Food n Love

"Good food ends with good talk." -Geoffrey Neighbor


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Going Bananas Part Deux

My absolute favorite snack is banana bread…or maybe it’s ice cream…it’s hard to decide between the two.  Either way it’s at the top of my fav snack list.

I admit I’m super lazy when it comes to baking bread.  Why bother to make it when I can so easily buy a slice from Starbucks whenever the craving hits.  Much more convenient.  However, the day I impulsively decided to save a little extra change & bake my first loaf of banana bread my kitchen, of course, wasn’t properly stocked. 

The recipe called for walnuts, I had none.  No problem.  Almonds are sort of similar, I just chopped those up instead.  Sour cream?  Nada.  Not a big deal though since I had just made lasagna the week before & I had a little left over extra cottage cheese which was still good.  So I whipped out my food processor out of my cupboard, scooped it into the processor & smoothed it out….almost like sour cream.  Butter?  Well I didn’t have that either, but I had a container of Olivio which personally I think has more flavor than butter anyway.  White sugar?  Nope.  I haven’t bought that in over a decade.  But I did have raw organic sugar imported from Madagascar or someplace exotic sounding.  And of course for the part of the recipe that called for vanilla extract I splashed in a generous amount of vanilla syrup that I brought back from a past trip to Haiti.  Even if the recipe hadn’t requested vanilla, I would have most certainly added the Haitian goodness because it is my secret ingredient to achieving absolute heavenly deliciousness in most of my cooking adventures.

The end result?  My banana bread snack came out tasting like crack.  Well, to be honest I don’t know what crack tastes like, but I do know I’m officially addicted to the love of this banana bread recipe!

IMG_9819

Janet’s Rich Banana Bread *curtesy of allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

2 medium bananas, sliced

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).  Lightly grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
  2. In a large bowl, stir together the melted butter & sugar.  Add the eggs & vanilla, mix well.  Combine the flour, baking soda & salt, stir into the butter mixture until smooth.  Finally, fold in the sour cream, walnuts & bananas.  Spread evenly into the prepared pan
  3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.  Cool loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. 

LOVE AT FIRST BITE ❤

 


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Peanut Butter Cookie Love

By passion I’m a photographer, by diploma a teacher & for the past year because of a built up pressure of ideas swirling around in my heart bursting to be set free, a writer.  How did I end up creating a blog about food & love?  Well that’s another story for another day.

As you know love knows no bounds, it’s limitless.  You could compare it to the stomach of my dog Julio – bottomless.  Now being your typical black lab, Julio has an endless appetite for the zest of life & all things food.  As a photographer I believe a picture is worth 1,000 words ->

As you can see, Julio obviously feels a deep love & trained restraint when it comes to the kitchen.  This is particularly true when his keen sense of doggy smell detects a whiff of drool inspiring, chop smacking, crumbly peanut butter flavored yumminess!

Yup!  He really, Really, REALLY loves my baking!

Despite what Julio’s taste buds think, there’s nothing extra special about my peanut butter cookies.  My recipe comes straight from my mother’s old Betty Crocker Cookbook.  The only difference between Betty & myself is the type of sugar I use.  Instead of refined white granulated sugar (yuck, not in my body) I mix sparkly brown crystals of sugar in the raw into the dough.  As a result the cookies come out extra sweet with the illusion of being “healthy”.

Betty Crocker’s Peanut Butter Cookies AKA Julio’s Love Cookies

1/2 cup shortening (half butter, softened)

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar (or sugar in the raw)

1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 egg

1 1/4 cups flour

1/4 tsp soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Mix thoroughly shortening, peanut butter, granulated sugar (or sugar in the raw), brown sugar & egg.  Blend in flour, soda, baking powder & salt.  Cover & chill.

Heat oven to 375 F.  Shape dough into 1-inch balls.  Place 3 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheet.  With fork dipped in flour, flatten in crisscross patterns to 2 inches.  Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set but not hard.

*makes about 3 dozen cookies