If you are like us, you have tons of bananas on your kitchen counter top. Maybe you have one of those nifty banana hangers, but you still have lots of bananas. What can you do with tons of bananas (well, 3)? Make banana bread! Especially if you go to the store and buy more bananas because you think you are out, only to come home and see that there are five, hanging right there and looking at you all accusatory-like.

What then? Well, you wait for three of them to get all dark and past their prime, and then you laugh wickedly as you mash them up in a little bowl. Ma-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Victory is mine!

Er, okay then. The topping for this bread is inspired by my favorite scone at Bakery Bar — the fennel seed and raisin scone. If you don’t like fennel seeds, you should probably not use them here…

This is a pretty standard banana bread recipe. I typically replace the oil with apple sauce when I make any quick breads. If you are not into that sort of thing, just use the same amount of vegetable or canola oil for the apple sauce listed below.

Banana Bread with a Brown Sugar & Fennel Crust
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup apple sauce
3 bananas, very ripe, mashed
2 tbsp sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup walnuts
2 tbsp golden raisins
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp fennel seeds
Non-stick canola oil spray

Set oven to 350 degrees and spray a loaf pan with no-stick spray. In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar and fennel seeds. Set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Beat sugar and eggs with a mixer until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.

Add apple sauce, mashed bananas, sour cream and vanilla. Mix until combined.

Fold in dry ingredients and nuts. Pour into your loaf pan and sprinkle with the raisins.

Top with the brown sugar and fennel mixture and give the top a quick spray with canola oil.

Bake for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Check after 45 minutes. Use a toothpick or knife. You want it to come out fairly clean. If not, back in for a few more minutes. Mine ending up baking for about 55 minutes. You will be greatly tempted not to, but let it cool about 30 minutes before slicing.

So, you might notice that some of the raisins got all dark. The first time this happened to me I was all sad, thinking I had burnt the raisins. Well, don’t worry! Even though they get a little toasty, they taste just fine!

I came across a recipe by Michael Chiarello for white bean waffles a while ago and was very intrigued. So much so that I completely changed the recipe to be black bean waffles. Recently I had some time, a can of black beans and a waffle maker. Here’s what happened…

Black Bean Waffles
For the beans:
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 dash tabasco
1 handful fresh cilantro
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the waffles:
1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 eggs
1 cups milk
3 tbsp olive oil

Preheat your waffle device of choice. In a small pot combine the beans, chili powder, cumin, tabasco, and chicken stock. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer for about 5 minutes over medium-high heat. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Meanwhile in a large mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and teaspoon salt.

Add the beans, their cooking liquid and the cilantro to a food processor and pulse to puree. Add the eggs, milk, and olive oil to the bean mixture and puree until smooth. Whisk the wet mixture into the dry slowly to avoid any lumps. Let the batter rest briefly and griddle the waffles according manufacturer’s instructions.

Now, what can you do with these little snacks? Well, the first night we had a couple of wedges on the side with some grilled turkey breast tenders. Very good.

The next day (a Saturday), two waffle wedges each were re-toasted, stacked with spinach leaves, avocado, poached eggs, cheddar cheese and salsa and served as a kind of faux, mexican eggs benedict. I completely recommend this option.

To poach an egg quite easily –

1. Fill a large skillet with a few inches of water. Add about a teaspoon of vinegar and some salt. Put on a lid and bring to a boil.

2. Crack your eggs into ramekins.

3. When the water is boiling, gently pour each egg from the ramekin into the water.

4. Turn off the heat, replace the lid and poach for 2.5 - 4 minutes, depending if you like runny yolks or not. I did about 2.5 - 3 minutes for medium runny yolks.

5. Scoop eggs out with a slotted spoon, briefly draining on a towel-covered saucer if you want. This can get tricky, though, as you still have to lift the poached eggs from the towel to the plate.

Stack everything together and you have a wonderful morning treat. Top with chopped cilantro and green onions if you have any.

Keep the rest of the waffles in the fridge and heat up in a toaster for a quick snack.

This is the second recipe that I’ve made out of Nigella Express and I have to admit, for a book I probably wouldn’t have just gotten on my own, it’s track record is pretty good.

I changed recipe a bit using 2% milk instead of full-fat milk and also adding some leftover, sauteed spinach and tomato. The original recipe was just ham and cheese, which is good, but honestly, I really need some vegetables in my brunch meals. But, that just might be me.

I used sourdough instead of multi-grain bread and dill Harvarti instead of Gruyere cheese because that’s also how I roll. This will feed at least 4 people, maybe 6 if you add a fruit salad and other brunch items.

Croque Monsieur Bake
Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson
6 slices sourdough or multi-grain bread
1/3 cup Dijon Mustard
3 thick slices dill Harvarti cheese (or 6 thin slices) alternately, use Gruyere cheese slices
3 slices ham
6 eggs
1 tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup 2% milk
4 tbsp grated Gruyere, Dill Havarti or Parmesan cheese
6 slices tomato
1/3 cup sauteed spinach
sprinkle of Worcestershire sauce

Spread the mustard on the bread slices and proceed to put together 3 sandwiches with the cheese slices, ham, spinach and tomato. Cut each sandwich in half, diagonally, so that you have 6 halves.

Squish the sandwiches into a baking dish that is approximately 10.5 X 8.25 inches and 2.25 inches deep. Next, beat together the eggs, salt and milk. I had about 2 tablespoons of cottage cheese in the fridge that I needed to use, so I threw that in here too. I also added the Worcestershire sauce to the egg mixture because I wasn’t really paying attention to the directions. Woo!

Pour the egg mixture over the sandwiches halves and cover with plastic wrap. Leave in the fridge overnight. It’ll soak up a lot of the liquid. The next morning, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and sprinkle the grated cheese over the bread.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until the top is golden. I found that after 30 minutes, mine was mostly all done but still a little runny in the middle. I found that slicing and plating a piece and then popping it in the microwave for 1 minute, completely finished cooking any remaining egg and still kept the top all crunchy. Excellent!

This might be my most favorite Brussels sprout recipe of all time. I made this on Friday night to go with some fish (oven roasted cod) and we decided to make more for Sunday night’s dinner. Brussels sprouts haters would probably even like this! It looks like a tasty little salad on the plate. Who doesn’t like a tasty little salad?

This will make enough for two people — double the recipe as needed. The only thing is that the original recipe said to discard the cores, which made me a little sad. I also found that getting the little leaves off was kind of a pain after a while. I may try this next with pulling off some of the big leaves at first and then shredding most of the sprout to use as much of each sprout as possible. The sprouts I used were on the small size — logistically-speaking, this recipe might work best with big sprouts if you want to just use the leaves.

Brussels Sprouts with Lemon & Pistachios
Adapted from Bon Appétit magazine
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp minced shallot
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 lb brussels sprouts, trimmed, leaves separated from cores
1/4 cup shelled pistachios (after shelling, I put mine in a baggie and broke them up a bit)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallot and garlic and stir 20 seconds.

Add Brussels sprout leaves and pistachios, and sauté until leaves begin to soften but are still bright green, about 3 minutes. Drizzle lemon juice over.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl and serve.

***

Saturday morning, I was trying to decide what to make myself for breakfast (jwa was going on a jog) and I remembered this mini omelet-maker that my mom got me as a stocking stuffer. What the hell, I thought, I’ll give it a try. I gave it a quick spray with non-stick stuff, sauteed a diced yellow bell pepper and a few chopped broccoli florets and beat up two eggs with a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper.

Added the egg and a little cheese (Tillamook roasted garlic cheddar) to the pan.

Covered it. Cooked a couple of minutes. Flipped it over and cooked that side for a couple of minutes. Opened it up and –

voila! Breakfast! Along with some blood orange segments, it was quite delicious.

You know, I probably wouldn’t have bought it for myself, but it worked really well. I’m sure I’ll get a lot more use out of it with many more tasty omelets on the days when jwa is out jogging or um, sleeping in.

The original recipe called for vanilla soy milk. We didn’t have any so I used fat-free milk plus some vanilla and a bit of honey. I also messed up the ratio — I was doing a half recipe and I accidentally did not halve the whole wheat flour, which was actually no problem. The batter looked and worked just fine. In fact, if I had used the amount of flour that the recipe originally called for, I think the batter would have been too runny. So, the recipe below is exactly how I made my pancakes. Double the whole recipe to feed more than 2-3 people.

Taste-wise, I really enjoyed these. The ginger-peach green tea added just enough flavor in the background to make them interesting, while the texture was rather light and fluffy. These are, of course, healthy pancakes and you can kind of tell that while eating them. So, just, uh add a side of bacon and you’re in business. Oh! And fruit. Fresh fruit. See, healthy again!

Heart Healthy Oatmeal Green Tea Pancakes
Recipe adapted from one appearing in the Orlando Sentinel, which in turn was adapted from WomenHeart’s All Heart Family Cookbook: Featuring the 40 Foods Proven to Promote Heart Health by Kathy Kastan, Suzanne Banfield and the members of WomenHeart
3/4 cup fat free milk
1 flavored green tea bags or 1 tsp loose leaf tea — for this I used Stash ginger peach green which was very good (here’s the loose leaf version)
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp canola oil
1 egg
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Bring the milk and honey to a light simmer (you do not want it to actually boil at all) on medium heat.

Remove from heat and add the tea bag or the loose leaf tea in an infuser. Let steep 3 minutes. It will smell very good. You will be tempted to drink some but don’t — you need the green tea milk for the pancakes! Discard tea bag or remove infuser. Press on tea to get all of the milk out.

Add the vanilla and stir. Cool the tea/milk mixture to room temperature. Stir the infused milk into the oats and let stand 15 minutes.

Whisk together the buttermilk, oil and eggs. Stir in the oatmeal mixture, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Coat skillet with nonstick cooking spray. Place on medium-high heat. Drop batter by 1/4 cups onto the griddle. Cook 2 minutes, or until bubbles appear on the top and the edges begin to look dry. Turn and cook 1-2 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Serve with maple syrup and fresh fruit. Or, as mentioned earlier, bacon.

This makes a great weekend breakfast and will definitely give you enough energy to trudge all over Mt Tabor Park for a nice, if a bit chilly, 2.5 mile walk.

Matisse & Jacks Bake at Home Energy bars

A cool thing about having a food blog is that every so often people offer to send me stuff to try and write about. This is what happened here — energy bars. Or, in my case, breakfast bars and healthy cookies.

Matisse and Jacks Bake at Home Energy Bars are mixes that you mix together with yogurt and apple sauce (there are other suggested add-ins and recipes on the box). After agreeing to try the Trailblaze Baking Mixes, I was very promptly sent two boxes — the Cranberry Walnut and Chocolate Chip. First up, the chocolate chip.

For these, rather than bake as bars, I chose to follow the recipe on the box for cookies. This entailed adding a couple of eggs, apple sauce, butter, brown sugar and vanilla. When first mixed up, I thought the batter seemed a bit loose, but I let it sit for a minute or two and it was fine. My guess is that there are a lot of grains and grain-like ingredients in there that need to absorb the wet items.

Baked ‘em up and they were all (about 16 cookies) gone within a day and a half. Now, if you go into it expecting a chocolate chip cookie, you’ll be disappointed. They are of course, “healthy” cookies. But, if you go into it expecting a healthy snack — you will love them. At least we did, you might be weird.

A couple of days later I baked up the cranberry-walnut bars for breakfast bars. These did not move quite as fast as the cookies but were still gone within a few days. I thought they were pretty flavorful and good and made for a quick and tasty breakfast.

If you are in California, you can probably find these in a grocery store. Lucky. If not, you can get them online.

Next week there will be more posts…

I love these muffins — for they helped me use up some zucchini and the pepper and parmesan is a nice change from the typical zucchini bread spices. Also, sliced in half with a sausage patty in between makes a great breakfast!

You could also easily turn this into zucchini bread, just start checking on it’s doneness after about 35 minutes or so. If I had to guess, I’d say 45 minutes for bread.

Zucchini Basil Muffins
Adapted from Gourmet Magazine
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp double-acting baking powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp vegetable shortening, softened
1 tbsp sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk (add more if it doesn’t seem moist enough — I think I used somewhere between 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup)
1 1/4 cup coarsely grated, well-scrubbed and drained well zucchini (about 2 medium)
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp + 2 tsp Parmesan cheese

In a small bowl whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, 2 tablespoons of cheese and the pepper.

In a bowl cream together the shortening and the sugar, beat in the egg and the buttermilk, beating until the mixture is combined well. Then, stir in the zucchini and the basil. I find it helpful to drain the zucchini before adding to the mix by gathering it in a tea towel and squeezing, squeezing and squeezing.

Add the flour mixture to the zucchini mixture, stir the batter until it is just combined, and divide it among your buttered (or canola oil sprayed) muffin cups. Sprinkle a little of the remaining cheese on the top of each muffin and hit it with a little oil spray.

Bake the muffins in the middle of a preheated 400 degree F oven for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean, turn the muffins out onto a rack, and let them cool.

As mentioned earlier, for a tasty breakfast sandwich, halve the muffins horizontally, spread one of the cut sides with a little Dijon mustard, and add a cooked and browned vegetarian sausage patty. Maybe even throw on a few leaves of spinach. Go crazy.

For Easter this year, instead of making a brunch at home, jwa and I headed off to Heceta Head Lighthouse, on the coast between Yachats and Florence. Okay, we actually headed there Saturday as it’s a 3+ hour drive and that’s pretty far to drive all in one day — even for a seven-course brunch.

I’m not saying we wouldn’t do that, just that it would be far.

We stayed at the Ocean Cove Inn in Yachats that first night (Perpetua Room, no two night minimum, good price and it was sufficiently cute) and went to the Drift Inn for a huuuuge dinner of nachos, fish, key lime pie and beer. The nachos, beer and key lime pie were all awesome, the fish, sadly, was not. *sigh* Lying people on tripadvisor.com! You bastards! It did, however, remind both jwa and I of Flagstaff. Must have been the hippie waitress. Not to be confused with the more-prevalent-in-Portland, hip, indie waitress.

Anyway, the real reason for this post — The Lighthouse and the Never-Ending Brunch of Easter Awesomeness.

Coming up the trail from the beach…the house.

So, so good. Two hours of good. Geez. Where to start? Fruit. Salmon. Blueberry frappe. Strata-frittata thing. Chicken apple sausage. Apple strudel. Cheese and fruit. A bathroom full of ladybugs.

Oregon Pinot Gris Cocktail
Fresh strawberries, honeydew, Asian pear and watermelon infused with an Oregon Pinot Gris syrup, topped with marscapone cheese and candied roasted hazelnuts. This was served with some Heceta Bright Bread– zucchinis, cranberries, apricots and candied ginger baked together in a firm yet cheerfully crumbly treat.

Oregon Lox & Bagels
with shaved onion. English cucumber, daikon and baby dill.

Oregon Blueberry Citrus and White Chocolate Frappe — A very nice palate cleanser after the fish.

Heceta Head Strata
Garnet yams, caramelized onion, fresh garden sage and Juniper Grove Thor smoked chevre. Served with Taylor’s Chicken Apple & Cherry sausage.

The sausages were so good, I had to take a picture of them too!

Grandma Marie’s Apple Strudel
Served warm with fresh whipped cream. Unfortunately, I could not finish my strudel. It was very good, though. jwa finished his without hesitation.

And last, we have: Melon & Apple Jazz
Lavender Farmers cheese from Juniper Grove Farm. Yeah. I made a little room for the cheese!

After brunch, we hiked up the trail to the lighthouse and took a tour. It’s a very cute and squat lighthouse, with less than 108 stairs.

Looking up into the lighthouse light.

Looking at the ocean from the lighthouse bluff.

Highway 101 bridge as seen from the beach.

After brunch and the lighthouse exploring, we made our way up the coast and back home, choosing to cut over at Tillamook. It was rainy most of the way back but still a very pleasant drive. Oh and the lighthouse is one of the places we are considering for Wedding 08. The food would be amazing, that’s for sure…

Strangely, the bathroom upstairs had about 10 ladybugs on the ceiling. Just hanging out. Wandering about. Being ladybugs and such. Not at all icky, though. I like ladybugs. They’re cute!

Recently, jwa sent me this link to an article on Super Foods That Everyone Needs. In case you don’t feel like clicking, here they are:

* Beans
* Blueberries
* Broccoli
* Oats
* Oranges
* Pumpkin
* Salmon
* Soy
* Spinach
* Tea (green or black)
* Tomatoes
* Turkey
* Walnuts
* Yogurt

I’m happy to say that we currently eat all of those foods, a lot of them fairly often. But, because it is a New Year and because this is the kind of thing I like to do, I’ve decided to make at least one recipe that uses at least two of the super foods and post about it each Friday. Thus, Super Food Friday is born.

This first installment is for a meal that, unless it’s a big, fancy, weekend brunch, I really don’t give much thought to — breakfast. I normally grab a cereal bar and go to work. Not horrible but not the best breakfast either. Then I came across this recipe. It’s based on one by Michael Chiarello, but I’ve changed the dry fruit to be mostly all blueberries, swapped almonds for walnuts and knocked out a lot of the butter.

The original called for 1/3 of a cup — I used only 1 1/2 tablespoons and added four tablespoons apple sauce for the remainder of the butter. I think that it even turned out better this way, as a lot of the comments at Food Network called the original bars a bit crumbly and a little dry. Not a problem for me — mine were very moist. Hooray for apple sauce.

So, give this a try. It makes a great, quick breakfast and it’s very, very good for you. Another Super Food Friday post coming next week.

Blueberry-Oat Breakfast Bars
1/2 cup walnuts
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup dried blueberries
1/3 cup dried mangoes, apricots, golden raisins, or other dried fruit of your choice
1 1/2 tbsp butter
4 tbsp apple sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup golden molasses
zest of 1 orange
1 egg
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup nonfat dry milk
1/4 cup toasted wheat germ
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup fat free milk
Non-stick spray

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Place oats and walnuts on a baking sheet. Toast in oven for 10 minutes. Set aside. Turn the oven to 325 degrees.

Place the dried fruit, oats, and walnuts in a food processor. Pulse about 10 times until coarsely chopped. Set aside.

In the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer fitted with a paddle, beat the butter, apple sauce, orange zest, brown sugar, molasses and egg until well combined.

In a separate bowl, combine both flours, dry milk, wheat germ, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, and salt. Add to the wet mixture. Give it a few turns with the paddle. Next, add the milk and mix a bit. Finally, add dried fruit mixture and mix it all up until just combined.

Spray a 13 by 9 by 2-inch baking pan with non-stick spray. Pour in the batter and spread evenly. Bake for about 30 minutes, until set. Cool in the pan. Cut into bars.

To store, wrap bars individually in plastic wrap. Will keep for about 1 week. For longer storage, freeze for up to 3 months.

Super foods used: blueberries, walnuts and oats (I’m not going to count the orange as it was only zest).

Disclaimer: Super Food Fridays WILL be disrupted by Sugar High Fridays. That’s just the way that goes…

This recipe is from the cookbook, Polenta by Brigit Legere Binns. I’ve had it for about five years and just happened to pick it up the other morning (thinking, “Oh, wow — I forgot I had this!”) and saw this recipe. It was one of those things where, as I read the ingredients, I mentally checked off if we had each one, because I knew I wanted to make it right then and there. Luckily, we had everything on hand.

It seems that other times that I tried to grill or pan fry polenta I’ve had problems. I tried it a number of years ago with some of that polenta-in-a-tube and just wound up with oil soaked circles of corn meal. This experience was much different. Making your own polenta is the key. I’ve been making polenta lately as a side dish, but more as the creamy, soft variety. This was the first time I’d tried chilling it, cutting it and frying it. It worked beautifully. Think crunchy, sweet porridge squares with maple syrup.

Cinnamon & Raisin Polenta with Maple Syrup
2 cups milk (fat-free works fine)
1 cup water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1 cup polenta or coarsely ground corn meal
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup toasted pecans or walnuts
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp canola or vegetable oil
1 tsp sugar
maple syrup
1 peach or fruit of your choice, sliced

In a medium-sized sauce pan, combine the milk, water, salt and two teaspoons of the sugar. Bring to a boil. Sprinkle in the polenta slowly, whisking as you go, until all the grains have been incorporated and there are no lumps.

Reduce the heat to low. Stir with a wooden spoon every couple of minutes, for 15-20 minutes or until the mixture starts to come away from the pan and the grains soften. Stir in the raisins, pecans and cinnamon.

Rinse a square baking pan (the size you would use for brownies) in cold water and shake it dry. Mound the hot polenta into the pan and use a spatula dipped in hot water to spread the polenta out evenly. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Cut the polenta into six squares and sprinkle the top with 1/2 a teaspoon with sugar.

Heat the butter and oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Add the polenta slices (sugared side down) and fry about 4 minutes, until golden. Sprinkle the other sides with sugar and flip. and cook on the second side 3-4 minutes.

If you need to fry the polenta batches, keep the first batch warm in a 200 degree oven. Meanwhile, heat up your syrup and get your fruit ready.

Serve the warm polenta squares with maple syrup and your fruit slices of choice. We used a peach but I imagine apple, pear, figs, or bananas would be great here too.

Coming this week: A salute to honey with rosemary-honey creme brulee and honey and lemon glazed carrots and turnips. Also, lamb & feta sandwiches with spinach and minted mayonnaise.

Wickedly Sunny & Fun
We saw Wicked, Sunday at Keller Auditorium. I really liked it. We were in the very last row but that was okay — at least we got seats and we could see the stage clearly.

Me on the way to Wicked.

It was a really nice out so we parked the car on the east side of the Hawthorne Bridge (down by OMSI) and walked across and over to Clay & 3rd. Blue skies, sunny not too warm — a perfect Portland day!

I remember reading the book right after grad school, while I was moving to Arizona in 1995. Now, after seeing the musical today, I want to re-read the book. I think I will go look for it tonight. It’s on one of the bookshelves, somewhere. Hmmmmm….