Banana Date Coffee Cake

This is a recipe I used to make all the time in college. At the time, I was doing a lot of work with Native Americans, and it seemed like most of them were diabetics. For some reason, unbeknownst to me at this present time, we had a lot of potluck-type things. The Native Americans were sooooooo excited that this recipe has no sugar (other than the minimal amount on the coconut and dates). I used to place a stack of recipe print-outs right next to the pan of coffee cake. I lost the recipe, but found a very similar one online, which I then fixed--the guy had added sugar! No!! He ruined the very essence of it!!--So, I brought it back to its former healthful, delicious, sugar free glory. Enjoy.

P.S. Preschool snack, here we come!

• 1/2 cup butter - softened
• 2 medium bananas
• 3 large eggs
• 1 and 1/4 cups water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1 and 1/2 cups chopped dates
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• For Topping:
• 1/2 cup (heaping) chopped dates
• 1/2 cup (heaping) flaked coconut
• 1/2 cup (heaping) chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 13x9 baking pan with a generous coating of cooking spray.

Cream butter and bananas in a mixing bowl. Add eggs, water and vanilla extract and mix well.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix well. Add chopped dates and mix well.

Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth out evenly with the back of a spoon.

Combine all topping ingredients in a small bowl or cup and sprinkle topping evenly over batter.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

About Leeks...

Leeks are notoriously hard to clean; dirt gets trapped in the layers as the plant grows. If you don't remove all the dirt, it ends up in your soup or whatever dish you're making. I cannot remember where I learned this method for cleaning them, but it seems to work.

Remove the roots and green tops where they start to leaf out. You can use the lighter green parts. Slice, chop and/or dice until the leeks are the size you want for your recipe. Place the leeks in a large bowl, and fill with cold water. Stir them around a bit, then let the leeks sit. All the dirt will go to the bottom of the bowl, while the leeks themselves will float to the top.

Carefully remove the leeks with a slotted spoon, don't scoop too low in the bowl so you don't disturb the dirt. Place the leeks on a paper towel to drain, and pat dry with another paper towel on top. Now they are clean and ready to use!

Min's Saffron Vegetable Soup

I ran across this recipe this morning while I was looking for a different one that seems to have disappeared. I made this soup several years ago, luckily I wrote down the amounts. This is another "pantry soup" or what I happened to have around at the moment. You'll also notice that I make all soups using essentially the same methods. I have my reasons.

Saute 1 diced yellow onion and 1 diced leek in olive oil in a dutch oven pan until the onion is translucent. Add two diced carrots and about 6 diced potatoes, one can (drained) baby corn, 1 package Mahatma Saffron Rice Mix, 6 cups water, 6 cubes chicken bouillon, and a large sprig of fresh rosemary.

Bring this to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until rice is done. Season with kosher salt, freshly ground pepper and some fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley.

This is a delicately-flavored, beautifully-colored, delicious soup. If I had a leek and some baby corn, and some rosemary, I would make it right now.

Min's Pantry Fiesta Soup!

"Only the pure of heart can make good soup."

-Beethoven, 1842

I have that quote hanging above my stove top, I just love it. It reminds me of myself. You know, pure, driven snow, wait. Why do I hear laughter? Anyway, it's a good quote. And I do make good soup. No matter the level of pureness...oh, who am I kidding. Never mind.

Tonight, I didn't have any dinner planned for various reasons. One, I have been working on perfecting my 2009 calendar, which I am proud to announce will soon be available for purchase on my blogs! Exciting! But time-consuming.

So when it was after 5pm, and there was no dinner on the horizon, I decided on soup. I asked Number One "Mexican or Asian?" and he chose Mexican. So I ran with it.

I grabbed some chicken thighs from the freezer, thawed them briefly in the microwave, then diced them. I melted butter in a dutch oven pan and added the chicken.

While the chicken was thawing/cooking, I sliced half an onion and a few cloves of garlic. Put those in the pan with the chicken and butter.

From the pantry, I grabbed a can of pinto beans and a can of diced tomatoes. Drained them, added them to the pan. I added about six cups of water, and six chicken bouillon cubes because we have no chicken broth in the pantry.

From the freezer, I added what we had leftover of a bag of frozen corn and some frozen broccoli. (broccoli is not quite Mexican, but it needed some color) For flavor and spice, I added some lime juice (probably almost 1/4 cup of ReaLime), cumin, oregano and marjoram. And salt. I heated it all through, and that was that.

In about 30 minutes, a delicious Mexican-inspired soup. Served with corn chips on top. It would also be good with fresh avocado on top. And perfect with fresh diced tomato on top instead of canned diced tomato in the soup, but as much as I'm wishing for it, it's not summertime yet.

Baking Powder Biscuits

I have had this recipe, the very one pictured above, since the 8th Grade. I will not tell you how many years that has been, but I will tell you I am not joking. Observe the roundish cursive handwriting. Cute, right?

So it probably goes without saying since I've had this recipe so long, it makes good biscuits. Make sure you have fresh baking powder, and they will turn out flaky and delicious.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Mix together:

2 cups flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cut in: 1/4 cup shortening or butter with fork or pastry blender thingie. Stir in 3/4 cup milk. Knead on a lightly floured surface 5 to 6 times. Cut out and place on a baking sheet.

Bake for 12 minutes, or until slightly golden brown.

Pear Pie

I was asked to take a pie to a church function last night, so I thought I would share the recipe. We are a family of pie lovers, so it was hard when I baked this pie and then left the house without sharing with my husband. So while I was out with women and enjoying homemade pies he was home eating leftover gingerbread cake. I really can't feel to sorry for him. So if you ever get in the mood to make a pie try this pear pie , it is one of our favorites. Just a note about the crust recipe, I have found a local flour mill that has pastry flour and it is the best for pie crusts, scones, biscuits etc. Also I usually double, triple it etc . and keep the dry mix in the freezer and just pull it out when I want to make a pie---makes the process super quick. Another thing I also keep my flour in the freezer, one of the keys to making good pie crust is having all the ingredients cold.

Happy Pie Making!

Pear Pie

7-8 large pears, pared, cut into slices
3 TBL lemon juice
1/4-1/2 cup sugar
3 TBL flour
1 tsp. lemon zest
Mix all together and spoon into one 9 inch unbaked pie shell
Sprinkle with the following mixture:
[ 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp. each ginger & cinnamon
cut in 4 TBL butter until crumbly ]
Bake Pie in preheated 400 oven for about 45 minutes.

My Favorite Pie Crust

1 1/4 cups pastry flour or all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold
2 to 4 tablespoons ice water

I usually make a large batch in my food processor (make sure not to over mix--easy to do in the processor) WITHOUT the water. Then I package it into single pie crust portions in zip lock bags then freeze till needed. Add the water later by hand with a fork.

I also have made the pie crust including the water and then put in the freezer in individual single crust packets as well as actually rolled out the crust into the pie plate and then freeze till needed. I now prefer to just do the dry mix, works best for me.

Yummy Oatmeal

I found this recipe when I was pregnant, perhaps in one of the pregnancy books in which I was living. This makes one generous serving: creamy, filling, delicious and comforting. A triple batch will more than feed our little family of four, but if you have older kids, you'll probably need to make more.

Also, I get the ingredients all ready while the water is coming to a boil. Just measure the oats and wheat germ into a cereal bowl, and sprinkle with salt. Measure the dry milk into another cereal bowl. I then use these bowls for serving the oatmeal so there are less dishes to wash.

We serve ours with brown sugar, milk, and seasonal fruit. You can also add raisins or chopped dried fruit about halfway through the cooking time.

1 serving Oatmeal:

Boil 1-1/4 cups water in a saucepan.

Stir in: 1/2 cup oats
2 Tablespoons toasted wheat germ
Salt
about 1 Tablespoon butter (to prevent boiling over)

Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Lower heat just a bit if you need to. Remove from heat, stir in 1/3 cup dry milk.

Min's Favorite Banana Bread

A.K.A. Martha's Banana Bread, this is another of Martha Stewart's recipes, from The Martha Stewart Cookbook. It makes the best banana bread I've ever had.

Makes 1 large loaf or 4 small loaves. *I've noticed it typically makes more than one large loaf. That's okay since I like to freeze some. I'll tell you about that in a bit.

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (I use about three bananas, and I don't mash them.)

1/2 cup sour cream (I heap this in the measuring cup)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan or several smaller pans.

With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, beating well.

Sift the dry ingredients together and combine with the butter mixture. (does anyone ever do this? I just dump it all in.) Blend well. Add the bananas, sour cream and vanilla. Stir well. Stir in the nuts and pour into the prepared pan.

Bake 1 hour, until a cake tester (I call it a "knife") comes out clean. Turn out onto a rack to cool.



The only problem I have had with this recipe is that the bread tends to stick to the bottom of the pan, no matter how much I butter it and no matter whether I turn it out immediately or wait several minutes. I don't know if this has something to do with our altitude?

To freeze these loaves, let them cool completely. Then wrap them securely in aluminum foil and place in a ziploc freezer bag. Label and date, of course. I'm not sure how long these will last, we seem to eat them quickly.

Bad Bananas?

I'm sure most of you know that you can make banana bread from overripe bananas. But what if your bananas are overripe and you don't have time to make banana bread? Did you know you can freeze them for later? (Incidentally, the bananas pictured above are still "good." They just happen to be the only bananas around right now.)

Just peel your bananas and place them into a ziploc bag, I usually try to put three in a bag because that's how many I use to make my favorite banana bread recipe, and stick them in the freezer.

When you're ready to make your bread, thaw the bananas in the bag, then use in your recipe. There may be some juice in there as they thaw, just go ahead and pour it in with your bananas. Works like a charm.

A Bad Girl's Cookbooks

Most of us have been taught to respect books. Take good care of books, don't write in books, etc.

I personally am of the opinion that we ought to write in cookbooks. They are ours, after all. If you typically make changes, add more or less spice, or try something that just simply didn't work, you should make a note of it somewhere.

What better place to make a note than in the margins of your own cookbook? That way, the next time you make it, you'll be reminded that it needs less sugar or more baking time or you like it best whatever way. Sometimes I just cross out the original amounts and write in my own. I have also been known to cross out entire recipes so I'm not tempted to try them again. That's the way I like it.

Don't be afraid, there is no such thing as The Cookbook Police. A pristine cookbook is a sign of a book that hasn't been used, and what's the point in that? I give you permission to embrace the Bad Girl that you are, and write in your cookbooks. You know you want to! Go ahead, put a star or two next to a favorite recipe. Write "We Love This!" You won't be sorry. And your kids (and others!) will also appreciate being able to recreate their favorite dishes, just the way you made them in your kitchen. What a lovely gift.