By Chance, Spiced Banana Bread with Cinnamon Crumble Topping

This banana bread happened by chance.  I was hungry for comfort.  I had gone to the market to make roast chicken and ended up with a bunch of bananas in my bag that did not belong to me.  I believe in things like that.  I took it to mean that I desperately needed banana-related baked goods in my immediate future.

As a general rule, I’m not good at anticipating banana bread.  You have to buy bananas and then get comfortable with them sitting quietly, turning into what look like intensely spotted yellow and brown giraffe necks.  I just can’t get relaxed about that sort of thing.  But I can get relaxed about eating banana bread.  So I let them ripen.  And then got to work.

This bread has since been slathered with warm memories.  I made it for a trip I took with some friends to the Adirondack Mountains.  On Saturday morning, we stood around the camp kitchen island and sliced off bits while we chatted and the coffee pot worked overtime.  As we reduced the bread to a mere nub, my mother flipped enough pumpkin pancakes to feed a forest of lumberjacks.  

We laughed a lot that weekend.  We tasted wine from a local winery called Montezuma, tried on fur hats, talked about hot cinnamon-sugared donuts, and visited quite possibly the most quintessential general store on the East Coast.

We also enjoyed our fair share of banana bread.  And so I’ve begun think of this recipe as living in the company of warm friends and brisk mornings.  It’s spiced with cardamom, ginger, and allspice and the crunchy cinnamon sugar crust just begs to be paired with a good cup of coffee and a companion or two.  It’s a fairly new recipe to me, but it already feels seasoned. It’s just that kind of bread.  The kind that makes you thankful for good friends and overripe bananas. 

Spiced Banana Bread with Cinnamon Crumble Topping

Adapted from Molly Wizenberg from Orangette

Ingredients:

The bread

1.5 cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cardamom (freshly ground if possible)

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 bananas)

2 large eggs

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup water

(Plus butter and additional flour for the loaf pan)

The topping

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2.5 tbsp packed dark brown sugar

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and flour a 9 x 5 loaf pan.  In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, spices, baking soda, and salt.  In a large bowl, combine the banana, eggs, oil, honey, and water.  Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and stir until combined.  Pour the batter into the buttered and floured loaf pan.

In a small bowl, mix the topping ingredients; sprinkle the topping on top of the batter.  Bake for about an hour or until a toothpick or cake tester comes about clean.  Cool the bread in its pan on a wire rack for 30 minutes and then remove the bread from the pan.  (Run a knife along the edges of the pan to loosen it; it may take some gentle coaxing and slight side tilting to remove the loaf, but you should be able to do it without losing much of the crumb topping.)  

Yield: 1 loaf

Notes:

-The cardamom really comes through in this loaf.  It's a nice change of pace from a standard banana bread and goes well with the crunchy cinnamon topping, but feel free to leave it off if you aren't keen on the spice.

-You may be inclined to forgo the topping, but it really makes the bread and moves it one step closer to coffee cake.  And this is a very, very good thing.

-This is a version of a version.  Molly Wizenberg attributes this recipe to Bakesale Betty and Bon Appétit.

Channel Your Inner Fancy: Eat Parker House Rolls

Black wide-framed sunglasses and buttery leather elbow gloves.  Maybe throw in a string of pearls.  Not the images you had in mind for dinner roll consumption?  These are not just any doughy dinner companion.  These are Parker House rolls.  And they just call for fancy.

The (now Omni) Parker House hotel here in Boston was first founded in 1855.  It is the oldest continuously running hotel in the States.  And it’s famous for its past regulars, including literary heavyweights like Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Longfellow and presidential chums like Grant, FDR, and JFK.  Jack proposed to Jackie there.  Arguably, their rolls make the hotel just as noteworthy.  

I am well aware that recipes for Parker House rolls are everywhere.  I recently stumbled across a recipe in a family heirloom: The White House Cookbook, published in 1894.  The cookbook has a stunning portrait of the “bride of the White House,” Frances Tolson Cleveland; glassware placement instructions for stately government dinner receptions; and a recipe for Parker House rolls. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the "one half cupful of fresh yeast," nor was I feeling adventurous enough to wing approximating a piece of butter “the size of an egg,” as the recipe suggested. Luckily, Harvard Common Press had graciously sent me the New England Home Cooking cookbook.  And it has a lovely recipe for Parker House rolls.  (Albeit, a recipe with a tad more butter.) Believe me, the extra is worth it.  It's an easy way to add a little luxury to your day.

I also added parsley bits and little flecks of sea salt on top of the rolls, which I borrowed from the John Dory restaurant in New York.  They serve a version of Parker House rolls that accompany a platter of raw shellfish.  Some may scoff that this recipe is not “traditional.”  I’m not certain that even the Parker House recipe published in The White House Cookbook in 1894 is traditional or that Harvey Parker himself would know the difference. 

What I do know is that these rolls are exquisite.  Buttery, luxurious, and absolutely worth making.  They may be a bit old school.  But they’re classic.  And they’ll make any occasion a little more special.  No playboy marriage proposals, presidential dinners, or soft leather gloves necessary.  

Parker House Rolls

Adapted from New England Home Cooking by Brooke Dojny

Ingredients:

1/4 ounce regular rise yeast ( 1 package)

1/4 cup hot tap water (about 110 degrees)

1.25 cups whole milk

1/4 cup sugar

11 tbsp unsalted butter, melted (plus additional for brushing rolls)

3-5 cups flour (or more as necessary)

1 egg yolk

2 tsp kosher salt

oil for greasing

2-3 tbsp fresh parsley, minced

a few pinches of fleur de sel (optional)

Instructions:

Combine yeast and hot water in a small bowl; set aside until yeast bubbles (about 10 minutes).  Combine milk, sugar, melted butter, 2 cups of flour, egg yolk, and salt in a large bowl (or the bowl of a kitchen aid with a dough hook attachment).  Add yeast mixture into bowl and stir well.  Add 1 cup more of flour and knead by hand or by dough hook (5 minutes by machine with the dough hook or about 10 minutes by hand).  The dough should get smooth and elastic; continue to add more flour until the dough is soft and workable (not sticky).  Transfer to a bowl greased with oil.  Cover and let rise until it doubles in size (about 1.5 hours).

Lightly oil 1-2 casserole dishes (depending on the size of your dishes)  Punch the dough down and divide into 2 pieces.  Take 1 piece and roll the dough out until it is about 3/4 inch thick on a lightly floured surface.  Using a 2-3" biscuit or cookie cutter (or the inside of a small glass or coffee cup, if necessary) cut out rounds of dough.  Take the sides of each round and pinch them together at the bottom, so that each round becomes slightly more circular and ball-like in shape (roll the dough a bit with your hands to smooth it out, as necessary).

Place the dough rounds on your greased casserole dishes no more than 1/2 inch apart.   Repeat with the second half of the dough.  Combine any remaining scraps and repeat again.  Brush the tops of the rolls with additional melted butter and top with parsley and fleur de sel, if desired. Cover loosely and let rise for about an hour.  

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Bake rolls until golden brown, about 20-30 minutes.  Transfer rolls to a wire rack to cool.

Makes about 20 rolls

Notes:

-These rolls freeze brilliantly after they have been cooked and cooled.  

-They are also so good that they'll be making an appearance at my Thanksgiving.  Move over mashed potatoes.  

-Parker House rolls are often folded in half before baking.  You can certainly do this if you wish.  I like my rolls straight up.

-Side note: one of my favorite things about the hotel is that it is supposedly haunted.

-Random aside: check out my work on the November/December issue of Talking Writing, an online literary magazine.

How to Avoid Being a Zombie with Wasabi Avocado Dressing

By all reasonable accounts I should be deathly ill by now.  I’ve been working a lot.  Which means I haven’t been sleeping a lot.  

So how am I not a straight up walking corpse? How am I still using coherent words (mostly) instead of simply grunting or moaning? Why am I still among the living?  I'm trying hard not to suggest that this dressing is behind it all.  I'm trying hard not to suggest that it might possess—what some might call—mythical properties.  I'm also pretty sure I heard somewhere that wasabi had antimicrobial properties.  But I digress.  The fact is, I've been eating it daily.  Okay, sometimes twice per day.

And I’ve been waking up every morning.  Primarily: alive.  Secondarily: not hacking up things. So it could very well be the dressing.  We can't rule anything out, that's all I'm saying.

Don’t get me wrong.  This dressing will not write a 15 page paper for you.  Nor will it pry cold pizza out of your hands at 1 am when you are eating your feelings. 

It's a take on green goddess dressing, it's just been a bit electrified.  In a refreshing way. It’s lovely with cucumbers or even as a spread on a salmon sandwich.  It also goads you to eat your vegetables.  And these are all good things on suboptimal sleep.  Your body needs the extra support.  It’s also a good thing if you seem to be developing a bit of a stress gut.  Hypothetically.  

So my spin on this dressing: while it may not transform you into feeling like a goddess, it may help you feel a little less like a zombie.  

Wasabi Avocado Dressing

Ingredients:

Juice of 1 lime

1 avocado

1-2 tbsp wasabi paste

2 scallions, roughly chopped

Handful of Italian parsley leaves (~1/2 cup)

1/2 cup greek yogurt (2%)

3-4 tbsp mayo

1-2 tbsp olive oil

2-4 anchovies, rinsed

splash of rice wine vinegar

Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth and creamy.  Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

Makes about 1.5 cups

Notes:

-I gave variable amounts because I've found salad dressings work best for me when I adjust things to taste.  I'm keeping it loose here.

-If you aren't really keen on the kick of wasabi start with 1 tbsp.

Pedaling in Sauteed Cabbage with Apples

The French have a way with words.  So how do you make spinning your wheels sound charming?  You say you are pedaling in sauerkraut. The French say: pédaler dans la choucroute. 

Last year I was shipping off to Paris around this time.  This year it’s not so much Paris as it is work, school, or—perhaps very soon—the looney bin.  Take your pick.  

Safe to say, impossibly chic French women need not apply here.  I’m knee deep in some pretty unglamorous funk at the moment.  But what I’m realizing is that we’re all up to *here* in it, so it’s best to just slap on some waders and trudge around in the muck. 

Thus, I decided to make use of some cabbage.  Because, well, pedaling around in sauerkraut made me hungry.  Except I didn’t feel like waiting for cabbage to ferment into sauerkraut.  Best not to let things fester, anyhow, when you have a short fuse.  So the cabbage got sautéed with some butter and apple slices and finished with apple cider vinegar and cognac.  (After all, a woman can’t live on pure brandy alone.)

It was just what I needed.  An uncomplicated fall dish, both tangy and sweet.  Quite comforting.  So you’ll likely find me at the market stocking up on heads of cabbage and trudging through the next few weeks.  Cabbage is a lot like life.  Sometimes it stinks.  Just add some brown sugar and brandy and make the best of it.

Sautéed Cabbage with Apples

~4 tbsp butter, divided

1 small white onion, thinly sliced

Kosher salt to season

1 apple, cut into thin strips

A pinch of grains of paradise, ground (alternatively, just use freshly ground black pepper)

1/2 head of cabbage, shredded or thinly sliced

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp brown sugar

Splash of cognac (or other brandy)

Heat a pan on medium heat and add about two tablespoons of butter.  Add onion slices, a sprinkling of salt, and saute onions until they are nearly translucent; stir in apple slices and grains of paradise (or pepper). Cook until apples soften and then add the cabbage and vinegar; season with salt and cook until the cabbage softens.  Add about 2 more tablespoons of butter, brown sugar, and brandy and cook a minute or two more.

Makes about 4 cups

Notes:

-The grains of paradise add a nice floral note, but don't let not having them derail you from making this dish.  You can easily just substitute black pepper.

The Best is Yet to Plum: A Rosemary Plum Tart Restart

Let me level with you.  Life currently is not so dreamy at the moment.  I’ve neither had my cake nor eaten it recently, should you want a food-related idiom.  In fact, if we’re using cake as an example here, you might say I was holding a big bowl of batter and dropped it.  My life batter has splattered everywhere. 

I’m still cleaning up the little bits from underneath cabinets and between small crevices.   So I don’t have a lot to say except that I'm staying away from recipes that contain batter at the moment.  No need to let my metaphorical life become a true kitchen disaster.  

I'm starting from scratch.   I'm going back to basics.  Back to plums.  And back to Ina Garten.  Her tart recipe was the first dessert I successfully made.  It's the kind of recipe that your cookbook opens up to because the pages have been creased and spread so many times.

The recipe is easy and it delivers every time, which is more than I can say about a lot of other aspects of my life at the moment.  I'm confident this won't always be the case.  And, while I love tarts, I do have more to live for.  I can only hope there will be even better recipes ahead.  You could say, the best is yet to plum.  

Rosemary Plum Tart

Adapted from Ina Garten

Ingredients: 

2 cups flour

3/4 cup walnuts, chopped

3/4 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed

3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, diced (1.5 sticks)

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp rosemary, minced

2 pounds ripe Italian prune plums, sliced

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine flour, walnuts, and brown sugar in a large bowl; add butter, egg yolk, and rosemary and mix by hand until the mixture comes together.  Press 3/4 of the mixture into the bottom of a 9" tart pan (or spring form pan).  Spread plum slices over the crumb mixture in circular pattern and sprinkle the remaining butter mixture over top.  Bake for 40-50 minutes until the tart is bubbling and slightly brown.  

Makes 1 tart

Notes:

-Lavender leaves also works quite nicely here, as well.  (If you know my blog, you know I love the stuff.)

-This tart is best eaten the day it's made.

-If Italian prune plums aren't available, regular run-of-the-mill plums work just fine too.

Olive Oil Chocolate Mousse and Birthday Reflections

I’m a groupie for birthdays. They punctuate another year passing.  A year, quite possibly, filled with trumpets and violins.  And to celebrate this cacophony that is life: you get to eat cake. Or cheesecake.  Or pudding, if that’s your thing.  Which is totally cool.  On your birthday you make the rules. 

As I tend to do around my birthday, I’ve been reflecting a bit.  And so I’ve compiled a list of things I’ve learned over the past year.  Also, I made chocolate olive oil mousse.  (There is no better accomplice for the procrastination of lists than chocolate.)  Two words: worth it. 

It’s rich, dense—yet also still fairly light, as mousses tend to be—and perfect with ... wait for it ... brandy.  “ Surely, this year has been more than chocolate and brandy?” you ask.  Right?  Crickets.  Fair enough.  

Regardless, please find my birthday reflections below.

-When you attempt to compile a list of what you've learned over the span of a year you may start to panic. (If this is the case, I urge you to breath.  Lists are stressful.)

-Just because you can freeze cake doesn’t mean you should.

-Life is short, wear the nice underwear.

-If you drink more than one manhattan, you will wake up looking like you had more than one manhattan.

-Sometimes love does hurt. 

-If you are having trouble sleeping, read Karl Marx (he's better than warm milk).

-Living in a studio apartment curtails sentimentality.  There just isn’t the space. Some tangible memories are bound to be jettisoned.  It's okay.

-Nothing good happens after 12 am.

-When in doubt, a little champagne never hurts.

-You can’t make people like you.  But you can will them to develop unruly sideburns and receding hairlines with abandon.

-Buy flowers more than you think you should.

-If it can’t be fixed with duct tape or a martini, it ain’t worth fixing. 

-When you are in a rotten, no-good mood, ask Billie Holliday to join you. 

-Impose no limits.  (Heaven knows, anything goes.)

-Take chances and lighten up about them.

-If you are feeling like life is just a little too much, remember: breath first.  Make chocolate mousse second.

Olive Oil Chocolate Mousse

Adapted from Tony Maws

Ingredients:

11 oz chocolate (70%)

9 egg, yolks and whites separated

3/4 cup sugar, divided

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup brandy

pinch of kosher salt

Instructions:

In the bowl of a kitchen stand mixer, whisk egg whites until they are frothy and then add in 1/4 cup sugar; keep whisking until medium peaks form.  Place egg white mixture into a large bowl.  

Chop the chocolate and melt over simmering water (in a double boiler), stirring occasionally.  While the chocolate is melting, add the yolks to the bowl of the kitchen stand mixer (it should no longer contain the egg whites at this point, but you don't need to wash it) and whisk with 1/2 cup sugar until the mixture becomes thick and pale yellow.  Once the chocolate is melted, slowly pour the chocolate into the egg yolk mixture, being careful that the yolks do not curdle.  Add in the olive oil, brandy, and salt.

Fold in the egg whites and, at this point, you may decide you are done.  I was a tad nervous about leaving raw eggs in my fridge for a few days, so I heated the mixture in a double boiler, over simmering water, stirring (by folding) until it reached 140 degrees.  (Caveat: the next day, I realized the USDA states egg dishes should be heated to 165 degrees.)  Pour into glasses and refrigerate 4 hours before serving.

Yields about 10 (1/2 cup) servings

Notes:

-I reduced this recipe and only made 1/3 of it.  The proportions worked out great and I didn't have too many leftovers to contend with.  For the recipe above, I figured I'd keep the original amounts, as "about 3 servings" is sort of an odd recipe yield.

-The mixture will look slightly runny when you pour it into your glasses, but it will set up and get fairly thick in the fridge.  

-I realize that heating the egg whites likely reduces some of their "poof" but, for me, I would do exactly the same thing the next time.  (Though, I might try adding a bit more olive oil, it didn't come through as much as I would have expected.  Despite this, I adored this mousse.)

Pasta Fazool: Now That's Amore

Here’s the rub.  A dairy farmer, vegetarian, hunger activist, nutritionist, and your mother are coming to visit.  So what’s for dinner?  The answer for yours truly: you look to your Italian American roots.  And you make pasta fazool. 

Also known as pasta e fagioli, though I prefer the vernacular I grew up with.  It’s what my mother made.  It’s what Dean Martin sings about. It's when the stars make you drool just like pasta fazool.  

This makes the dish sound fancy.  But ‘scus-a-me, it’s actually peasant dish: with pasta, beans, and tomatoes as the base. (Which should make the vegetarian, hunger activist, and nutritionist quite happy.)  A grate of pecorino over top satisfies the dairy farmer.  And, bada-bing bada-boom, everyone is bene.

It’s cheap and simple.  It’s morally responsible.  But, most importantly, it’s homey enough to satisfy mama. 

And in my family, mama made this often.  It was a staple growing up, especially when dinner was needed asap.  It was always welcomed, particularly when contrasted with the frozen fish sticks and chicken potpies that were supplemented when time was in extremely short supply. (The sight of Gorton the fisherman—in his yellow rain slicker—still sends shivers.)

This recipe is loosely based on my mother’s recipe, which was loosely based on my great grandmother’s recipe.  And so what lingers is an interpretation of a classic dish.  Feel free to adapt it as you see fit.  In the end, it should be—at its simplest— a dish filled with love.  Pasta love. 

Mine features homemade pasta and dried beans.  Your version may feature dried pasta and canned beans.  This does not matter.  What matters is that you put the passion in this dish.  Shoot for a moon-hitting-your-eye-like-a-big-pizza pie kind of love.  That’s pasta fazool.  That’s amore. 

Pasta Fazool

Ingredients:

~2-4 tbsp olive oil, divided

1 small onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

Kosher salt and pepper

28 oz can diced tomatoes

1 tsp red chili flakes

1 cup cooked fresh homemade linguine (or 2 oz dry linguine)

~1 cup fresh basil leaves (very loosely packed), gently torn

 2 cups cooked dried white beans (cannellini) or cranberry beans (borlotti) (or 2 cups canned)

Pecorino cheese, optional

Instructions:

Heat 1-2 tbsp olive oil in a large saute pan on medium heat.  Add onion, stir to coat in olive oil; cook until it begins to soften, about 3-4 minutes.  Add minced garlic, season with salt and pepper, and cook about 2 minutes more until garlic has very slightly browned and onions are slightly translucent.  Add tomatoes, red pepper flakes, a little more salt and pepper, and stir to combine; continue to cook on medium heat.

Meanwhile, boil the water for the pasta (unless you have some in reserve that you have already cooked).  Salt the pasta water and add the pasta once the water reaches a rolling boil.  Meanwhile, add half the basil to the tomato mixture.  Continue to cook the tomato mixture, turning down the heat if the sauce starts to spatter.  

Once the pasta is done, strain out the water (you may want to reserve 1/2 cup pasta water to add back to the sauce to help the pasta cling).  Add the beans, cooked pasta, and the rest of the basil to the saucepan with the tomato sauce and toss to combine.  Drizzle ~1 tbsp over the mixture and gently stir.  Taste and adjust for seasoning, if needed.  Top with sprinkle of pecorino cheese, if desired.

Makes ~6 cups

Notes:

-This recipe is super easy, makes great leftovers, and can be made in fewer than 30 minutes if you have all your ingredients ready to go. From college student to grandma, this dish can work wonders.

-My mom traditionally used white beans, however cranberry beans can occasionally be found at the farmers' markets here in Boston.  If this is the case, you can use fresh beans instead of dried.  (Unfortunately, fresh cranberry beans were nowhere to be found at the time of this recipe.)  While dried beans will take ~1 hour to cook after they've been soaked overnight, fresh beans take much less time after you shell them.  You can, of course, bypass all of this and simply get out your can opener.

-For my money, Muir Glen has the best canned tomatoes, but any dice will do you.

-The coup de grâce for the nutritionist: the vitamin C content of the tomatoes also makes the iron from the beans more easily absorbed.