Bananas Foster - A quick and tasty treat

I finally got out of WhatsApp for good. The hullabaloo sorrounding the terms and conditions finally made me pull the plug. What I wasn't expecting is the WhatsApp withdrawl that I had for a couple of days and then came the relief. WhatsApp had intertwined itself into my life. I can safely claim other than giving a nice and easy way to call folks back home, it wasn't all that useful. I have experienced all kinds of emotions while looking at the forwards mostly. New content is rarely created on the platform anyway. Laughter, anger, sadness and helplessness at the drivel that gets passed off as stuff people should read. Anyway it is in the past. I signed on to Signal for communicating with just a couple of groups that I need to keep my sanity.

Once I got rid of WhatsApp I started making phone calls which is a far better way of communicating and keeping in touch. Not the piecemeal communication that is the hallmark of texting.

Now on to the recipe,
We always have bananas at home and genrally at any point of time a few are over ripe. I normally freeze them and use them for making banana bread, or they are good in smoothies as well if you can tolerate the brown color. Compared to doing all of that, this recipe is by far the quickest, easiet and tastiest. All you need is a couple of over ripened bananas. It can be used as a topping for ice cream, pancakes or crepes. Who needs a recipe for banana, sugar and butter but the process of documenting it, is so much fun so had to write about it here.

Recipe in pictures,

Cut the bananas, and melt the butter in a wide mouthed pan.
When the butter melts, add the brown sugar and let it carmelize slightly.
Now place the bananas in the pan and cook on one side for 2 minutes and the other side for another 2 minute..

See it is just so much fun to make this :)

Bananas Foster
Preparation Time:5 minutes
Cooking Time:10 minutes
Ingredients

1. 3 - 4 bananas
2. 1/3 - 1/2 cup of brown sugar
3. 1 tbsp of butter
4. 1/4 tsp of vanilla essence(optional)

Method

1. Peel, trim the end and slice bananas vertically and then into halves.
2. In a wide mouthed pan, add the butter and let it melt.
3. Add in the brown sugar and let it mix and depending on the quality of brown sugar, the sugar should caramelize nicely in about 2-3 minutes.
4. Now add the bananas flat side first and let cook for 2 minutes. Flip and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

A sweet tasty treat is ready to be spooned on whatever you fancy. We had it with Vanilla ice cream.

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Food For The Gods - A Philippine Desert - Cookie Bar

Wishing you all a Very Happy Holiday Season and Merry Christmas!

The following situation has been going on for a long time. Every year for the past 10 years, I mean this has been going on for a long time. The week before Chritmmas, The Washington Post has a food supplement filled with recipes for cookies. I save it hoping one day I'd get to make at least one of the cookies listed there. In the hope that it is holiday time after all and there will obviously be time. December becomes January, followed by February and then March, you get the idea.

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Time passes by but the cookies never get baked. This happens year after year. Anyway cue in the dramatic music. This since DD was home she made these delicious cookies. For some reason any recipe that has dates, that is the first we turn to. The good thing is with dates you can reduce the sugar quantity and it still tastes good. Sometimes adding the sugar amount mentioned in the recipe, it gets too sweet.

Food For the Gods
Preparation Time:20 minutes
Baking Time:45 minutes
Ingredients

1. 1 1/2 cups of chopped pecans (walnuts as per original recipe)
2. 2 cups of white whole wheat flour
3. 1/2 tsp baking soda
4. 1/2 tsp baking powder
5. 1/4 tsp of kosher salt
6. 1 lb pound mejdool dates pitted and cut lenghtwise into 4 pieces
7. 3 sticks unsalted butter at room temperatuer
8. 1 cup of brown sugar
9. 4 large eggs at room temperature
10. 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Bake the cookie in the middle rack. Preheat oven to 325F.
2. Roast the pecans or walnuts for 8-10 minutes, shaking partway and then cool completely.
3. Grease a 9 x 13 pan and line the baking pan with parchment paper with generous overhang and set aside. Coat the sides and bottom of the pan over the parchament with nonstick spray.
4. In a smaller bowl mix about 1/3 cups of the flour with the dates and pecans till well coated.
5. In a mixing bowl whisk togethere flour, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt until fully incorporated.
6. In another bowl whisk together eggs, brown sugar until the sugar is dissolved.
7. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking to incorporate one eggs before adding the next one.
8. Whisk in the vanilla extract and then the flour in two batches till incorporated.
9. Add in the pecans and dates mixture also in two batches till fully incorporated.
10. Transfer the batter to the baking pan and even out the top.
11. Bake for 40-45 minutes rotating from front to back half way through. The edges and top should be browned with a golden crust. A skewer inserted should come out clean.
12. Remove using the overhanging parchment cool and cut them into bars.

Serve the warm bars with some ice cream. Heaven!! Like what you are reading? Subscribe!

Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate chips and Nuts

Even a news junky like myself cannot stand the news these days. The sound of Trump's nauseating voice just make me depressed and wondering... If there are any Trump fans out there don't worry I am an equal opportunity hater as far as politicians are concerned. Obama did not make me any less depressed! So there.

But one thing that got me very curious was this repeated use of the word 'deep state' by Trump himself, his cronies and everyone from the right wing talk world and I start to wonder to myself if it is not Trump and his myriad of corrupt cronies who could this word actually be referring to? Helpfully enough there was an article in the Washington Post by the person who popularized the word 'deep state' and about what this word actually means. It is not what Trump would like us to believe, that is there is a shadowy cabal of bureaucrats plotting his downfall. Instead this word means 'corporate power' and 'moneyed influencers'. There that actually makes sense. So in this confusion between truth and fiction Trump thrives.
The original essay - Anatomy of the Deep State.

Pumpkin had been a vegetable that I had always liked, the mildly sweet creamy vegetable was not on the menu often but when it made its appearance it was special. The pumpkins available in the grocery stores here in the US were not as sweet and texture was not creamy as I would have liked. So for the longest time butternut squash filled the void till I started growing pumpkins for myself. I am slowly realizing the versatility of pumpkins. Pumpkins - the icon of Fall is going to be my favorite vegetable for the next couple of months.

Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away and given a choice I will make the complete menu with just pumpkin :) I am not a big fan of pumpkin pies, so for this reason I had to find something else to replace the pumpkin pie on the Thanksgiving table. I could make this pumpkin halwa and with an Instant Pot an extremely easy dish to make if you have a sweet tooth. But my absolute favorite is the recipe that follows for Pumpkin Bread, the pumpkin makes this bread absolutely moist and delicious.

I steamed pumpkin cubes and mashed them. You could roast the pumpkin too if you wanted. Use unsweetened canned pumpkin puree if you do not have pumpkin. Get your family excited this Thanksgiving by making this pumpkin bread. I guarantee that no one would be disappointed. I followed the banana bread recipe by replacing the mashed bananas with mashed pumpkin.

I also have an Olive Oil Squash Bread if you want a slightly different version with nutmeg and ginger powder.

The Banana Bread recipe is here. Here is the recipe in pictures of the Pumpkin Bread. So if any of you out there wondering about replacing pumpkin pie with something else that is much to your liking you got to try this recipe.

Whish the eggs till frothy, add the butter and sugar and whisk till well mixed.
In a mixing bowl, take all the dry ingredients add the mashed pumpkin, mix it in and add the whisked egg-butter-sugar to the flour.
Add the milk so the batter comes together and pour into greased baking pans.
Bake for 45 minutes in a preheated 350F oven.
Cool on a wire rack for at least half hour before slicing.

Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips and Nuts
Preparation Time:20 minutes
Baking Time:45 minutes
Ingredients

1. 2 cups of unbleached white whole wheat flour
2. 1 3/4 cups of Pumpkin Puree*
3. 2 tsp baking soda
4. 1/2 tsp baking piwder
5. 2 eggs
6. 1/4 cups of coarsely chopped roasted unsalted almonds
7. 1 cup of raw sugar
8. 6 tbsp of unsalted butter (bring to room temperature) + 1/4 tsp of salt, skip salt if using salted butter
9. 1 cup whole milk (use just enough to moisten the batter)
10. 1/2 - 3/4 cup of chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. *Cut pumpkin, remove seeds and pith, peel and cut into 2-3 inch cubes and in a steamer steam for about 8 minutes, let cool and mash with a back of a spatula. Set aside.
3. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and baking soda in a mixing bowl.
4. Using a egg beater or hand whisk, whisk the egg till it is nice and fluffy.
5. Add butter, sugar and run the beater a bit longer so they mix well.
6. Get a 9 x 5 inch rectangular loaf pan ready by greasing the pan with butter and dust with flour if needed (I did not).
7. Add the mashed pumpkin into the flour and gently mix it in.
8. Now add the whisked ingredients in batches to the flour and with a spatula mix. Add as much milk to moisten the batter. Use only as much as needed. I needed the full cup of milk. Do not over mix.
9. Add the chocolate chips and almonds and gently mix so they spread evenly.
10. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and smooth the top.
11. Bake for 45 minutes till a skewer or tooth pick inserted comes out clean. Cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing.

Delicious warm or cold.

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Chocolate Chip Dream Bars

Before we start today's post take a look at this article on Kongunadu cuisine by Ranjitha that appeared in Mighty 8, the Coimbatore special anniversary edition of The Times of India, dated February 23.

When we first moved into the farm couple of years ago, we had visitors who came bearing welcome gifts. It is one of those probably quaint customs to invite new neighbors into the area. It is small town living in a predominantly farming community and we did feel welcome.

Anyway one of the welcome gifts we got was these 'Chocolate Chip Dream Bars' and they were extremely tasty. DD2 was sick at that time, DD was off at college so most of them were shamelessly devoured by me. In my defense though when DD2 tasted one she said that she was not that crazy about them. DH as usual probably ate one or two. I have confessed several times that I am the sugar addict so none of this should be surprising. Finally when I ended up baking this DD2 devoured all of them. She did not know why she did not like it the first time.



I got the recipe from the neighbor while she was still our friend. Oh! why us and her are no longer our friends? That was a silly matter to do with our dog and how petty some people really are. It is a story for another day. We learnt quite a bit with the incident though about people, about appearances and how fear of different people (code word for racism) rears its ugliness in bucolic places.

It does not matter but these Bars are terrific and very easy to make if you have grape nuts cereal or flakes. I did not find grape nut flakes in my regular grocery store. So just picked up the Grape Nuts cereal box I found. The texture of the cookies I made were probably slightly denser than the ones she brought home. I used a 8 1/2 * 8 1/2 square pan. Ideal would have been a 13 * 9 pan which meant thicker than it should have been bars.


Here is the recipe in pictures,

Take the Grape Nuts cereal and blend to a slightly coarse powder.
Whisk the eggs. Heat the butter and let it melt.
Take all the dry ingredients and add the melted butter.
Add the chopped nuts. Add in the whisked eggs and mix it in.
Transfer the mixture to a greased pan and smooth out.
Spread the chocolate chops on top and bake in a preheated 350F oven for 30 minutes.
Cool and cut into desired size bars.

These bars are delicious. I did not realize how tasty grape nuts cereal was. If you have seen the long ingredient list on cereal boxes you will be kind of surprised to see the short list on this one.

The crunch in these cereal also adds to the texture and the slightly crunchy texture of these bars. Leave out the chocolate chips or just use a third of it, these could very well be good enough for breakfast bars.

Chocolate Chip Dream Bars
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Baking Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients

1. 1 cup White Whole Wheat Flour
2. 1 1/2 Cups of Grape Nuts Cereal / Grape Nuts Flakes
3. 1/2 tsp baking powder
4. 3/4 cup melted butter (I used salted)
5. 1/2 tsp salt (if using unsalted butter)
6. 1 tsp vanilla
7. 1 cup raw sugar
8. 1 cup chopped nuts (I used roasted Pecans)
9. 1 cup chocolate chips - I used milk chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. If using grape nut flakes, crush them with your hands, if using grape nuts cereal and use a blender to get a coarse powder.
3. In a sauce pan melt the butter and set it aside to cool a little bit.
4. Whisk the eggs and keep them ready.
5. In a mixing bowl add the whole wheat flour, raw sugar, baking salt,powdered Grape Nuts cereal and whisk them together.
6. Add the vanilla and melted butter and mix it into the flour.
7. Add the chopped nuts and mix, add the whisked eggs and mix them all together to form a texture like wet sand.
8. Transfer mix to a greased 13 x 9 pan(I used a 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 pan)and spread the chocolate chips on top.
9. Bake in a preheated oven for 30 - 35 minutes. Cool and cut into desired sized shapes.

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