For the Love of Food

Banana Bread

2009-08-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

I hate throwing away old bananas when they are too ripe to eat. Everyone knows what you do with old bananas: you make banana bread. But I don't always have time, and I haven't found a recipe that I really like. This last Sunday, that may have changed. I was looking through my many cookbooks and I found a simple, few ingredient, banana bread recipe that is flavored entirely by bananas, not spices. Since I couldn't find the recipe online, here it is:

1 cup mashed ripe banana
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg white
1 large egg
1 3/4 all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; beat with a mixer until smooth.
3. Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add flour mixture to banana mixture, stirring just until moist. Pour batter into an 8x4-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray.
4. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on rack.

That's it. It was so good. I made this Sunday morning and by the afternoon, this is what was left:

Sunday Dinner: Filet Mignon, Parmesan Orzo, and Chive Green Beans

2009-08-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

It isn't very often that I try an entire meal, but Sunday meals seem suited to this task, since I have more time than usual. Another reason I don't usually make entire meals (especially with all new recipes) is that I struggle to be able to know when to start all the dishes in order to finish in time. Luckily, last night's recipes all started at different times and ended right at the same time.

What did we have? Peppercorn-crusted Filet Mignon with Port Jus, Creamy Parmesan Orzo, and Chive Green Beans. You can find the recipes by clicking on the respective names.

When I cook, I like to, if possible, prepare all the ingredients beforehand and then just add them as needed into the recipe. So, I was able to do that with the meal last night.

I started with the parmesan orzo. Orzo is rice shaped pasta. I've never cooked it before. Luckily, it cooks a lot like rice. It doesn't cook in water though. It cooks in a broth that adds a lot of flavor. While that was cooking, I started on the steak.

There are a few different loin cuts in the grocery store. The tenderloin highest quality cut is like 17 bucks a pound. If you cook it right the 4.49/lb cut tastes just fine. So that's what I got. Also, since I don't generally have port around the house, I substituted the port with orange juice and a teaspoon of vanilla. The Cooking Light book I have says this is an appropriate substitution.

Finally, the green beans. I have never been able to find chives in the grocery store, so I just used green onions and chopped them up fine.

If you clicked on the recipes above, you already know what it is supposed to look like. Here is what it looked like on our plates:

Ice Cream Experiments

2009-08-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

Recently, I decided to break out the ice cream maker that Aubrey and I got for out wedding last year. We've had it for an entire year and we hadn't used it yet. Since I am on a short 2 week break from school, I decided to give ice cream making a try.

Our ice cream maker is electric, not hand crank. I'm not insane. So I wanted to try a couple different ice creams/frozen desserts. The first one I tried is Strawberry-Buttermilk Gelato. The recipe can be found here. I decided to try this one first because it only has 4 ingredients. Water, sugar, buttermilk, and strawberries. I thought it would be a good place to start. It is a straightforward recipe. Bring sugar and water to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar, let cool, add buttermilk and pureed strawberries and put it in the ice cream maker for 40 minutes. It is awesome. Very good. Nothing to it and no surprises.

Next, we had a watermelon on our counter. I thought to myself that watermelon ice cream sounds really good. I searched the internet and found this recipe from Emiril Lagasse. I figured a recipe from such a famous cook has to be good, right? Yes, I decided, and continued on. Also a very straightforward recipe that only has 4 ingredients. Those that clicked on the recipe will be quick to notice that the recipe in fact has 5 ingredients. Well, I decided not to include the chocolate in my batch. I cut up the watermelon and put the cream and sugar in the saucepan and got the 8 yolks in a measuring cup all whisked and ready to go. Then I run into a term that I don't know what it means: temper. It said to temper the egg. I thought that just meant to add slowly. No, that's not what it means. So I added the egg slowly to the hot cream mixture and the eggs scrambled in the cream. Kind of disgusting. (Tempering means to bring the temperature of the egg yolks up slowly as to avoid scrambling; you do this by adding a spoonful of the cream at a time, until the yolks are up to the temperature of the cream; it would have been helpful to know this before.) So I figured that the yolks were just there for the fat in them, to help hold together the ice cream and make it creamy or something. So I poured the mixture on top of the watermelon, scrambled yolks and all, and then blended it all together. I couldn't notice anything of note when blending was done so I put it in the ice cream can and let the ice cream maker go. After freezing the ice cream it is not how I wanted it to be. It tastes delicious, but it is kind of grainy, and falls apart, not much like ice cream, but it tastes like ice cream. My wife loves it, and others that have tried it think it is delicious, but I want the ice cream to be creamy, as it is supposed to be. I'll have to try again now that I know what tempering is. I recommend both recipes.

I am now a blogger.

2009-08-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

Because of the encouragement from my wife, I have decided to become a blogger. The primary purpose of this blog will be to talk about the different recipes I attempt to cook. I love to cook, and have tried a lot of new recipes recently, and continue to try new recipes, so I should have plenty to talk about. There may be a few posts here and there about politics, about what I am reading, about movies, or about law school (since I am a law student), but the main focus will be cooking and what I am experimenting with these days.

Now a little bit about my cooking philosophy. People often tell me, after tasting my food, that I am a great cook. My response will often be that I am not a great cook, I am merely very good at following directions. I would say my skill lies more in the picking of good recipes than actual cooking. I don't do much experimenting unless I have to (I may talk about my lemon-butter-dill sauce sometime). I figure someone else has gone through the trouble of putting together a recipe, there is probably a very good reason the recipe is how it is; therefore, I see no point in changing it. Maybe after some more experience I will feel comfortable enough to experiment more, but for now, I merely pick good recipes and follow the directions.

I am new at this, and haven't ever really written for an audience. Bear with me, and hopefully it will get better.