (out of the tap is fine), add to the batter along with salt.

Add the flour, one cup at a time. When the flour is fully incorporated, add the chocolate chips and the nuts.

Use a No. 40 disher (about 1.5 Tbs) to scoop the dough out onto your baking sheets. Leave about 2 inches between each one. Bake for 11-12 minutes in preheated oven, or until the edges are light brown. If you're cooking two sheets at once, rotate them halfway through and give them an extra minute of cooking time.

Chicken and Rice Soup

Yield: 6-8 Full Adult Bellies

This is one of the reasons I look forward to fall and winter each year. It's stupid-easy to make and goes together fast enough to have it on a weeknight. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that the ingredients are all standard items. This also makes terrific leftovers the next day. Assuming you have any, that is.

3 Tbs olive oil
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
5-6 carrots
5-6 ribs celery
1 medium onion
2-3 cloves garlic
3 bay leaves
3-4 sprigs fresh thyme
2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 packages Uncle Ben's Long Grain and Wild Rice (not quick-cooking or Ready Rice)
6 cups chicken stock*
6 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large stock pot over medium-high heat. Lightly salt and pepper chicken breasts, add to the waiting oil and brown on each side. Allow them to cook fully through.

While the chicken is doing it's thing, chop the veggies. Dice the onion, slice the carrots and celery. Mince the garlic.

Transfer the cooked chicken, which is a lovely golden brown and just a little crispy around the edges by now, to a cutting board to cool off a bit. Add the onions, celery, carrots, and garlic to the pot you just took the chicken out of. Salt lightly. Add the bay leaves and pepper.

Strip the leaves from the thyme by holding the stem at the top and dragging your fingers against the direction of growth. Do the same thing to the rosemary and mince them together (or just mince the rosemary and leave the thyme leaves whole), add herbs to the pot. Saute veggies until the onions are translucent and the carrots are just beginning to soften around the edges.

Chop or shred the chicken breasts and return to the pot. Open the rice boxes, remove the seasoning packets and set aside. Add the rice to the pot and stir to combine. Add the contents of both seasoning packets, stir.

Add chicken stock to the pot. Add the water a couple of cups at at time until the rice and veggies are well covered. Stir. Cook over medium-high heat until the rice is done, adding additional water or stock to the pot as needed. Add additional salt and pepper to taste. As soon as the rice is fully cooked, you're ready to eat.


*Homemade stock is always best but if it's not available get the good, all-natural stuff in the paper carton. Make sure to choose a low-sodium variety because the seasoning packet that comes with the rice is loaded with sodium. You can always add additional salt if you think it's needed but it's damned hard to take it out.

Ginger Molasses Pumpkin Bread

Yield: 2-8" loaves
Source: Food52.com

2 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1 egg
1 cup pumpkin puree*
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 Tbs melted butter
1/4 cup veggie oil
1/4 cup molasses
1/2 cup butter milk
1 Tbs minced fresh ginger
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbs turbinado sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°.  Butter and flour two 8" loaf pans (what I used) or one 9" loaf pan (what I don't own).

In a large bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, 2 tsp ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and nutmeg.

In a second bowl whisk together the egg, pumpkin, brown sugar, butter, veggie oil, molasses, and buttermilk until well combined. Stir in fresh ginger and vanilla.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined, be careful not to over mix. Pour batter into prepared pan(s).

Combine the turbinado sugar with the last tsp of cinnamon and sprinkle over to top of the batter.

Bake 30 minutes (two 8" pans), or 55 minutes in one 9" pan, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, remove and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

*Ok folks, go ahead and take the time to make your own pumpkin puree. It's absolutely worth it. You will never want the junk from the can again, I don't care how much you paid for the organic stuff at Whole Foods. Alton Brown does it here, the hardest thing about the whole process is scraping the seeds and strings out before you roast. Try to make someone who will be on the eating end of this project do the work. It's called delegating.

Roast 2 sugar (or pie) pumpkins at once and you'll end up with about 4 cups of puree. Your mileage will vary of course, based on the size of your pumpkins. I freeze the puree in 1 cup portions. Sugar pumpkins start appearing in mid-to late October in Kansas City so I usually roast 4 of them to make sure I have enough pumpkin puree in the freezer to make pies for Turkey Day and Xmas.

One last note, when I made this I found the bread to be perfectly moist and just the right amount of spicy, but lacking a bit in the sweetness department. Next time I'm upping the sugar to 3/4 cup.

Hot Tomato Jam

Yield: 11 4 ounce jars.

Source: Brokeassgourmet.com

4 lbs ripe tomatoes
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 1/3 cup honey
2 tbsp balsamic
6 tsp (or more to taste) Sriracha or other chili sauce
1 tsp salt
several grinds fresh black pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cut a shallow X into the bottom of each tomato and drop them, a few at a time, into the boiling water for 10-15 seconds each. Move the tomatoes into a bowl of ice water to stop them from cooking. This process will loosen their skins. Peel the cooled tomatoes, core and chop.

Dump out the (formerly) boiling water, rinse the pot and return it to the stove. Add the chopped tomatoes, onion, honey, balsamic, Sriracha, salt and pepper and stir. Cook over medium-high heat and bring to a gentle boil, then reduce the heat and let simmer until reduced by half, about 2 hours.

In the meantime, fill your pressure canner with water and sterilize your jars. Pour jam into prepared jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. Wipe rims, apply lids and rings. Process using a pressure canner at 10 lbs psi for 15 minutes (at 860 feet above sea level).

This is fantastic on grilled cheese, biscuits, and savory scones. Right out of the jar works well too.