Banana Bread

Bananas are not exactly my favorite food (ok, I hate them).  Banana bread, though, is absolutely wonderful.  I have no idea why that is; it's just one of the great mysteries of the universe.  It's also pretty easy to make!  To do so, you will need: 1 3/4 C flour; 2 tsp baking powder; 1/4 tsp baking soda; 1/2 tsp salt; 1/3 C shortening or butter; 2/3 C sugar; 2 eggs, beaten; and 1 C mashed banana.  You can also add a 1/2 C of walnuts, but walnuts are gross, so I leave them out.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x5" loaf pan.  In a smallish bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  In a large bowl, cream together the shortening, sugar, and eggs.  And in a last bowl, mash up your bananas.  The recipe calls for 1 C, but I just used three bananas.  It ended up being closer to 1 1/4 - 1 1/3 C, but that's fine.

Now add the flour mixture and the banana into the sugar/shortening/egg mixture, alternating between the flour and banana, beginning and ending with the flour (so mix in flour, add banana, mix in flour, add banana, mix in the rest of the flour).  This is the point where you'd add the walnuts if you were so inclined.  Your batter should be nice and thick when you're done.  Spread this in your greased loaf pan.

Bake this for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let it cool in the pan for about 10 minutes or so, then turn it out of the pan.  It's also all ready for eating! 

Ok, maybe I got a little carried away with the butter...

And now you've got yourself a great snack and/or breakfast!

Chuck Roast with Cranberry Gravy

It was rather chilly today, which made it a perfect day for another slow cooker recipe!  This is incredibly easy and doesn't really require that many ingredients.  What you'll need are: a 2 1/2 lb chuck roast (or beef brisket); 1/2 tsp salt; 1/4 tsp pepper; 1 (14 oz) can whole cranberry sauce; 1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce; 1 medium onion, chopped; and 1 tsp dry mustard.

All you need for a really tasty dinner!

Trim any extra fat off of the roast, rub it with the salt and pepper, and put it in your slow cooker.  Now mix together the rest of the ingredients.

Not really the tastiest looking concoction in the world

Pour it into the slow cooker over the beef.

The "before" picture

Cover and set the cooker to the low setting and leave it alone for 8-10 hours, or until the beef is tender.

The "after" picture

Now just slice up the beef (or just pull it apart--it's super tender), cook up some potatoes and vegetables, serve with the sauce left in the cooker, and you have dinner!

Dinner!

Roast Pork Loin

Today is Superbowl Sunday and I just could not make myself care about it at all.  Not even a tiny bit.  I think it at least partly had to do with working all day Saturday, but I decided to spend today being a hermit and make something tasty for dinner.  This is a recipe I got out of the giant cookbook How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman (I also got the recipe for the pork chops and apples from one of his books).  You'll need a 2-3 lb boneless pork loin roast (or a 3-4 lb one with the bone in it); 1 tsp dried rosemary (or 2 Tbsp minced fresh rosemary); 1 Tbsp sugar; 1 tsp minced garlic; salt and pepper; 1 1/2 C chicken stock (or dry white wine); and 1 Tbsp butter.

All this stuff

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Mix together your rosemary, sugar, garlic, salt, and pepper.  Rub it all over the pork and stick in a roasting pan.  The cookbook says to use a rack in the pan if you're using a boneless roast, but I don't have one and it came out just fine anyway.

All ready for roasting!

Put it in the oven for 15 minutes.  When the time is up, add to your pan 1/2 C of the stock or wine and turn the oven down to 325 degrees.  Every 15 minutes add another 1/4 C stock or wine and baste the roast with the juices that collect in the bottom of the pan.  Your total cooking time will probably be between 1 hour and 15 minutes and 1 1/2 hours; just use a meat thermometer to make sure the pork is cooked all the way through.

And that's really it for the pork!  You've still got all those nice juices in the pan, though, so go ahead and put your roaster on the stove and turn the heat on to medium-high.  The cookbook says to cook this until it reduces to about 3/4 C and the add the butter, but I also added in a bit of flour mixed with water to thicken it up a bit for a nice gravy.  I also boiled a potato and sauteed some mushrooms and onion to go on it and roasted a bit of asparagus (for really good roasted asparagus, just coat your asparagus spears in olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes).

Dinner!

And I have to tell you, this was really really good.  Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't toot my own horn, but I was actually impressed with how well it turned out.  That Bittman fellow really seems to know what he's talking about!  This'll be something I make for my folks the next time they come visit/I go visit them.

Pineapple Pie

Yesterday was my boss's last day of work before retirement, so Wednesday all of at work decided to throw him a party.  Since there was no way we'd be able to get him to go out anywhere after work, we had a potluck lunch (actually more like an all-day feast).  He likes pineapple pie, and was, in fact, the one who gave me this recipe, so I decided to bring that.  For the pie crust you'll need 2 3/4 C flour; 1 tsp salt; 1 C cold shortening; 6-8 Tbs cold water; one large egg white; and 1 tsp sugar.  For the filling you'll need 1 1-lb, 4-oz can crushed pineapple; 1 8-oz can crushed pineapple; 1/2 C sugar; 3 Tbsp cornstarch; 1/4 tsp salt; 4 Tbsp butter (cut into little chunks); 1 1/2 tsp grated lemon zest; 3/4 tsp grated orange zest; and 1 Tbsp lemon juice.

Make your pie crust by combining the flour, salt, and shortening in a large bowl with a pastry blender.  Using a fork, stir in the water a little bit at a time until the dough sticks together.  Form it into two balls, one a little larger than the other (the bigger one is for the bottom crust), and put them in the refrigerator for about an hour.

While that's chilling, start making your filling.  First off, get your lemon and orange zest.  I really recommend using a microplane.  It's one of those kitchen utensils that I don't really use that often, but I'm always glad I have it for the few times I need it.  You can use a box grater, too, but the microplane is waaaaaay easier.  You may as well go ahead and measure out your lemon juice at this time, too, and just set it aside.  Now, put a strainer over a bowl and drain the crushed pineapple, saving as much juice as you can.  Ideally you'll want 1 1/3 C of pineapple juice.  Set the pineapple and the juice aside and in a large pan, whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, and salt.  Slowly whisk in the pineapple juice until it's smooth and bring it all to a boil over medium heat, until it's thickened and smooth.

It'll look rather like this.

Take it off the heat and stir in the pineapple, the butter, the lemon and orange zests, and lemon juice.  Keep stirring until the butter is all melted.

You're going to want to let this cool, so, while that's happening, it's time to roll out the pie crust.  At this time, you should turn on your oven to 400 degrees to preheat.  Roll out the bigger dough ball, put it in a 9" pie plate, and brush with beaten egg white mixed with 1 tsp water. 

Fill the pie shell with your tasty tasty pineapple filling, smoothing it out on top.

Now roll out the other dough ball and put it on top.  Brush with more egg white, sprinkle with sugar, and cut ventilation slits in the top of the pie.  Bake it for 35-40 minutes, or until the pie is nice and golden brown.  I've only made a couple of pies before, so mine isn't exactly the prettiest in the world.  Hopefully yours will look a little nicer.

Might not win any beauty contests, but it's tasty!

And you're done!  Just let this cool for a few hours before eating or bringing to your hungry coworkers.

I totally snuck away with the last piece. Om nom nom.