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dessert

Bread, Desserts, Fruit, Great Gift Ideas, Snack, Treats

Melissa’s Banana Bread – the best!

Melissa’s Banana Bread – the best banana bread!

I love banana bread. I’ve tried all sorts of recipes and have concluded that finding a great banana bread is hard to do. Sometimes they are too sweet and often they don’t pack a bold banana flavor. I lost my favorite banana bread recipe years ago and I’ve been looking for another one ever since.

Melissa’s Banana Bread is the best I’ve ever eaten. Sometimes the memory of a really great meal is not just the flavor of the food but is colored by where you were and the people you were with. You’ve had that experience of trying a recipe for the second time because it was so good the first time (and the meal or party was really fun) and it just didn’t taste the same, haven’t you?

The first time I had Melissa’s Banana Bread was aboard the 28’ Beneteau, Booty-Ful, in the Harvest Moon Regatta. This annual race is from Galveston to Port Aransas and takes about 24 hours to complete. We hit the start line perfectly at 2pm. Tom, the captain, put Booty-Ful on a broad reach about a mile off the Texas coast. Just after dark the wind picked up unexpectedly so we sailed into the evening with eight foot waves crashing over the boat. Booty-Ful held her course but with the tossing and crashing of the waves, no one wanted the dinner I had prepared. Instead, we dined on Melissa’s Banana Bread because it was a perfect balance of sweet banana while being easy on the stomach. See the Harvest Moon Regatta – the Voyage of the Booty-Ful for more.

I asked for the recipe, made it, and found that it was as good as I remembered, even without the saltwater and the excitement. I tried making the recipe three ways: according to Melissa’s recipe, adding a few tablespoons of banana liquor and with fried plantains. The recipe really did not need the extras. Melissa’s Banana Bread is perfect just as is.

Tip: Grill or toast it for breakfast.

Melissa’s Banana Bread – the Best Banana Bread Ever

Ingredients:

2 ½ c all purpose flour

1 tsp salt – I use Morton’s Kosher salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 c coconut oil

1¾ c sugar

2 c bananas, very ripe, mashed – about 6

4 eggs, slightly beaten

1 c chopped pecans, coarsely chopped

Utensils:

2 medium loaf pans, measuring cups, measuring spoons, one small bowl, two medium bowls, a fork, a wooden spoon, and a toothpick or skewer.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease and flour two medium loaf pans.

Mash the bananas with your fork in the small bowl. Beat the eggs together in a medium bowl just until the white and yolks are blended. Stir in the coconut oil, sugar, mashed bananas and pecans. Mix all the remaining dry ingredients together in a bowl with a spoon. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until the batter is just blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pans and bake for

55-60 minutes. Insert the skewer into the loaf. If the skewer comes out clean, your banana bread is done.

Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 5 minutes then turn the bread out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.

November 24, 2015 by Bowman O' Connor

Desserts, Fruit

Lemon Curd

Lemon curd is so simple and delicious that I make it all the time. There is something about the balance of tart with sweet that perks up your taste buds. And I’ve just finished making limoncello so I have lemons on my mind.

You can use lemon curd over fruit or put fruit over lemon curd depending on which you prefer. Lemon curd is my secret for making a lemon meringue pie quickly. You can spoon lemon curd over ice cream, dip gingersnaps into it … the list goes on and on.

If you want something a little different, use limes or Meyer lemons. Lime curd with blueberries is wonderful.

Lemon Curd

10 minutes, makes 1 cup

Ingredients:

2 large lemons, zested and juiced

4T butter

1/2c sugar

2 large eggs + 1 egg yolk, well beaten

Utensils:

1 medium size saucepan, a measuring cup, a wooden spoon, a bowl

Method:

Melt the butter over low heat . Add the sugar, lemon juice and zest. Slowly add the egg mixture, stirring gently so the egg does not scramble. Continue to heat and stir gently until the curd covers the back of the spoon. Take the saucepan off the heat, pour the lemon curd into a bowl and leave to cool and thicken.

After cooling, place a piece of wax paper on the surface of the curd and store it in the refrigerator.

If you have a little scrambled egg in your curd from heating it too quickly, just strain the curd through a sieve.

October 30, 2015 by Bowman O' Connor

Desserts, Fruit, Ice Cream

Fig and Cognac Ice Cream

It’s still close to 100 degrees during the day. I write that as if the weather dictates when to eat luscious, cold, creamy ice cream but the heat does make me start thinking about creating something cool and refreshing with summer’s bounty.

This fig and cognac ice cream blends a few of my favorite things: figs, cream, cognac. The result is a quick-to-make elegant treat.

If you have never tried a fresh fig, you are in for a treat. Go out and buy a couple of pounds of black mission figs and get ready for several great fig recipes over the next few days!

Be careful when you are picking or buying figs: they do not ripen further after you pick them. Look for the slightly soft or even slightly oozing ones.

At home, I have two fig bushes – one in the ground and one in a pot. I have waited patiently for 3 years for enough figs to cook with. Once again, neither has produced many figs. The squirrels are almost as disappointed as I am.

However, I found two pounds of perfectly ripe black mission figs at the store and my daughter lent me her ice cream maker. (Sharing some cooking tools really helps when your space is limited!) I once had figs in Armagnac (the liquor, not the province)– and want to reproduce the rich flavor in an ice cream.

Most homemade ice creams need to be eaten very soon after making them. Not this fig and cognac ice cream – it still tastes great a few days later.

Fig and Cognac Ice Cream

Ingredients

2lbs black mission figs, stemmed and cut into small pieces

1c sugar

1/4c water

zest of one lemon

2t lemon juice

3T cognac or brandy

1c heavy cream

balsamic vinegar – a drizzle (optional)

Utensils

Ice cream maker, a blender or food processor, a 12” to 14” skillet (non reactive), measuring spoons, measuring cup, and a sturdy spatula.

Method

Put the figs, water, sugar and lemon zest into the skillet and bring to a boil on medium high heat. Stir it gently as it bubbles. When you can scrape your spatula along the bottom of the pan and the liquid does not rush to cover the bare spot, pour in the cognac and cook for a minute longer. Remove the pan from the heat and allow it to cool to room temperature.

When cooled, pour the fig mixture, lemon juice and heavy cream into your blender and puree. Taste to check that the sweet/tart balance is right.

Pour into the ice cream maker and follow the ice cream maker’s directions.

Be adventurous and add a drizzle of balsamic vinegar when you serve it. A friend of mine at My Gluten Free Friend suggested this and it is wonderful.

Adapted from David Lebovitz The Perfect Scoop.

September 21, 2015 by Bowman O' Connor

Desserts

Fruit Trifle

After a long early morning bike ride, while we were catching our breath in a coffee shop and chatting, my good friend Alanna mentioned she was having 12 friends over for dinner and still needed a dessert that would not require a long bike ride to be guilt-free. We were too tired to start messing up her clean kitchen by flinging pots and pans around and cooking something. Besides, she is one of those marvelously organized people who has her table set, her meal organized and the kitchen clean the night before.

We came up with a brilliant idea that is also easy: a fruit trifle. This version has no custard so it’s really quick to make. Alanna went to the store and bought an angel food cake, lots of beautiful berries and a little heavy cream. I dashed home and made the citrus syrup from my North African Orange Cake recipe.

Alanna brought out a beautiful glass trifle bowl that we created the trifle in, though any glass bowl or even individual ramekins would work. It only took a couple of minutes, and, as my fiddler friend says, viola! A great looking and great tasting dessert – hardly a trifle!

Fruit Trifle

Ingredients

The amounts depend on the size of your serving bowl.

1 store bought angel food cake

3 pints of hulled strawberries (about 1½ pounds) and enough cut in half to ring your bowl and the rest roughly chopped

3 dry pints of blueberries

1 dry pint of blackberries

1 dry pint of raspberries

1 pint of heavy cream

2T Grand Marnier or other orange flavored liquor

3T white sugar

Citrus syrup

juice of 1 orange

juice of 1 lemon

1/3c sugar

2T Grand Marnier or other orange liquor

2 cloves

1 cinnamon stick (or ½ tsp cinnamon powder)

Utensils

Glass bowl, measuring spoons, measuring cup

Method

Make the syrup first by mixing all the ingredients together in a small saucepan and simmer for 2 minutes. Set aside to cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients for use.

Cut the angel food cake into 1 inch layers saving 3 layers for the trifle and using the rest to fill the center hole. To start to assembly the fruit trifle, place the first layer of cake in the bottom of the bowl, fill the center with pieces of cake then brushed the top of the cake generously with the citrus syrup. On top of this add a layer strawberries, with half cut ones pressed against the outside of the bowl to look beautiful, and the roughly chopped ones filling the inside. Brush the orange syrup over the strawberries and then add another layer of cake, orange syrup and then a layer of blueberries, building the layers. You get the idea.

The final layer at the top of the bowl is raspberries on the outside, with a ring of blueberries and blackberries inside.

Allow the fruit trifle to sit to soak in all those great flavors for 30 minutes up to a few hours.

Whip the heavy cream till it starts to thicken, adding the sugar slowly, then the Grand Marnier. Whip until soft peaks form. You can do this several hours ahead and store, covered, in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

To serve pile a good dollop of the whipped cream into the center of the trifle and put the rest in a serving bowl with a spoon for your guests to add a bit more on their fruit trifle as they choose. Continue Reading

July 28, 2015 by Bowman O' Connor