Ridiculously Simply Banana Bread

This recipe comes from one of my mum's oldest cookbooks Feed Me, I'm Hungry. Between the two of us we have probably made this recipe a hundred times.

 1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 ripe bananas, mashed (I often put three for extra sweetness and moisture)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F. Sift together flour and baking soda. Mix together eggs, oil, sugar, bananas and walnuts. Add banana mixture to the flour and stir until well blended. 

Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake in oven at 350F from 1 hour. If making muffins bake for 20 minutes.

Feed Me, I'm Hungry author writes: I've been told this recipe has saved many a marriage!

Ding-a-lings for Book Club

My grandma used to make ding-a-lings at Christmas and this year I am carrying on her tradition. I'm going to bring them to our book club meeting tomorrow night.

Ingredients

1 package butterscotch chips
1 package chocolate chips
about 1/3rd of a package of chow mein noodles
about 1/2 cup peanuts

Melt both kinds of chips in a double boiler. In a bowl combine noodles and peanuts. Add to melted chocolate and stir. Drop mixture on parchment paper and chill.

Enjoy!

Spiced Nuts for the Native Education College Artisan Fair and Bake Sale

 

This past weekend I had a table at the Native Education College's Artisan Fair and Bake Sale. The basket in the picture is filled with the things I made for the sale. Almond butter crunch (see recipe in previous post) was by far the most popular item (I even sold my plate of samples!:) The spiced nuts were the next most popular item.

The recipe below is loosely based on a few recipes I found on-line. If you like really spicy nuts add more cayenne and chilli pepper. Be careful about the garlic salt though because if your nuts are already salted it is easy to make them too salty. 

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. butter
• 2 egg whites
• 1 c. pecan halves
• 1 c. whole almonds
• 1 c. dry-roasted unsalted peanuts
• 2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tsp. chili powder
• 1 tsp. garlic salt
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

Preparation:

Beat two egg whites until frothy. In a large bowl mix together half of spices and half of the Worcestershire sauce and add egg whites and nuts and stir.

Preheat the oven to 300°. Add butter to a 13- x 9- x 2-inch baking pan; set the pan in the oven to melt the butter. Remove the pan from the oven; add pecans, almonds, peanuts to the melted butter. Gently stir until well mixed.

Bake the nut mixture until it is toasted, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes. Remove the nuts from the oven and sprinkle the mixture evenly with the remainder of the chili powder, garlic salt, and cayenne pepper. Toss until well mixed. Transfer the warm nuts to a bowl and serve immediately, or let cool and store them at room temperature in an airtight container until ready to serve.

Makes 3 cups of spiced mixed nuts.

Mushroom Risotto

 

This risotto recipe comes from allrecipe.com. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/gourmet-mushroom-risotto/detail.aspx

 The recipe author notes that it is important to check the rice by biting into it. It should be slightly al dente or resist slightly to the tooth but not be hard in the center.

Risotto rice can be hard to find not in a box mix. I bought this risotto from Angelo Tosi's in downtown Vancouver (see previous post for more details).  

 

Ingredients

• 6 cups chicken broth, divided
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 pound portobello mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1 pound white mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 2 shallots, diced
• 1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• sea salt to taste
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped chives
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. In a saucepan, warm the broth over low heat.
2. Warm 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the mushrooms, and cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Remove mushrooms and their liquid, and set aside.
3. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to skillet, and stir in the shallots. Cook 1 minute. Add rice, stirring to coat with oil, about 2 minutes. When the rice has taken on a pale, golden color, pour in wine, stirring constantly until the wine is fully absorbed. Add 1/2 cup broth to the rice, and stir until the broth is absorbed. Continue adding broth 1/2 cup at a time, stirring continuously, until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is al dente, about 15 to 20 minutes.
4. Remove from heat, and stir in mushrooms with their liquid, butter, chives, and parmesan. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Grandma Ople's Apple Pie

I got this recipe from allrecipes. com and it is so good! Cole said it is better than his mum's apple pie, which is the biggest compliment he could give because he raves about his mother's pies all the time:) It is basically apple pie filled with caramel. Between four people we ate this entire pie in one sitting!

Here is the link to the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/grandma-oples-apple-pie/detail.aspx I have also pasted the recipe below along with directions for the pastry.

Ingredients

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced

Directions

1. Melt butter in a sauce pan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add white sugar, brown sugar and water; bring to a boil. Reduce temperature, and simmer 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
3. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes.

 Pastry (from the Tenderflake box) 
Yield: Three 9-inch double crust pies or 6 pie shells


6 cups cakes and pastry flour
2 tsp salt
1 lb Tenderflake lard
1tbsp vinegar
1 egg lightly beaten
cold water

*two tricks that have been passed down to me from Grandma Askew (my dad's grandma) and my own nana are to add a pinch of cream of tarter to the flour and to keep the water in the freezer. This will make the pastry more flaky. The other trick I have been taught is to be very careful not to over handle the dough. I was told to be very careful to touch it the least amount that you can.

1. Mix together flour and salt
2. Cut in lard with pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse oatmeal
3. In a cup measure, combine vinegar and egg. Add water to make 1 cup. Gradually stir liquid into lard mixture. Add only enough water to make dough cling together.
4. Gather into a ball and divide into 6 portions and refrigerate or freeze.
5. Roll out each portion on lightly floured surface. If dough is sticking, chill 1-2 hours.
6. Transfer dough to pie plate. Trim and flute shells or crusts and bake according to your recipe.

The Original Magic Cookie Bar (Dolly Bars)

As a child these were one of my favorite treats. I still love them and they only take about 10 minutes to make. My mum used to make them if she had friends coming over for dinner with children that were fussy eaters and didn't like cheesecake or whatever dessert she was making. My mum called them Dolly Bars.

I found a good recipe for them on the Eagle Brand condensed milk wrapper. Here it is (tweaked a little):

Ingredients
1 cup graham wafer crumbs
1/3 cup melted butter
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
1 1/3 chopped pecans

Combine graham crumbs with butter; press evenly onto 8 X 8 inch baking pan. Pour condensed milk evenly over crumbs. Sprinkle with chips, coconut and pecans; press down firmly. Bake in preheated over for 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool thoroughly and cut into bars. Store loosely covered at room temperature.

Dill Pickles!

Cole and I made pickles and they turned out to be delicious! I have heard that making pickles can be very tricky, especially the texture- they sometimes turn out soft. So...I was very nervous to try ours but in the end there was no reason for me to be worried:)

A few tricks my dad told me he heard from an Armstrong woman (who plans to make the best pickles in Canada!) is that pickles are most crunchy if they are canned on the day the cucumbers were picked. The second tip is to not boil the jars with the cucumbers in them. Apparently if you don't do this you need to wait a minimum of 3 months before you eat them. We didn't follow either of these tips, which is partly why I was nervous! But Cole thinks that submerging the cucumbers in ice water probably played a big role in helping to give our pickles such a nice texture.

We followed a really simple recipe that doesn't require fancy canning equipment. I have basically copied the recipe. The only change is to make the brine with more vinegar. You can find the original recipe here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-Dill-Pickles/

Note: You are supposed to wait at least 3 weeks after pickling to eat the pickles.

Ingredients

8 pounds cucumbers (cut into spears if too large for the jars)
5 cups white vinegar
12 cups water
2/3 cup pickling salt (we used regular table salt and it worked fine)
16 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
fresh dill weed

Equipment it's helpful to have (though we didn't ):
Boiling-water canner.

1) Chill the cucumbers.
 Wash cucumbers, and place in the sink with cold water and lots of ice cubes. Soak in ice water for at least 2 hours but no more than 8 hours. Refresh ice when it melts. This took all the ice in my freezer and an additional bag that I had to run out to get.

2) Boil the brine. 
 In a large pot over medium-high heat, combine the vinegar, water, and pickling salt. Bring the brine to a rapid boil. Note: Although the ingredients called for pickling salt, we used regular table salt, and made sure it was completely dissolved in the liquid. This picture was taken when most of the brine was already in jars with cukes, btw; initially it filled the entire pot. But check out the briny goodness encrusted on the sides of the pot!

3) Sterilize the jars and lids.
Wash 8 (1 quart ) canning jars, bands, and lids in hot soapy water and rinse. Dry bands and set aside. Place the jars and lids in 180-degree (near-boiling) water for at least 10 minutes. Also sterilize the tongs you use to put them in the boiling water and take them back out. Don't touch them with your hands after you sterilize them. Keep the jars and lids hot until used.


4) Load the jars with spices, cucumbers, brine and seal.

  Right after you take the jars out of the sterilizing bath, place in each 2 half-cloves of garlic, some dill, then enough cucumbers to fill the jar (about 1 pound). Then add 2 more garlic halves, and some more dill. Fill jars with hot brine. Leave headspace of 1/4 inch. Make sure nothing is hanging over the side. Remove air bubbles by sliding a nonmetallic spatula between the jar and food. Clean rim and threads of jar with a damp cloth. Center heated lid on jar. Screw band down to "fingertip tight." NOTE: If they are too tight, the lids deform when the steam tries to escape during processing (next step).

 

 5) Process sealed jars in the boiling water bath.

Process quart jars for 15 minutes.
a. It's suggested to use a rack to keep jars from touching canner bottom and to permit heat circulation; we didn't have the right size rack, so we didn't do this .
b. It's suggested to put jars into a canner that contains simmering water. We just used the three biggest and heaviest pots we had.
c. After adding jars, add boiling water to bring water 1 to 2 inches above jar tops. We couldn't get water above the jar tops, but comments I read online said this wasn't necessary.
d. Bring water to a rolling boil. Set timer and process for recommended time.
e. Remove jars from canner immediately after timer sounds.
f. Cool for 12-24 hours on a rack or towel. Or on the counter, as you see here.
g. Do not retighten screw bands after processing.
h. After jars are cooled, remove screw bands, wipe jars, label and date.
i. Store jars in a cool, dark place.
j. For best quality, use within one year.