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.

Chicken Stroganoff Pot Pie

One of the best things I ever bought for my kitchen is my slow cooker.  Unfortunately, I don't use it nearly as often as I'd like since it requires me to plan out what I want for dinner more than an hour ahead and most of my decisions great and small tend to be made randomly and on very short notice.  Today seemed like a good slow cooker day, though, since I flipped through my Betty Crocker cookbook early enough to decide what I wanted and get the ingredients from the store and actually have it cooked at a normal dinner time.

For the chicken stroganoff pot pie, you'll need 1 envelope of chicken gravy mix; 1 10.5 oz can of chicken broth; 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts; 1 16 oz bag frozen stew vegetables (carrots, onions, potatoes, and celery), thawed; 1 4.5 oz jar sliced mushrooms; 1/2 C sour cream; 1 Tbsp flour; 1 1/2 C Bisquick; 4 green onions, chopped; 1/2 C milk.  The cookbook recipe also calls for 1 C frozen peas, thawed, but I left them out.  Who likes peas?  Not me!

I like that Farm Fresh very clearly labels them "stew vegetables" so there's no confusion.

Cut up the chicken so it's in nice little bite-sized pieces, about an inch long or thereabouts.

Mmmmm....salmonella....

In your slow cooker, whisk together the gravy mix and the chicken broth.  Then add in the chicken, stew vegetables, and mushrooms. 

Put on the cover, set your cooker to "low" and sit there watching it for the next 4-5 hours.  Or go do something else, like your taxes, cleaning your apartment, catching up on Downton Abbey, and/or saving the Capitol Wasteland from super mutants and the Enclave.  Whatever floats your boat.  When the time's up, mix the sour cream and flour together and then stir into the chicken mix.

Put the cover back on and turn up the cooker to "high".  This time it's only going to cook for 20 minutes.  In the meantime, chop up your green onions and, in a medium bowl, combine them with your Bisquick (and the, ugh, peas if you're so inclined).  Stir in the milk.  Once the 20 minutes is up, drop spoonfuls of the dough on top of the chicken.

No peas here!

Put the cover back on and continue to cook on "high" for another 45-50 minutes, or until you can put a toothpick in your dumplings and it comes out clean.  And that's it!  You've got yourself a nice hearty dinner full of (non-pea) vegetables, so it counts as "healthy" in my book.  It also warms up pretty well, so if you're a lonely shell of a human being like myself who only has themselves to cook for, you've got plenty of leftovers!  Awesome!

I've been smelling this cook all day and let me tell you, it was worth the wait!

Crab-Stuffed Flounder

I am currently on vacation in southwestern Florida, so I'm not cooking dinner for myself this week.  However, since I'm visiting my parents, Mom is cooking dinner for me!  (Actually, I'm going to be making porkchops for us for dinner later this week, but you've already seen that recipe).  She was kind enough to cook some delicious crab-stuffed flounder fillets for me and Dad. 

For this recipe, you'll need: 2-2 1/2 lbs flounder fillets (the recipe calls for fresh, but the frozen ones seem to work just fine), 1/4 C chopped shallot (I now know that that is!), 1/4 C melted butter, 7 oz can crab meat (drained), 1/2 C crushed saltine crackers, 2 tsp Old Bay seasoning, 1/2 tsp salt, dash of pepper, cheddar cheese sauce (3 Tbsp butter, 3 tsp flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 1/2 C milk, 1 C grated cheddar cheese).

The thing on top of the crab meat is a shallot!

 Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and grease a 2 quart casserole dish.  In a bowl, combine the shallot, butter, Old Bay, salt, pepper, crab meat, and crackers.

Take your flounder fillets, put a little bit of the crab mixture in the middle, and roll them up, securing with a toothpick if you need to.

 Do this with all of your fillets and put them in your dish.

Bake them, uncovered, for 25 minutes.  While they're in the oven, make your cheddar sauce.  In a saucepan, melt 3 Tbsp of butter and stir in 3 tsp of flour and 1/4 tsp salt.  Stir that until it's smooth and add in 1 1/2 C milk, stirring until it's thickened.  Add in 1 C grated cheddar cheese and stir it until it's all melted.  After the 25 minutes are up on the fish, take them out of the oven, pour the cheese sauce over them, and put them back in the oven for 5 more minutes.

And they're done!  And if you're trying to figure out what to serve with the fish, I recommend rice and roasted asparagus.

Yum!

Quick Chili

Sometimes you just don't feel like doing anything all that fancy for dinner.  You'd be perfectly happy just making a peanut butter sandwich, but you decided that this year you'd try and make something at least once a week and the second weekend in January seems a little early to drop that idea.  So this week, we're going with an old standby: quick chili.  This won't appeal to chili purists, but for people who don't feel like putting more than fifteen minutes into dinner, this is pretty great.

You'll need a pound of ground beef, a can of dark red kidney beans, a jar of pasta sauce, some chili powder, and some red pepper flakes.  You can put whatever else you want in, too, but these are all the ingredients I usually bother with.

All you need for a lazy person's dinner!

First off, brown the ground beef in a large skillet.  You can still have some red left, just get it mostly done.

This'll do.

Now, dump in the beans (don't bother draining them, just dump in the can) and the pasta sauce.  I use an entire 14-oz. jar, but put in more or less to your taste (I remember one time my Grammie complaining to Mom that she always put too much tomato in her chili.  Of course, it was the exact same way Mom always made it and she never seemed to have a problem with it before.  Oh Grammie, I miss your crazy ways.)  Mix them in really well and have the heat around medium.

Finally, mix in some chili powder and red pepper flakes.  I'd start with around 2 Tbsp of chili powder and 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes and go from there.  Once everything is nice and hot and mixed well, you're done!  This is something that also works really well for leftovers and, I think, actually tastes better the next day.

Dinner!  And lunch!  And dinner again!