Banana Bread

I'm sure you've had times where there have been a few stray bananas on the verge of going over-ripe on your counter. I'm very guilty of doing that, and many a times you'll find a sorry, shriveled looking apple or orange at the bottom of my fruit basket. I have yet to figure out to do with those guys. This is a super fast recipe for home made banana bread. I think I can do all the prep work in less than 10min now. I will usually toss in a cup of chocolate chips, esp the mini ones, and whatever nuts I have in the cabinet. As you can see, sliced almonds made it into today's loaf, and they add a wonderful crunch. I obtained this recipe from Rachel's sister Dana and have not looked for another recipe since.

Ingredients:

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 ½ cups flour

pinch of salt

3 ripe bananas

(optional: ½ cup nuts or about 1cup semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a loaf pan with butter.

Cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer.

Add eggs to butter and sugar mixture.

In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt.

In another bowl cream bananas and baking soda with an electric mixer.

Alternating, add mixed bananas and flour/salt mixture into the butter, sugar and eggs.

(Stir in nuts or chips)

Pour into the greased loaf pan.

Bake at 350 until a toothpick inserted is clean when pulled out (about 40min)

Let cool before removing from pan and cutting.

Enjoy!

Alternately, you can fill muffin cups and sprinkle with coarse sugar (you know, that sugar in the raw stuff. I admit I may have bought coffee at Starbucks once or twice just to grab some extra packets for making muffins) on top.

Vodka Sauce

I've stopped ordering pasta with vodka sauce because this recipe is just amazing. Not the most healthy, so I don't make it that often, and I have no desire to make this into something healthy since it's the fat that makes this oh so good. Trust me, you will never need to eat out for penne a la vodka again. Recently, after my vacation along the New England coastline, I added lobster meat at the end along with the liquid that comes out when you take the lobster apart. We bought 7 lobsters (prices are as cheap as $3.99 in MA) in a matter of 3 days after that vacation, while eating lobster on vacation. You could also add some bacon or pancetta as well. This recipe was kosher until then (it came out of a kosher cookbook but slightly modified)...

Penne A La Vodka

1 package pasta (16oz)

1 small onion minced

3 large cloves garlic minced

crushed red pepper flakes (whatever amount you'd personally like)

1/2 cup vodka

1 (28oz) can tomatoes, crushed and undrained. I like San Marzano tomatoes (not a brand, but a type)

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup greated parmesean cheese

Pepper

Salt

2 Tbsp olive oil

1. Heat olive oil in saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and red pepper flakes, sauté 3 min.

2. Stir in vodka; simmer 5 min (be careful not to spill outside as this will set everything on fire. How I know you ask...)

3. Add tomatoes; simmer 15 min, stirring occasionally, or until liquid evaporates. This is also a good time to start the pasta. Cook according to package directions.

4. Stir in cream and simmer for 10 min, stirring frequently

5. Add Parmesean cheese, mixing well.

6. Season with pepper and salt to taste. Normally, you don't have to add much salt due to the saltiness of the parmesean.

7. Pour sauce over pasta and toss

8. Be sure to have plenty of bread on hand for the leftover sauce that will be on your plate!

Stuffed Peppers, et al.

This was the result of one of those what am I going to make for dinner moments when you look in your fridge and realize that you only have some odd ingredients on hand. The red pepper is stuffed with an asian cellophane noodle mixture. In China, these clear noodles are traditionally made with mung bean, while in Korea, their noodles are made with sweet potato starch. I must say that I like the sweet potato kind better, but whatever kind you have in your pantry (or likely not actually) will work. My family cut down on eating these types of noodles after one manufacturer had used a lead-based ingredient to improve the transparency of these noodles when they were mixing it with corn starch to cut down on costs. I hope that all of that has since resolved. This turned out to be quite a tasty and pretty dinner. Unfortunately, I didn't measure anything while I was cooking, but I have faith in all of you.

Stuffed Peppers (makes 4-6):

Beef cut into small pieces, maybe 0.5 lbs total, since I remember that there was not a large quantity on hand.

Cellophane noodles, it was one small package spread up into 2 parts, with each portion about the size of a fist

3 Carrots, julienned but short

1 medium onion, chopped

Ponzu soy sauce (it is citrus based)

Regular soy sauce

Pepper

Sesame oil (no more than 1 tbsp)

~2 tbsp corn starch

red wine (I would've preferred Shaoxing cooking wine, which is rice wine based)

1 scallion, chopped

Cooking oil

1. Mix the beef with the corn starch until coated and add enough wine until it is coated and moist, but by no means runny. Set aside while prepping everything else.

2. Into a pot of boiling water, add the cellophane noodles and take off heat and let sit.

3. In a sauté pan with hot cooking oil, sautee the beef until almost done, then take out and set aside. Then sauté the onion and carrots until soft. Add back the beef and stir in the cellophane noodles. I cut up the cellophane noodles into small lengths to make the stuffing part easier.

4. Season to taste with the soy sauces, pepper, and sesame oil.

5. Add in scallions.

6.For the peppers, first cut off tops and remove seeds and white ribs carefully. Roast the peppers upside down for 15 min at 350 deg F and then stuff them with the noodle mixture. Put them right-side up with tops on and roast until peppers are slightly brown (~20min), and can put the oven on a short burst of broil for a good color on top.

Grilled Sweet Potato

Sweet potato, as many as you'd like, cut into 1/2" slices

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Hot Hungarian paprika

Sweet Hungarian paprika

1. Heat grill on high and then put on low heat

2. Toss the sweet potato slices until coated with olive oil.

3. Sprinkle with paprikas and salt and pepper

3. Grill for 6 min each side.

Sugar Snap Peas

This vegetable only needs a light steam and end up quite tender, delicious, and of course, naturally sweet on their own. No seasoning needed in my opinion.

Butternut Squash Soup

I love thick creamy soups in the fall. The problem is that milk products and I don't get along very well. Lactards out there rejoice! I have a terrific recipe for you that is not only dairy free, but what I think should be very healthy. I have actually never made butternut squash soup before (I made up this recipe as well...), and got über-excited when I ordered my hand blender online earlier this week. Unfortunately, I couldn't wait for that to arrive, so I did this in a blender, which just means some extra cleaning. I was working on this soup while putting together my halloween costume, so the timing of everything really doesn't matter all that much. You could also probably skip the roasting step, but I wasn't in any rush. The amount of liquid is also up to you, depending on if you want a thicker or thinner soup, so the amount listed below is merely a suggestion. Just keep adding that chicken stock for a thinner soup. The herbs and spices are mainly a guide, take out what you don't like and add others, such as nutmeg, which I probably would've done, but I ran out last weekend. Don't be afraid of the curry paste. You can barely taste it unless you're looking for it. This serves about 4 people.

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash (mine was 2.3 lbs)

3 cloves garlic

olive oil

1 medium sized onion, diced

1 cup water

1 cup chicken stock, plus extra

1 cup soy milk

1/2 tsp dried thyme

7 whole cloves

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp Patak's Hot Curry Paste (can find this in most grocery stores, definitely Whole Foods)

Salt

Pepper

Green onions-optional for garnish

Directions:

1. Cut up the squash into pieces, and smash up 3 cloves of garlic. Put in a roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil and season liberally with salt and pepper. Bake in 350 deg F oven for about 1 hour, depending on the size of your pieces.

2. Saute the onions in olive oil (oh i don't know, maybe 2tbsp?) until they are soft.

3. Once the pieces are mostly soft (i.e. you can easily pierce with fork), take out of the oven and peel it and cube the squash. Put it into a pot with water, chicken stock, onion and the spices and let it boil for about 30 min until everything is very soft.

4. Dump everything into a blender, and puree until well blended. I had to do this in batches in the blender. This is where a stick blender would've come in handy...

5. Return to pot and stir in the soy milk. Add salt until you think it's enough. My pet peeve is recipes that try to tell you how much salt to add. Put your taste buds to use! Add more stock if you want to thin it out.

6. Serve in bowls garnished with sliced green onions.

Steamed Blue Claw Crabs

Blue claw crabs, and possibly other crabs, are the best in October and November; it is when they are the meatiest and contain the most crab roe (my personal favorite part of the crab). This recipe comes from my family and is a very traditional crab dipping sauce in Shanghai.

Crab Dipping Sauce:

3 Tbsp sugar

2.5 Tbsp Chinese black vinegar

2 Tbsp finely minced ginger

1/2 Tbsp light soy sauce (by light I mean in color, not sodium content)

Directions:

Mix ingredients well

Steamed crabs:

Scrub the outside of the crabs well. An old toothbrush works well for this. Steam in a large pot for 20 minutes.

Pomegranates!

Early fall ( or maybe winter since we already had snow in Boston) heralds the arrival of pomegranates into our supermarkets. Fresh pomegranates are full of concentrated flavor, and their seeds give that extra crunch. Pomegranates are full of vitamin C, B5, potassium, and antioxidant rich polyphenols that are the subject of numerous ongoing studies about potential health benefits, such as decreasing proliferation of breast cancer cells, reducing heart disease risk factors, and lowering blood blood pressure. But taking apart a pomegranate can be messy and difficult. One trick I learned from my former roommate, Derek, in medical school is to score the outside of the pomegranate and then soak it in a bowl of water. The outside leathery skin soaks up some of the water and is much easier to break apart. I left mine to soak overnight and took it apart just now.

Lemon-Poppy Buttermilk cake

I had leftover buttermilk after making a rich chocolate cake on Monday and went on a recipe hunt on allrecipes.com of course, and came across a buttermilk cake recipe. I modified it slightly, because what I really was in the mood for was a lemon poppyseed cake and just needed a solid cake base that uses buttermilk. This cake is fairly dense, but lighter than a pound cake. With the addition of fresh lemon juice, the cake tastes even lighter. I also like this recipe because it's not too sweet in the end. I opted to not make a glaze for it, but I think a nice tart lemony glaze will be the perfect finish. It also is a good basic yellow cake if you take out the lemon parts and poppy seeds.

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour, unsifted

3 cups white sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)

6 eggs

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

zest of one large lemon

juice of one large lemon (maybe 4-5 tablespoons?)

1.5 tablespoons of poppy seeds

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and use the residual butter on the paper it came in to grease a bundt pan (this will probably make 2 loaves or maybe 30 muffins).

2. In a large bowl, beat the butter with the sugar, and then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

3. Add in the lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla, salt, baking soda.

4. Mix in the flour, alternating with the buttermilk

5. Finally, stir in the poppyseeds

6. Bake in preheated oven. This cake takes a while to bake. I never time anything I bake (as many things have been ruined by actually timing it). It will be done when a fork inserted to the top comes out clean.