Not Having a Kitchen is Making Me Go Bananas

On a whim I decided to go home last night. I was homeworkless, dying to be in a kitchen, and I had a ride, so why not? After pouring over bakerella.com and flipping through websites generated by stumbleupon.com, the "Recipes" folder in my bookmarks tab was being flooded and I needed to give one or two of my latest finds a go.

When I walked in the door 9 bananas were laying on the kitchen counter, all ripened to the point that they were destined for banana bread and nothing else. Just a couple days ago I had come across a recipe for banana bread that involved peanut butter, chocolate chips, and a crumbly topping that made the loaf look more like a coffee cake. The recipe came from a blog called "Oh Baby O," a pretty appropriate name when you take a look at this stuff. It's more like a dessert than a bread, but who's complaining?

Given the number of bananas I had to work with I tripled the recipe (and still managed to work in another batch that I'll show you later...), 2 medium loaves and 20 muffins. I actually made these into muffins purely because I ran out of loaf pans to hold batter, but they were an excellent way to share this awesome recipe with friends back at school :D

Anyway, the recipe is here: http://ohbabyo.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/chocolate-peanut-butter-banana-bread/ But of course, I made some changes... I tripled the recipe but I only used two cups of sugar total, 1 white and 1 light brown. I thought a bit of light brown would lend better to the flavor and give the bread a chewier and denser texture. You can actually cut quite a bit of sugar out of most recipes, sometimes I'm daring enough to take out half and you usually can't tell much of a difference! I also used half whole wheat flour. Because I <3 style="text-align: center;">

As mentioned before, I did make a fourth batch of banana bread, this one much different. I assumed my parents wouldn't be too keen on the peanut butter and chocolate hyped loafs I was planning on cranking out of the oven, so I turned to a tried and true recipe from Smitten Kitchen: http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/11/speckled-for-the-freckled/. Again I used half whole wheat flour just for good measure ;) and my father was more than happy to splash some bourbon in to accompany all of the spices. This makes a really good loaf of banana bread, a little less sweet, but my only complaint is that it tends to fall. It tastes great, but doesn't rise much at all...

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Back on campus now, hopefully my banana bread rendezvous has baking out of my system for a bit. Next week is spring break though! And I'm hoping, of course, to find some time to try out a couple more recipes I have stashed away... we'll see ;)

My Cup of Tea

Admittedly this blog is a little late, but better late than never right? And even though I was busy enough that I neglected to write about the small tea party I had I figured I'd share with you now anyway cause it's like a dozen recipes all at once!

So yes, I decided to have a tea party. Which I didn't know meant I decided to have a cooking frenzy on a Saturday and a get together the next afternoon, but hey, I was in my element, right? Hope was my consultant on the food fare of traditional tea parties, and as much as I would've liked to stick to an old fashioned menu, I decided I'd rather cater to the taste buds of teenagers and let myself experiment with some really rich recipes :D. I'm not sure where to start... I guess I'll just show you the whole spread!

There were a few things I didn't really make, like carrot sticks and bowls of fresh plums and apricots (by the way, apricots are like my new favorite fruit, SO GOOD), but most of the tier and most of the plates are things that I did whip up myself. Ok, Hope brought along the little chocolate balls, I didn't not venture into the realms of cream puffs.

As I mentioned before, I spend Saturday night in the kitchen. I whipped up the scones that day that are piled high on the platters. First: Triple Chocolate Chip

And then Cinnamon Bun Scones!

Both of these recipes came from my favorite cook book, A Passion for Baking, and were admittedly more like desserts than anything else. Oh well! Who cares as long as they're delicious?

I also managed to crank a few dozen cookies out of the oven. I have a friend who is hypoglycemic, so I wanted to pick at least one sugar free recipe and I settled on a type of oatmeal nut cookie. Now although I really liked these, I think they are an acquired taste and are actually not really my idea of a cookie at all. They were a whole grain oatmeal cookie made with applesauce instead of butter (not only sugar free but also low fat now) and loaded with cinnamon, mixed nuts, and a small handful of raisins. They don't have the same crunch as a typical cookie, courtesy the applesauce, and they have more of a bread flavor since they aren't very sweet. You can kind of see them stacked on the bottom of this tier...

On the top of the tier I put a fleet of banana nut mini muffins. If you like banana bread, these are right up your alley. I wanted finger food, that's the idea of tea parties I'm told, so everything was supposed to be like a bite. I had a bunch of bananas that had seen better days, but banana bread didn't seem to be an ideal finger food to me, so I turned to these instead. Again, I pulled this recipe from A Passion for Baking and I think they are delicious. There were a ton left over and I later found out with a little peanut butter they make a great breakfast :).

There were sandwiches, too. I put together three different kinds on Sunday morning and stacked them all on this cute tier my mom picked up at Marshall's.

The top ones are simply mini tortilla wraps filled with hummus and strips of roasted red pepper, the middle are classic peanut butter and jelly, and the bottom are true to tea party tradition: crust-less cucumber and cream cheese. I think the hummus and roasted red pepper rolls went over the best, surprisingly enough. I ended up eating like two sandwiches worth of leftover peanut butter and jelly because they were neglected and I just couldn't bear to throw the food away...

That about covers the food table, I think. We also had ice water, sparkling water, iced black tea, and watermelon lemonade to wash it all down. I don't think I'll drone on any longer, besides I've got some wheat berries I need to go soak so I can make something delicious tomorrow!