Category: Food & Wine

Plum Harvest

Keith reaches for another cluster of fruit;
click to see how high he is off the ground.

The official plum harvest occurred today. For the record, we picked a little more than 65 pounds. We lost about 20 pounds to the slugs on the ground, which in the grand scheme of things is probably okay. Enough is enough!

After taking inventory of the canned plum stock in the basement, we will be focusing our preserving efforts on plum jelly (with plenty of pectin this time), plum rapture (a spiced plum flavored rum), dried plums and maybe one or two plum kuchens. We’re also working on a few never-before-tried ways of eating fresh plums, including plum sorbet, plum custard tart, and pork scallopini in plum sauce.

Adventures with Mushy Bananas – Part 5

Law school starts full-time on Monday, so I think I’ll draw the mushy banana chronicles to a close with a recipe for a banana smoothie. We can all throw some fruit together in a blender without much thought, but it’s a sign of true genius when someone comes up with a Frozen Banana Latte.

This requires a little planning. The day before you want to enjoy one of these, you have to put some cut up banana in the freezer. Other than that these are easy-peasy and really, really yummy.

Frozen Banana Latte
Serves 1

¼ c frozen yogurt or low-fat ice cream
¼ c milk
1 generous spoonful silken tofu
¾ tsp instant coffee granules, add more to taste
½ ripe banana, sliced and frozen.

Place ingredients in a blender; process until smooth. Sprinkle with cinnamon, if desired.

Adventures with Mushy Bananas – Part 4

Lest you think all of my banana experiments are unqualified successes, I thought I’d write about a recipe for banana-nut biscotti that turned out only just okay.

I should qualify my disappointment with my vision for perfect biscotti: The cookies should be so crisp and crunchy that they break apart into a thousand tiny crumbs if you dare bite into one without first dipping it into a mug of steaming coffee. Anything less will not do.

The results of the experiment were certainly tasty – sort of like banana bread, but in a more travel-friendly form. The texture on the other hand was too soft. No dipping was necessary to prevent a chipped tooth.

If you like biscotti and want a change from the typical flavors, I suggest giving them a try. Just don’t expect your typical dipping cookie.

Banana-Nut Biscotti
Yields 2 dozen cookies

Note: While I didn’t try this, drizzling these with dark chocolate would probably be very good.

1 ¾ c flour
½ c sugar
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1/3 c mashed very ripe banana (about 1 banana)
1 tbs vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/3 c chopped pecans or almonds, toasted
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Combine banana, oil, vanilla, and egg in another bowl; stir in flour mixture and nuts (dough will be sticky).

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; shape dough into 2 (8-inch-long). Place rolls on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray; flatten to 1/2-inch thickness.

Bake 23 minutes. Remove rolls from baking sheet; cool 10 minutes on a wire rack. Cut each roll diagonally into 12 (1/2-inch) slices. Place slices, cut sides down, on baking sheet. Reduce oven temperature to 250°; bake 15 minutes. Turn cookies over; bake an additional 15 minutes. Remove from baking sheet; cool completely on wire racks.

Before + After

before

Blackberries are just about the sweetest thing you can think of (and eat) in August. Nick and I spent the evening at the local berry patch suffering thorns for our reward. Since I don’t have Ethan’s talent for crumble, I made a custard tart instead.

after

It won’t cool in time to eat tonight, so I guess we’ll have to have it for breakfast. Under normal circumstances this might be shocking, but I’m going out for a few days of cross-country travel with my friend Mike, so it will keep me well-fueled. Nick...well...he’ll just have to go for a bike ride or something.

Adventures with Mushy Bananas – Part 3

Keeping with the dessert theme from last week, I decided to experiment with a new recipe from Cooking Light - Banana Bread Pudding. This recipe wins on account of how easy it is and the fact that it can be made in advance to serve to guests.

We had some leftover chocolate bread in the freezer, which turned out to be an excellent modification of the original recipe. If you don’t have chocolate bread, try sprinkling in a couple chocolate chips or drizzling fudge sauce over the puddings when they come out of the oven.

Banana Bread Pudding
Serves 2

1/3 c milk
1 tbs dark brown sugar
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 large egg
2 c cubed French bread
cooking spray
1/2 c mashed ripe banana
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a small bowl, and stir with a whisk. Place 1/2 cup bread cubes into each of 2 (8-ounce) ramekins coated with cooking spray. Spoon 2 tablespoons milk mixture over each serving, and top with 1/4 cup banana. Sprinkle each serving with 1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar. Repeat procedure with remaining bread and milk mixture. Chill 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Bake for 50 minutes or until done. Enjoy as is or spoon a little custard sauce, caramel syrup, or fudge sauce over each serving.