I always have bananas in the house, we all love them even Rigley (our dog). Unfortunately, we don’t always eat them fast enough and they go bad. I normally make banana bread, banana pancakes, or my mom’s banana cake but I wanted something different this time. So I looked on the internet on the Joy of Baking website and came across a recipe for Chocolate Banana Cake! The only thing I changed is that instead of making a ganache I made Chocolate Buttercream.
Ingredients:
2 cups of sugar
1 ¾ cups of all purpose unbleached flour
1 ½ tsps of baking soda
1 ½ tsps of baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 large eggs
2 medium bananas , mashed
1 cup of warm water
½ cup of milk
½ cup of canola oil
2 tsps of vanilla extract
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease or spray a 9 x 13 inch pan. Set aside.
In a large bowl whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder,
baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In another large bowl, whisk together the eggs, mashed bananas, water, milk,
oil, and vanilla extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir,
or whisk, until combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 t0 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. When completely cooled, frost with the chocolate buttercream.
It was definitely a hit. My parents loved it, my husband loved it, my coworkers loved it and I loved it too. This will be a recipe I use again! Thanks a bunch Joy of Baking!
I’ve been to Aruba several times, but this is the one dish that has stayed in my mind. So I just had to blog about this dish.
The first time I had this was a few years ago when we went to Aruba with my then boyfriend, now husbands, parents. It was the first time they were in Aruba and they have this dish every year when they go back. Domenick and I loved it so much that we had it twice while we were there this time, but prepared at two different places, Gianni’s and Sole Mare. Personally I preferred Gianni’s but I also was sick at the time we ate at Sole Mare.
The pasta is served for 2 or more people and trust me if one person gets it the other person would have wished they got it anyway! First they bring out parmesan wheel on a cart. Then a server brings a flaming ladle of whiskey and a pan full of pasta in a sauce with fresh tomatoes. The ladle of flaming whiskey is dumped into the parmesan wheel and begins to melt the cheese and turn it into a creamy gooey lovely sauce. Once the server has scraped all of the cheese they add the pasta and toss it with the flamed whiskey cheese sauce and viola you have the most amazing pasta dish ever created! The dish that is most similar that most of you would be familiar with is pasta with vodka sauce, but for me, it’s much better! You cannot taste the whiskey, but the way that flamed whiskey melts the cheese is just amazing. I literally could just eat that with a spoon, yumm!
The thing about this dish is that they claim it is an authentic Italian dish. However, I’ve never seen an Italian cook with whiskey and I researched it a bit but couldn’t find anything. So I guess I’ll just take their word for it. All I know is that it is more of a traditional way of making a “cream sauce” in Italy. Now we add actual cream to our vodka and alfredo sauces but the traditional way was to add a TON of parmesan and toss it with some hot pasta and hot pasta water pasta water or vodka sauce.
If you find yourself in Aruba this is the number one dish I recommend!
I am planning on creating my own version of this dish so stay tuned to see how it turns out.
The Whiskey added to the parm wheel
The waitress scraping the cheese after the whiskey melted it
The spaghetti being mixed with the cheese
We were too hungry to take a picture after it was plated so this is about halfway through
This blog is entirely dedicated to my wonderful dog Rigley. He is more than a dog he is a member of the family. It is Rigley’s Birthday on Thursday and we are going to Aruba so I wanted to celebrate early this year. He will be turning three and those are some of the best years of my life. He truly is our best friend and we love him. The following are recipes for dog cookies, dog cupcakes and human cupcakes, in celebration of his birthday.
Last year I made dog cookies for Rigley and Teddy for Christmas. So I figured I would make some more cookies for his birthday. The reason I love these cookies is that they are 100% natural and I don’t have to feel guilty for giving them to him. They are so simple to make and they actually smell wonderful! I honestly don’t remember where I discovered this recipe but I actually altered it a bit so now it’s my recipe! If you have a dog or you ever need to get someone’s dog a gift these are perfect.
Rigley’s Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients:
2 Cups of whole wheat flour (I used organic 365 brand)
1 tbs of baking powder
1 cup of room temperature peanut butter (I used unsalted creamy organic 365 brand)
1 cup of skim milk, almond milk, coconut milk, or water (I used organic almond milk)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 375. In a bowl combine flour and baking soda and in another bowl combine the PB and milk. Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. It is much easier to mix with your hands considering you have to knead the dough with them. I do this in a bowl, but you can also do it on a floured work surface. Once mixed and kneaded the dough will be like a biscuit consistency. Make sure you have a large floured work space where you can roll the dough; I used a large sil pad (silicone baking sheet). Next take about ¼ or a 1/3 of the dough depending on the surface area of your floured work space. Roll out the dough to ¼ inch thickness and cut into shapes. I used a medium and small dog bone cookie cutter but any cookie cutter will do. This takes some time and energy and if you just want it to be a quick process I would suggest just rolling out the dough and cutting it into squares using a pizza cutter. Place your cookies on a greased baking sheet and bake twenty minutes or until light brown; you do not want to burn these. Cool on a baking rack and store in an air tight container. It makes about 30 cookies depending on the size you make them.
Medium cookies ready to be baked
Small cookies baked
You may want to modify the recipe depending on the size of your dog. If you have a small dog you may want to roll the dough a little thinner and use a smaller cookie cutter. If you have a large dog you make want to use a large cookie cutter and roll out the dough even thicker. These cookies have no preservatives so if you have a small dog I suggest cutting down the batch, freezing them, or sharing them.
Since many pet parents do not cook or bake for pets I feel there is a great need for me to explain the ingredients. The reason I used whole wheat flour is that it is better for your dog than refined white flour and will keep your dog fuller longer. Also, dogs aren’t supposed to have dairy so I normally research what is safe for dogs before I cook or bake. Here is a helpful website http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/poison-control/people-foods.html. If you do not see a particular item that you are interested in feeding your dog just look up the ingredient and see if it is safe. I know almonds and coconut are safe so their milk is safe to dog consumption, if you are worried I would just use water, which is cheaper and easier! Trust me your dog will love them for you and they are so much cheaper to make than buying good natural dog treats.
I knew I wanted to make Rigley cupcakes for his birthday so I decided to research recipes on the internet. In the past for his birthday I have bought him a large dog cookie or dog cookies that look like cupcakes but they take him a long time to eat because they are hard and made for larger dogs. Plus he tends to make a mess because they are always decorated with carob.There were a ton of choices for dog cupcakes, some with meat products, some with carrots, they all sounded “good” for a dog, but one that caught my eye was made with bananas. I know Rigley loves bananas so I figured they would be a great for him.
Rigley’s Banana Birthday Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting
Ingredients:
2 cups skim milk, almond milk, coconut milk or water (the original recipe uses water but I used almond milk since I had opened it for the cookies)
2 overripe mashed bananas
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 egg
3 tbsp honey
Method:
Heat oven 350 degrees. In the bowl that you mashed the bananas add the vanilla, honey and egg and beat. Then add your dry ingredients and mix well. This dough is a little runny so do not add more flour, it is supposed to look runny. Scoop into cupcake pans, I used mini cupcake pans because I have a small dog but you can use the large ones if you have a big dog. If you are using mini pans bake for 10 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. If you are using large tins bake for 20 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean.
For presentation, warm up a a little of the organic unsalted PB (it needs to be refrigerated and will not spread at that temperature) and ice the top of your dogs cupcake, then place a small bone PB cookie on top.
Rigley eating his birthday cupcake
Since Domenick and I wanted to join in on the celebration I decided to make cupcakes for us too. The cupcakes I made have got to be my favorite cupcakes of all time, which is bizarre because they are so simple to make. They are so delicious and the batter only makes 6-7 extra large cupcakes, which is good because I could eat a lot more of them. The way I discovered these cupcakes is ironic. My mom told me she didn’t want cake for her birthday last year. I knew she meant she didn’t want any baked goods, but since my mom does so much for me I could not let her go without something sweet on her birthday. I searched my cookbooks and looked for a recipe that would only make a few cupcakes so that my mom couldn’t get too mad at and I found them. The book is Cupcakes by Pamela Clark. They are actually called ice-cream cone cupcakes because they are supposed to be put into waffle cones and decorated to look like ice cream, but I didn’t do that so I adapted the recipe. Anyway, when we tried them on my mom’s birthday (hence the name) we were all so disappointed that it only made 6 cupcakes because they were amazing. Moral of the story, double the recipe and everyone will be happy.
Mary Ann’s Birthday Cupcakes
Ingredients:
6 tbs of softened unsalted butter
½ tsp of vanilla
½ cup of raw organic sugar
2 eggs
1 cup of flour
1 ½ tsp of baking soda
½ tsp of salt
3 tbs of milk
Method:
Preheat oven to 350. Line 6-7 holes in a large cupcake tin or 12 in a medium cupcake tin. Beat butter, sugar, eggs, flour and milk in a small bowl, either by hand or with an electric mixer on low and then increase speed to medium. I mixed all this dough by hand but just a warning it is thick heavy dough so if you have a hand mixer use it. It is not enough batter for a standard standup mixer. Next scoop the dough into the tins and smooth the surface of the cupcakes. Bake large cupcakes for about 25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean (I believe they may take less time so keep an eye on them). If you are using a medium tin bake for about 20 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean. They should be a blonde color when pulled out of the oven. Next place a cake rack on the top if the cupcakes and invert to get the cupcakes out. Then use another rack to turn the cupcakes right side up to cool.
Butter Cream Frosting
Ingredients:
1 stick of softened unsalted butter
1 tbs of vanilla
1 ½ cups of powdered sugar
3 tbs of milk
Method:
Beat butter in a small bowl using an electric mixer, or electric whisk until the butter is light and fluffy. I feel the electric whisk makes the frosting lighter and fluffier. Then add the vanilla, milk and powdered sugar. Add the milk and sifted powdered sugar in three batches and mix until all ingredients are incorporated. I ended up using about a tbs more of powdered sugar because my kitchen was warm from baking all night long, but you may have to adjust the liquid and sugar ratio depending on the temperature and humidity.
Mary Ann's Birthday Cupcakes
It was wonderful to celebrate Rigley’s birthday together as a family and we all enjoyed our treats. Happy Birthday Rigley we love you!
Sauce, Tomato Sauce, Gravy, Pasta Sauce, Spaghetti Sauce, Broth, Salsa or whatever you call it is one of the best creations in the world, at least in my opinion. Especially, when it’s homemade from fresh tomatoes.
I’ve my hands in making sauce (what I call it) as far back as I can remember. My parents and I would get out a hand crank mill and adhere it to the table or counter sometime in august when our garden was producing more tomatoes than we could give away and/or use. After milling the tomatoes my parents would freeze some just like that to make sauce after they ran out. They would make sauce from the rest of the milled tomatoes. My parents never jarred or canned their sauce but with a large stand-up freezer they didn’t have to. They would take the pureed tomatoes (what you get when you mill them) add garlic, onion, evoo, fresh herbs (also from their garden) and a ton of meat products: sausage from Ruggiero’s Italian Market in Rosetto, homemade meatballs, and other parts of pig and cow, sometimes rib meat, sometimes, butt, shoulder, or whatever we had, and sometimes my parents would make briscole with skirt steak (a favorite of mine). Making sauce is a cherished memory of mine but the best part was when the sauce was finished, normally around lunch time because we started so early in the morning, I would get a heaping bowl of sauce, some meat products, and a couple slices of bread and just dig in. Yumm! Once the sauce cooled they put it in containers and froze the sauce so my mom could just take it out the morning she needed it and it tasted as fresh as the day they made it.
When I met my husband over 6 years ago I found out that his family was Italian and made sauce too. I was so happy that we shared this in common because it is one of my favorite things to make. I also discovered that his parents jarred their sauce, which is quite different than they way my parents do it. When I finally tried their sauce I liked it because it reminded me of my parents. The thing I liked about it is that both families keep it simple and pure, no carrots or celery, no sugar or corn syrup, YUCK! Sweet sauces suck! If you don’t like the acid in a tomato sauce use less acidic tomatoes or take a damn Tums!
I’m going to go off in a tangent here. After I started writing this blog, I wondered why people and companies put sugar/corn syrup in their sauce so I decided to ask good old google. Apparently it is to balance out the acidity, but it only does so flavor wise, it doesn’t actually change the acid content. So its not going to stop you from having acid reflux (see Tums note above). People and companies probably started adding sugar of corn syrup to sauce because Americans tend to like things on the sweet side and may not like the true acidic flavor of tomato sauce. I doubt any real Italian would add sugar to their sauce, I’ve never heard of one doing so. If they wanted a sweeter sauce they would have just added carrots, but never sugar. So if you can do me one favor, please leave sugar and corn syrup for baking and keep it out of your sauce.
I began making sauce with my in-laws a few years ago. They make what they call Salsa Pronte which is just the cooked pureed tomatoes with salt added to a jar with a few sprigs of basil. Initially when Domenick and I made sauce with them, we made ours with onions, garlic, basil, salt, pepper, and evoo, but found that you had to add to add some more garlic, seasonings and evoo to taste when preparing the sauce anyway so this year we decided to make Salsa Pronte.
It was a very long process and took 10.5 hrs which didn’t include clean up and final canning time. I eventually did EVERY task for the first time and it was a wonderful experience.
First make sure your tomatoes are clean by washing them in buckets of water. We put the dirty tomatoes in a bucket fill it with water wash the tomatoes, then use a second bucket with clean water to make sure they’re extra clean. Then we put the freshly washed tomatoes in another bucket.
My niece Sabrina was a big help with washing the tomatoes
Washing the tomatoes and basil
Next you boil the tomatoes.
Once the tomatoes are boiled add them to a bowl so you can mill them.
Then make sure to get rid of the excess tomato juice and water and add the tomatoes to the mill.
Then mill the tomatoes and mill the rinds another two times to make the sauce thicker.
Tomatoes in the hopper
Pushing the tomatoes through the mill
Sauce coming out on the right, the seeds and skins coming out on the left
Then add the basil to the clean mason jars (sorry no picture)
Fresh Basil
Then add the sauce to a big bowl and salt to taste. Next add the sauce to the jars and top the jars with their lids and rings. Then boil until jars are sealed.
The beautiful finished product
The difference I see between jarring and freezing.
Freezing sauce
Pros: You can add meat, herbs and spices and it will taste almost as good as the day you made it. It tastes fresher than jarred sauce. You only make in smaller batches so it takes less time to make it. You can use your own home grown tomatoes since you are using a smaller batch. You can literally take the sauce out, defrost it, heat it and eat it.
Con’s: It only last about 6mos maybe a year if you are lucky, but the sauce will begin to crystallize and loose flavor if you keep it too long. Since you are making a smaller batch you will need to do it every 6 months. You’ll also need a lot of freezer space.
Jarring Sauce
Pros: You can store it for years and it won’t spoil. You can make a large amount at a time. No need to defrost and no chance of freezer burn. Only need to make it every few years.
Cons: Glass jars break easily. It takes a lot longer to make and jar because of the quantity. Need a ton of cool dark storage space, (ie a decent size basement pantry). It needs to be spruced up with garlic, herbs, spices and meats.
In conclusion it doesn’t matter how you make or keep sauce, the point is to just get out there and do it! I still to this day cannot understand how people eat supermarket jarred sauce when it’s so easy and so delicious to make your own!
One of the things I look forward to the most in the summer is fresh vegetables from the garden. On the top of my list is zucchini blossoms. For me they are a fried item that I cannot live without. Sure there are other ways of preparing and eating them but when you want the real flavor to shine I believe frying them is the best way. Since I do not grow zucchini I go to my parents for this special treat and I am lucky to get it once or twice during the summer since I now live further away. Maybe someday my own garden will be able to accommodate zucchini; however I’d probably eat all of the blossoms and my garden would not be able to yield the vegetable.
Pick your blossoms first thing in the morning when they are fully open, buy them from a local farmer/farmers market, or order them online. If you are picking them you are supposed to just use the males (which are identified by pistons), because the female flowers are what produce the fruit. However, we tried both males and females last year and they taste the same. So if you are like my parents and have an abundance of zucchini every year feel free to use both male and female flowers.
18 zucchini blossoms (if you have more or less just adjust the amount of batter)
A pint whole milk, or a mixture of milk and cream
3 heaping tablespoons flour
An egg, lightly beaten
Salt
Evoo, Vegetable oil, or Canola oil for frying
Remove the pistils, wash the blossoms gently and pat them dry just as gently. When you are ready to fry trim stems of the zucchini blossoms, but be sure to keep a good part of the stem on so you can turn them in the frying pan.
Prepare the batter by combining the milk, flour and egg. This batter will be thinner than a pancake batter.
Heat the oil.
Fry on both sides until golden brown. It will only take about 2 minutes on each side.
Once they come out of the hot oil dry them and sprinkle with locatelli cheese (you may substitute parmesan). Then enjoy! My father eats his on a sandwich with Italian bread and tomatoes; however my mother and I prefer to eat them like French fries and by popping them into our mouths one by one.
If you ever have the opportunity to eat zucchini blossoms in any shape or form go for it and you will not be disappointed. There are so many options with eating them too. You can stuff them, add to pasta, risotto, muffins, anything you’d like it just depends on how may blossoms are available to you. If you can only get a few, I still suggest frying them because it is my favorite way to eat them.
Blueberries in batter on left, blueberry's on top right
1 cup of unbleached flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp sea salt
1/8 cup of flax seed
Zest from ½ of a lemon
1 tbs of melted non-hydrogenated margarine
1 cup of almond milk (note: I needed some extra but it depends how your batter is acting that day. I probably added an extra 1/8 cup.)
As many blueberries as you would like I would guess I used ½ a cup maybe more
Mix together the dry ingredients and then mix in the zest and wet ingredients. Put a pan, I used a flat plan, on medium heat and brush lightly with non-hydrogenated margarine.
Now this is where I experimented for the first batch I used a ladle and put 4 pancakes on the pan and then dropped the blueberries on them. Once the batter on top begins to bubble you know it is time to flip the pancake. Cook on both sides until lightly browned. Then top with anything, powdered sugar, more “butter” or maple syrup. I used real organic maple syrup and more earth balance spread.
For the second half I added the blueberries directly to the mix and lightly stirred. Then turned the pan to low and cooked the pancakes. Now these will take longer because they are thicker with the berries in them.
The reason I did this experiment? Well my mom always added the blueberries to the mix at the end, but lately on cooking shows I’ve seen them put them on in the cooking process. My personal opinion: The blueberries that were added after the pancakes were on the pan were quicker and easier and looked nicer, but you cannot beat the flavor of the pancakes with the blueberries throughout! I guess mom really does know best!
Now for the other part of the experiment, I fed them to my dad as blueberry lemon pancakes and he loved them. He is a vegan-phobic and he had no idea that there weren’t any animal products in them. Not to toot my own horn, but they were probably the best pancakes I've had!
Score 1 for Mom and Jen, Score 0 for Chef’s and Dad.
Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged, but sometimes life gets in the way. Anyway I’m back with a new creation. I hope you like it, good thing I wrote the blog when I made the bread or I wouldn’t have remembered the ingredients!
So I had 3 over-ripe bananas and I hate wasting food so I figured I would make Banana Bread, but not just any Banana Bread would do, it had to be Peanut Butter Banana Bread. After scouring the internet, I realized that there wasn’t a recipe that would suite my ingredients so I made up my own.
½ cup of vegan butter
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs worth of vegan eggs (Once again I used flax, because it is so healthy. 1tbs of flax plus 3 tbs of warm water = 1 egg)
3 over-ripe bananas (mashed)
½ cup of PB
2 tsp vanilla
2 ½ cups of flour
1 tsp of baking soda
Preheat your oven to 325 and grease a 5x9 inch loaf pan. In a large bowl, cream the “butter” and sugar. Add your egg sub and beat well. Then add, PB, Banana mash, vanilla flour (I would start with 2 ¼ cups of flour and then if your batter is still wet (ie bigger bananas, add the other ¼ cup), and baking soda. Mix until blended. If you wish you could add nuts or chocolate chips. I wish I would have added chocolate chips but I know it wouldn’t be as healthy and I made my vegan brownies this weekend too so I figured I would just stick to PB banana bread. Bake at 325 for about 80-90 mins or until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean. My center was not cooking so I took a piece of foil and cut out the center so the edges of the bread would be covered by the foil but the center could still brown and it worked perfectly! Cool on a wire rack. Serve plain, with vegan butter, or even more PB. Rigley even likes this bread. I actually caught him going into my husband’s brief case and eating a piece of the slice I cut for my husband to take to work! That little stinker! Anyway, it’s safe for dogs and healthy so if you feel like sharing with Fido go ahead.
