Banana Yogurt Loaf

Anna Olson is one of my all-time favourite bakers.  I recently got her newest cookbook, Back to Baking, and have tried a few recipes from there with a lot of success.  This Banana Bread recipe is an adaptation of her Morning Glory Yogurt Loaf.  It was my first time making this and trying my modification, but I think it turned out pretty good.  It was very moist.  What I did notice was that it took much longer to bake than her recipe states.  I think this might be because of all the bananas I put in it, but I'm not too sure.  Next time I will try using less bananas and see what happens.

Ingredients:
6 tbsp butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, at room temperature
2/3 cup plain yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
pinch ground cinnamon
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup (approx.) white chocolate chips
1/2 cup (approx.) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325F and grease a 9x5" loaf pan.

Cream the butter and sugar together.  Add the eggs to the butter mixture, one at a time, blending well after each addition.  Stir in the yogurt and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.  Stir this into the butter mixture.  Stir in the bananas, and then the chips.  Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 70 minutes (mine took closer to 90 minutes), until a tester inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.  Cool the loaf for 30 minutes, then tap it out of the pan to cool completely on a cooling rack.  The loaf will, keep, well wrapped and unrefrigerated, for up to 3 days.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Two years ago my husband and I went to the UK for a vacation and we discovered sticky toffee pudding in York. And what a discovery it was! It now ranks pretty high on my list of all-time favourite desserts.  When I returned home I went on a search for a recipe to make my own sticky toffee pudding whenever my heart desired.  And in case you didn't know, it is not a pudding.  We learned ourselves in England that pudding is just their word for a dessert.  I found this recipe in a book called Favorite Foods by Jill Dupleix. I've made this dessert on a few occasions and always get good reviews.  I'm making it tonight for a Mommies Night Out that I'm hosting at my house.  And I'll tell you that this recipe tastes exactly like the one I had in England.

The dessert we discovered in York!

Ingredients - Cake:
180g (about 1 to 1-1/4 cups) dates, pitted and chopped
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup soft brown sugar
2 eggs
1-2/3 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Ingredients - Toffee Sauce:
2/3 cup brown sugar
250ml (1 cup) whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp butter

Heat oven to 350F.  Mix dates and baking soda in a heat-proof bowl. Pour boiling water on top and let it sit. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until pale, then add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Gently fold in the sifted flour mixture, stir in the date mixture and then pour into a lightly greased (8") square pan.  Bake for 30-40 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Combine sugar, cream, vanilla and butter in a sauce pan, bring to the boil over medium-high heat, stirring.  Lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring.  (I often find that if I simmer it longer, the sauce comes out even thicker.) Set aside until ready to serve, then reheat when needed. Cut the cake into squares and pour the sauce over, serving warm.

Here is how I normally serve this pudding: Pour a spoonful of the sauce on a plate, cut a good size piece of cake and place on top.  Then put another 1-2 spoonfuls of the sauce on top of the cake.  Pop it into the microwave for 45 seconds - 1 minute (depends on the size) and serve.  Traditionally you would add a spoonful of double cream (I find it in a small jar at the Superstore) over top, but you could also use vanilla ice cream, fresh cream, etc.

This recipe says it feeds four - but those must be HUGE servings.  I find that you could serve 8-10 people with very generous portions and everyone is happy.

The mommies loved it and there was just enough left over for my husband and I to enjoy a piece for breakfast the next morning with a nice latte!

Of course in my rush to make the dessert while my daughter was sleeping, I forgot to take pictures of the process, but here is a pic of my creation at our breakfast this morning!

Potato Parsnip Gratin

As far as I know, I have never eaten parsnip.  I didn't even know what it was until I found myself looking for it in the grocery store so I could make it into baby food for my daughter.  What a surprise to discover that it was basically a white carrot.  When I was steaming it, it smelled so delicious and sort of familiar, but I couldn't figure out how or why.  Well my daughter seemed to enjoy it so I thought I'd try and make it in a dish for me and the hubby.

Tonight's dinner consisted of chicken fatina (sp?) which are breaded chicken cutlets (yum!) and a parsnip take on one of our favourite dishes - scalloped potatoes.  Now I did not make up this recipe. I saw a gratin on Pinterest and through my google searches I found a bunch of other gratin recipes - always made with potatoes and parsnip or potatoes, parsnip and turnip (another veggie I have never tried!).  So I picked a recipe that seemed to have good reviews, gave it a read through and decided that it was basically a scalloped potato recipe with a few modifications.  You can find the original recipe here: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Parsnip-Potato-Gratin but as usual I did not follow it.  I basically used my scalloped potato recipe and added what was different.  I think this recipe would be healthier because it is using 1% milk instead of whole or whipping cream.

Ingredients:

4 small-medium potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

1 large parsnip, peeled and thinly sliced

1 small-medium onion, thinly sliced

1 1/2 cups Swiss cheese, grated (I mixed in a little mozzarella)

1/4 cup flour

3-4 tbsp butter

salt and pepper

1 cup milk (approximately)

Grease your dish (I used a corning ware 2.5qt  

 oval casserole dish) and start layering.  Start with potatoes and scatter some pieces of onion all over; season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with flour; dot with butter. Do the exact same thing with a layer of parsnip and then sprinkle some cheese over it (you will use about half of your cheese for the layers - save the other half).  Continue doing this with a potato layer and parsnip layer until you run out of ingredients (or reach the top of the dish!). Ideally you'd like to end with a potato layer, but I actually ended with a layer of potato/parsnip alternating.  Overall I did two layers each of potato and parsnip, and my fifth layer was the combo. For the top layer - do not sprinkle flour or butter, but you can season with salt and pepper if you'd like.  Pour your milk over the top till it comes about halfway up the dish. Top off the dish with the remaining cheese and cover.  Bake in a preheated 375F oven for 35 minutes.  Remove the lid, increase the heat to 400 and bake for another 25 minutes.  Enjoy!

Now someone who has eaten parsnip before and knows what it should taste like in dishes will need to comment to let everyone know if this recipe really is any good.  I wouldn't say it was bad, but for me and my husband, we didn't really care for the dish.  We both found that the parsnip was very overpowering, and it is a flavour neither one of us grew up with so we didn't really enjoy it all that much.  We would both prefer my scalloped potatoes all on their own so I doubt I'll be making this recipe again.

The fatina on the other hand - yum! I could eat those all day every day.  I simply took some chicken breasts that had already been sliced horizontally and then pounded to make them into thin cutlets (thanks Nonna!), dipped them into beaten eggs and then dipped them into Italian bread crumbs so they were covered.  Heat your pan over medium heat with some vegetable oil (add a splash of olive oil and tablespoon of butter - my mom's tip) and fry away. So fast and easy and of course - so delicious!