If only every day was a lazy Sunday: Banana Bread Pancakes

I am a sucker for lazy Sunday food. I have an assortment of breakfast food pans in the pantry for just this reason. I like to make anything from ebelskivers to mini-waffles but sometimes all it takes is a new twist on a classic to get me inspired.

I am also a sucker for Pinterest. I was a fan of Pinterest before I got engaged, using it to search for new recipes, party decoration ideas, and home decor. Of course now I am elbow deep in wedding ideas (how is a girl supposed to make a decision on wedding decor when every day there is a new batch of ideas?!?) but I still take some time to look at the food.

It is the perfect storm when two of my sweet spots (no pun intended) come together and provide a gem like How Sweet It Is' Banana Bread Pancakes http://www.howsweeteats.com/2011/06/whole-wheat-brown-sugar-banana-bread-pancakes/.

Words cannot describe how wonderful these pancakes are... I mean, banana bread + pancakes + maple glaze = lazy Sunday food coma, in the best way possible of course. I made these for the first time, solely based on how yummy they looked on Pinterest. They went wildly above and beyond my expectations and I immediately sent a text to one of my vegan friends in Toronto who is a fellow foodie. She "veganized" them and had the same glowing reviews as I did. Within seconds, these to-die-for pancakes became Sunday staples in both our homes.

So this weekend, brew up some coffee, make a batch of these bad boys, then snuggle into the couch with some blankets and a movie while the banana bread pancake food coma sets in!

Banana Bread Pancakes
makes 12 pancakes
2 cups all purpose flour (or whole wheat pastry flour to be somewhat healthier or add 2 Tbsp of flax seed to the all purpose as I did)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2/3 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 large ripe bananas, mashed
2 tablespoons butter, melted

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl. Measure out the milk and add the vanilla extract to it. Whisk together the dry ingredients and add in milk and vanilla, stirring to combine. The mixture will still be dry. Add in mashed bananas and mix. Add in melted butter and stir until batter is somewhat smooth.

Heat a skillet or grilled on medium heat. Using a 1/3 cup measure, spoon batter into rounds and cook until bubbles form on top – about 2-3 minutes. The pancakes will be thick but don't worry, they cook through.Flip and cook for a minute or two more. Repeat with remaining batter. Serve hot with butter and syrup, or the vanilla maple glaze.


Vanilla Maple Glaze
1/2 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until smooth. Pour over pancakes.

Thanks to Jessica and her How Sweet It Is blog for posting these on pintrest!!

We're Back!!

My first inclination is to apologize for our prolonged absence, but the Maine lobsterman in me says screw that. We have no reason to apologize. We will, however, happily share an explanation for why we’ve been absent. We think you’ll forgive us. On December 19, 2011 Dawn and I got engaged! I’ll let Dawn share some of the specifics of the engagement at a later point, but between our Christmas and New Year’s trip to California, my studying for the LSAT, and Dawn and I trying to get our wedding planning on course, we simply haven’t had much free time. The little time we have had has been dedicated to other ventures besides cooking. We’ve missed our contributions to Cats. Crooners. Cook. We’ve missed posting reading material for our friends and family members to read in the wee morning hours during baby feedings. We’ve missed the excitement of finding out someone from a new country has found our blog. But we’re back baby! We have a whole new pantry full of an assortment of new cooking tools acquired over Christmas, and we’re excited to break them all in. We look forward to a new year of tasty treats and fantastic food. Stay tuned, we’ll have a few new recipes posted shortly. 

Rose Fondue

Dawn and I wanted to be sure to post something for our triumphant return. We have managed to squeeze out enough time in the past 45 days to cook a few meals here and there. We’ve done our best to take photos of everything we felt was blog worthy. Some of the photos aren’t our best, but come on people, we’ve been busy!

As many of you may know by now, we like cheese. So it seems appropriate that we start 2012 off on a cheesy foot. Hopefully some of you out there have tried our champagne brie pesto fondue. If not, I urge you do so, and to give this lovely fondue a try. It’s still winter. It’s cold out, the wind is howling and when the weather is bad, it doesn’t get much better than to gather around a table with friends or family and dip some of your favorite foods into rich and flavorful melted cheese. Here’s the recipe.

-          4 ounces Gruyere cheese

-          8 ounces mild white cheddar or  swiss

-          8 ounces rose wine

-          1 garlic clove

-          3 teaspoons cornstarch

Directions:

Rub the inside of the fondue pot with the cut side of the garlic. Add the wine and heat to a heavy simmer. In a medium bowl, toss the cheese with the cornstarch. Stir into the fondue pot by small handfuls until cheese is melted.

As we highlighted in our Pesto, half of the fun with fondue is what you choose to dip. For this rendition we steamed some baby carrots & broccoli, sliced an apple, cooked some beef and vegetarian sausage and sliced some fresh bread. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Stuffed Cupcakes

I came across cookie dough cupcakes a few months ago but was finally motivated to make them after the recent gift of a cupcake corer. I had previously seen some recipes online that had a vanilla cupcake stuffed with the cookie dough and with a cookie dough frosting but being a chocoholic, I decided to switch it up and use a Devil's food cupcake instead.

And again, being that I was sharing these with my vegan friends I made these vegan by using a Devil's Food Duncan Hine's mix for the cupcake and margarine instead of butter and soy milk instead of milk. And of course, gotta love the Trader Joe's chocolate chips!

All the steps are easy but it is a long process putting it all together so give yourself time!

Here we go....

Devil's Food Cupcakes

Buy a box of your favorite brand of Devil's food mix (or make your own if you have the extra time) and follow the directions.

Let the cupcakes cool before coring. I used my new Williams-Sonoma corer.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

See our previous blog on the best eggless cookie dough around (I used half the recipe for the cookie dough center but feel free to make the whole batch so you can nibble away while baking!)

Make sure the dough has been chilled for a least an hour in the freezer before making teaspoon-sized cylinders for the dough centers.

Place the cylinders in the cupcake core and make sure the top of the cupcake is even.

Cookie Dough Frosting


Ingredients:

1 c. unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 c. vegetable shortening
3/4 c. brown sugar
3 c. confectioners sugar
1 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. milk
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Mix all the ingredients (except the chocolate chips) in a mixer or with a hand blender until smooth. Put frosting into a piping bag with your favorite tip. Pipe the frosting onto the cupcake and sprinkle with chocolate chips.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. butter
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 package of chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the butter, sugar and egg. Add the flour mix to the sugar mix and add the vanilla. Stir to combine. Add chocolate chips and mix evenly.

Place tablespoons of dough on a cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes. Let the cookies cool and place in the middle of the icing.

You can keep the cookie dough center a secret and give your guests an extra surprise when they bite in!

Good luck eating just one!

Holy Guacamole: Loving our new Molcajete!

Christmas is around the corner and Aric and I got a present early this year: a molcajete! 

A traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle, it is traditionally carved out of a single block of basalt (which ours is). The rough surface of the basalt stone provides an excellent grinding surface, perfect for making guacamole.

We were anxious to give it a whirl so off to the grocery store we went and got all the ingredients we needed for a nacho feast!

Do you think it is possible for our guacamole to taste even better just because it is happier in its pretty molcajete home?

Ingredients:

• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 ripe tomato , diced
• 3 ripe avocados , peeled and dices
• Lime juice (2 limes)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin (optional)
• 1 pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
• 1/2 jalapeno pepper
• 5 or 6 fresh cilantro sprigs
• Tortilla chips for serving

Directions:

Prepare all the ingredients and combine in the molecajete. Smash to desired chunkiness and serve with chips for dipping.

Serves 4 to 6.

A Taste of Hong Kong: Egg Waffles

Last Valentine's Day, Aric decided to buy me an Egg Waffle pan after I oohed and ahhed over it during a Christmas stroll through one of our favorite stores: Williams-Sonoma. I'll admit, I was pretty excited about this pan, based on the following two reasons: (1) I have both an ebelskiver pan and a mini-waffle pan, also from Williams-Sonoma, that I adore and figured this would be a perfect addition to my pan collection and (2) the picture of the egg waffle on the packaging looked delicious. Note that I had never seen nor even ever heard of an egg waffle before this chance encounter so I had no idea if I would actually like it but what can I say, I am apparently a sucker for breakfast food pans!

My first attempt was somewhat of a disaster. I used the egg waffle mix, also found at Williams-Sonoma, and battled between burning the suckers and under cooking them. I think this mainly had to do with learning what stove top setting worked best with the pan, as my most recent attempt went off without a hitch.  (Note, I had similar (and somewhat frustrating) trial and error experiences with the other two pans on my first attempts but once you get that sorted out, you are good to go. Don't be discouraged!) 

I also switched it up slightly this time around and followed the recipe on Williams-Sonoma.com, which I preferred as it had nutmeg in it and was a slightly sweeter flavor.

Since I knew nothing about these waffles, I did a quick Google search after I got the pan to learn a bit about them. Sold as a street snack by sidewalk vendors in Hong Kong (and ranked No.3 in the 50 most popular HK "street snacks" to boot), gai daan tsai, or egg waffles are a puffy, doughy treat and are enjoyed for breakfast and snacks, eaten either plain or with fruit. Historians agree that the egg waffle originated in the 1950's but the story of where it came from are debatable.

Well, wherever it came from, it is a yummy twist on your traditional weekend waffle breakfast!

Ingredients:

• 4 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 Tbs. vanilla extract
• 6 Tbs. (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 6 egg whites, beaten to medium peaks
• Vegetable oil for cooking

Directions:

In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, milk, vanilla, butter and sugar until combined. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. Whisk the egg yolk mixture into the flour mixture until well combined and no lumps remain. Add one-third of the beaten egg whites to the batter and stir until lightened. Gently fold in the remaining whites in 2 additions.

Set a wire rack on a baking sheet. Preheat both sides of an egg waffle pan on separate burners over medium heat until hot. Lightly brush each side of the pan with vegetable oil and pour 3/4 cup batter into the center of one side. Immediately place the other side of the pan on top, flip the pan over and cook for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes. Flip the pan over and cook until the waffle is golden brown on the other side, 2 to 2 1/2 minutes more.

Open the pan, invert the waffle onto the rack-lined baking sheet and let cool for 2 to 3 minutes before serving. Repeat with the remaining batter.

Makes 5 egg waffles.

A New French Onion Soup is in Town

It has turned cold here and I crave nothing more than hot drinks and meals. Apparently it is only going to get colder (or so they keep telling me) so there is bound to be a plethora of "warm you from the inside out" meals here for the next few months.

One of my most recent favorites is Gwyneth Paltrow's White Bean Soup, from her cookbook  “My Father’s Daughter”. This recipe was inspired from a soup she used to have at a restaurant that she and her father would go to in Los Angeles. She actually offers this recipe with two versions: French Onion and With Kale. They both are amazing soups which is why I prefer to combine them into one steaming bowl of perfection.

The end result looks like a yummy French Onion Soup on top, with slices of bread and melted cheese. Once you dig in, you have the reinvented amber brown onion broth that contains the white beans and kale. This is a soup that not only tastes amazing but you get great health benefits from as well. Kale is considered one of the healthiest vegetables around  and white beans are full of protein and fiber.

Who would of thought, a soup that tastes this delicious can be so good for you?

Here is my adapted recipe.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, sliced thinly
1 fennel bulb, stems and fronds removed, sliced thinly
3 large garlic cloves, minced
Pinch red chile flakes
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
2 15-ounce cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 pints chicken or vegetable stock
Coarse salt
1 bunch of kale, stems disgarded and leaves torn into bite-sized pieces
8 thin slices baguette
1 cup of Gruyere or Parmesan cheese

Directions:
Heat the olive oil in a large heavy soup pot over medium-heat. Add the fennel and onion and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. At the 15 minute mark add the garlic and cook for 2 more minutes. The onions and fennel will be slightly carmelized.

Add the chile flakes, oregano and pepper and cook for a minute. Add the beans and stock, bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and add salt to taste, and let cook on low heat for 1 hour.

Stir in the kale leaves and let it cook for 2-3 more minutes, or until slightly cooked. Lade into four to six ovenproof bowls. Float two toasts on each bowl and evenly distribute the cheese. Put the bowls under the broiler until the cheese is bubbly, less than a few minutes. 

Serves 4-6.

(Note: I didn't use the fennel, as I am not a fan of the taste, and I don't find that I have to substitute it with anything)