In Which I Make Things Out Of Bananas And Chocolate

Okay, first of all, I need to kill one of my neighbors. Someone keeps putting trash in one of my recycling bins and the recycling people won't take it. It is driving me crazy. The recycling bins are in the house and I take them to the curb on Thursday night for the Friday morning pickup. This morning one of my bins was left because there was a chicken tray covered with maggots perched on top of my recyclables because there isn't a lid. So I had to take that off and then pick about a dozen maggots off of my recycling so that I didn't have to trash it all. Thanks, asshole.

In more delicious news, I have done quite a bit of baking due to numerous parties in June. The titles link you to the recipes and my notes are underneath.

Banana Layer Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This is the most delicious banana cake I have ever eaten. It practically begs for some dark rum and possibly some coconut, so I think I'll play around with that next time I make it.

* I made this cake in two 9-inch pans instead of three 8-inch.

* I used four bananas instead of two to make the cake more moist and banana-y. And I let my mixer mash them because I am lazy.

* I used nonfat plain yogurt in place of buttermilk

* I found that the frosting needed more than the recommended amount of powdered sugar. I probably used closer to 2 1/2 - 3 cups, but your mileage may vary.

* To fill the cake required about two bananas. I did a layer of cake, a layer of frosting, a layer of sliced bananas, another layer of frosting, cale, and then covered the whole think thickly with frosting. I put it in the fridge before stacking on the second layer of cake in order to let the filling firm up.

*I kept it in the refrigerator overnight and it was still extremely moist the next day.

***

Bittersweet Chocolate Cake

This is a cake for people who love good dark chocolate. I don't think it would do well with milky stuff at all.

* I used 60% cacao chocolate for this cake. For eating chocolate, I like 85%, but I think that the subtle, complex sweetness of such a dark chocolate would be lost in this confection and therefore I went with something much sweeter.

* With only three ingredients, the flavors need to shine. Buy the best ingredients you can for this one, folks. Use good, vegetarian-fed eggs with lovely orange yolks and a dense, high-fat butter with a fresh, creamy taste. You'll be so glad you did.

* I cooked it for the recommended 20 minutes and found it ever so slightly dry. I think 17 or 18 would have been better.

* I served this confection with a tart raspberry coulis and lightly sweetened rum whipped cream. The flavors and textures came together quite nicely.

* If you've never made raspberry coulis, it is quite simple. Thaw a bag of frozen raspberries, stir in 3 tablespoons of sugar (or to taste), about a 1/4 cup of water, and a teaspoon or so of fresh lemon juice (if you like), allow to sit together for about an hour, puree, then press the whole mixture through a mesh strainer to remove the seeds. It's a lovely fresh sauce and, mixed with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil, an excellent salad dressing. Fresh mint perks up the coulis nicely as well. Note: If you use frozen raspberries in syrup rather than just regular frozen berries, omit the water and reduce the sugar to 2 tablespoons.

AlmondBoy approved:














***

White Chip Chocolate Cookies

These were pretty to look at and had a scrumptious, fudgey crumb. I made them using a cookie scoop, which made for perfectly round, thick cookies. Mine baked in the center of the oven for exactly ten minutes.

* My only note is to keep the dough cold at all times. Chill before scooping, and keep in the fridge between batches. Other than that, no changes. These are wonderful.

***

Chernowitzer Challah

This is my standard challah recipe and my absolute favorite. I get 16 rolls per batch. No changes because Maggie Glezer is a genius.

***

No-Knead Bread

I love this bread. It's easy, it's delicious, and almost foolproof. It lends itself wonderfully to add-ins like rosemary, dates, walnuts, kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes...the possibilities are endless.

* Don't skip the autolyse (that 15 minute rise under plastic) step. It really develops the flavor.

* I bake mine in a cast iron Dutch oven.

* For the final rise, I put the cotton towel/dough/wheat bran bundle on my pizza peel. I also usually need closer to 3 hours than 2 for a good rise.

***

Banana Split Trifle

I invented this dessert for my dad for some occasion or another, and it has become a family favorite. In fact, to encourage more frequent production, my dad purchased me a cherry pitter as a gift. I do not know how I lived without it.

Let me begin by saying that this is a fussy dessert in that it has lots of prep, but it can all be done well in advance. The ganache will keep in the fridge for a week; you'll just have to rewarm it. The cake will keep in the freezer for a couple of months if properly wrapped.

The structure of the dessert is a trifle dish with a layer of banana walnut cake, a layer of ganache, a layer of cherries, a layer of bananas, a layer of whipped cream, repeat.

You will need:

1 layer banana walnut cake
1 quart of heavy whipping cream
Ganache
1 lb pitted cherries, halved (Trader Joe's has a good price on organic Raniers right now)
3-4 ripe bananas (depending on size), sliced

For the cake, I use this recipe with a few modifications. You will not need to make the frosting, so only pull out 1 stick of butter.

* I double the amount of banana
* I use 2 9-inch pans
* I add in about 3/4 cup or so of chopped walnuts

Ganache is extremely simple to make. It is a 1:1 ration of heavy cream and chocolate, melted together. You'll need heavy whipping cream for the whipped cream layer, so buy one quart. Measure out a half cup of it and bring to a simmer in a small saucepan. Once the cream is simmering, remove it from the heat and stir in an equal amount of chocolate, either chips or chopped. I recommend bittersweet or semi sweet for this. Stir the chocolate until it is all melted in and the ganache is smooth. Allow to cool to room temperature.

For the whipped cream, I like to flavor mine with brown sugar and kirshwasser, but it's up to you. Just beat the rest of the quart of heavy whipping cream with your desired flavorings until stiff peaks form, taking care not to overbeat. (You'll get butter if you overbeat.)

Now, for the assembly:

Once your cakes are baked, turned from the pans, and completely cooled, wrap up one layer and freeze it for next time/snacking.

Divide the remaining layer in half and break each half into chunks, roughly 1 inch square. Put the cake into the trifle dish, pressing slightly to fill in the spaces. It's not an exact science, just somewhere between crumbs and chunks. Then drizzle the cake with room-temperature ganache.

Add a layer of cherry halves, then a layer of sliced bananas. Top with half of the whipped cream, then repeat the whole sequence. I like to decorate the top of mine with cake crumbs, chocolate drizzle, and a whole cherry. It keeps nicely in the fridge until you're ready to serve it.
































I have considered involving fresh pineapple in this recipe because I am fond of pineapple on my banana splits, but it's so good as-is. Maybe one day…

In Which I Am Back From Hiatus

I hadn't planned on taking so long a break, but it's been a busy couple of months. We went to Florida in mid-May for the purpose of attending my sister's law school graduation. We figured that we might as well take the kids to Disney while we were there, and we had a very nice time doing so. Because we are control freaks/obsessive planners, we used the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World to plan our trip. You would have thought we were waging war on the Magic Kingdom with the way we had the schedule down . (Actually, after being overwhelmed by too much whimsy when the denizens of Frontierland spontaneously burst into a song and dance routine without provocation, a little light artillery didn't seem like such a bad idea.)

But anyway, the book was fabulous. We pored over it together, two geeks in love.

Mr. Marzipan: And see! See how it uses linear programming to map out the optimal itinerary? Behold the Fastpass recommendations! IT TELLS US WHEN TO GET IN LINE FOR WHICH THING.

Me: (Gazing at him in starry-eyed adoration) Cooooool...

My closet is organized by color. I live for this sort of thing.

AlmondGirl was taken to Castle Couture by my mother, and two Japanese tourists found the results irresistible:




















My son and my husband favored the Buzz Lightyear ride. Mr. Marzipan ended up scoring like a trillion points and was so pleased with himself that it depressed me.

Two weeks later we made our annual memorial Day trip to LBI in New Jersey with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and their children. I'm so glad to be part of a big family, even though it can be exhausting on occasion. But I love that my kids are growing up with so many cousins.

My daughter turned 6 on June 4th and we had a girls-only tea party to celebrate on the 6th. I went for a Shabby Chic look, picking up mismatched china from the Goodwill.



























The cake was teapot shaped and decorated with marshmallow fondant. It didn't turn out quite how I hoped, but I was fairly pleased overall:




























Also! My daughter lost her first tooth that day, which was very exciting. I have been cooking and baking quite a bit and will share some recipes in my next update. Just wanted to check in and say hey for the moment.

In Which There Is Gelato And Also Langoustines

Partly because I tend to buy expensive food and partly because I hate wasting things and partly because I sometimes like to pretend I'm on a Food Network hidden camera show called Suburban Freezers, I save odds and ends of things in my freezer. When the tomatoes start to look elderly or the blackberries begin to take on a withered appearance, they go into the freezer for later use in sauces or jams. Fallen cakes await conversion to trifle, stale bread to French toast. I have containers of au jus, bagged poultry carcasses, and the occasional avocado.

But, for all my frugality, I loathe clutter. This extends to the freezer, and so on Saturday morning I went prowling through the big freezer in the basement in search of inspiration. I found it in the form of half a bag of frozen strawberries, three frozen mangoes, and a frozen banana. I recalled some buttermilk in the fridge, and decided that gelato was the order of the day.

A note on mangoes: they can sometimes be very starchy and fibrous, so be careful. I prefer champagne mangoes for this reason. And, because mangoes are annoying to cut up, be aware that Trader Joe's carries packages of halved ones in their freezer section. One package is about the equivalent of what I used here.

In the warmer months I always keep 1:1 simple syrup on hand. I make it in big batches, then store it in glass bottles in the fridge. It's nice to have for ice cream making and for mixed drinks, but it's also nice for making cold drinks like lemonade or sweetened iced tea because the sugar is already dissolved.




















To make this gelato, I thawed the fruit in the microwave, but not entirely. The colder your starting mixture, the better resluts you'll get with your ice cream maker. Here's how much fruit I had, plus the banana. I'd estimate it at around 5 cups fresh, and around 3 thawed.














I then took 2 cups of simple syrup (in retrospect I think I might reduce the simple syrup to 1 1/2 cups) and combined it with the fruit in my food processor. I left some little chunks intact, but you can puree it as much as you like. I then added 2 cups of low-fat buttermilk (plain European or Greek style yogurt would do nicely as well) and the juice of 5 seedless lemons. Once everything was combined into a beautiful peachy color with ruby highlights, into the ice cream maker it went. After about 30 minutes in the ice cream maker, I scraped it into a plastic container and put it in the freezer to harden.














Because it was sultry out, I wanted to have a light dinner on the deck to complement this dessert. I pulled out a bag of langoustine tails. Langoustines are like teeny lobsters and the meat is very tender and sweet. AlmondBoy loves lobster but langoustines are cheaper, easier to work with in the kitchen, and much less fuss because you can buy bags of them at Trader Joe's, where someone has thoughtfully killed and packaged them for your convenience. I thawed the langoustines, then tossed them in a mixture of olive oil, garlic, sea salt, dried coriander, basil, and Greek oregano. I left them in the mixture for about thirty minutes while I got everything else ready.














I boiled half a box of whole wheat penne in salted water and let that cook while I cut a fresh pineapple into 8 long pieces. I put the pineapple on the grill and returned to the pasta. After draining the pasta, I added the langoustines and their juices, half a package of English peas, the juice of 2 lemons, and returned the pot to low heat. I wasn't quite happy with the results, so I added a quarter cup of Greek yogurt and found that it bound everything together perfectly.

Returning to the grill, I checked on the pineapple. It had been grilling for about 5 minutes and so I flipped it to let the other side finish. Grilled fruit is one of my favorite warm weather side dishes, and pineapple is one of the best. The charred spots have a deep, caramelly sweetness that goes wonderfully with the tart acidity of the fruit. As soon as the pineapple was charred to my liking, we ate. I had a lovely piece of Parmigiano Reggiano stravecchio, which we grated over the pasta. It was so good that I kept breaking off chunks to eat alone. The cheese was wonderful and nutty with delicious crunchy toffee-like crystals studded throughout. I luuuurve cheese.















For dessert, I served mugs of the gelato topped with Trader Joe's plain European style yogurt, drizzled with mesquite honey, and ornamented with a mint leaf plucked from the plant on the deck. It was heavenly. The sour, astringent creaminess of the yogurt was a perfect complement to the light, fruity gelato, and the sticky-sweet honey hardened from the cold into delicious chewy strands.

In Which I Opine About Snacking

This morning I received a message from a friend whose children are in the same baseball league as my own. She was asking for ideas about healthy snacks for after the games, as her team assigns one parent each week to bring a snack and she has been disappointed with the offerings thus far. I gave her some suggestions based on what my own kids eat, though mentioned that I wouldn't even bother with snacks except for the fact that AlmondBoy's metabolism is such that he has got to eat about every hour or so or ends up feeling very sick.

I've been thinking a lot about snacks lately. Whenever I am out with my kids for extended periods or when we are going some place where we'll engage in lots of physical activity, I bring healthy snacks and water. But it seems to me as though the snacking habit has really gotten out of hand, culturally speaking. I feel like a snack should be a small, healthyish something to tide over an empty stomach until mealtime. Not a pacifier. Not a bribe. But all too often I see bored children placated with empty calories to keep them quiet and, as someone who fought an uphill battle towards healthy eating, it worries me to think about what kind of eating habits these children are learning. And I feel pretty strongly that Munchkins or "fruit" gummies are not what growing bodies need after 1.5 hours of t-ball practice.

My kids don't get to eat in my car because cars are for traveling. They are not mobile cafeterias. We do not eat in front of the television. There are no Dunkaroos or Fruit Rollups in our house. And I don't say this to brag in some kind of mommier-than-thou competitive way. It's frequently a pain in the ass to be That Mom. People think you're weird or judgmental or Amish. There are times I honestly wish I didn't give a crap about corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils and food dyes and corn agribusiness and the two dozen other things that give me the occasional headache at the grocery store. But the fact is that these things matter to me. Weight, health, and nutrition matter to me. I'm hoping to spare my own children many of the issues I have faced by not instilling bad habits which they'll have to learn to break on their own. I'm hoping to spare them the dubious distinction of membership in the growing childhood obesity problem in this country.

I love food. In particular, I love beautiful, delicious food. I try to prepare myself three meals a day and then I sit down to eat and enjoy them. I find that I am more mindful of my eating this way, that I enjoy what I put in my mouth. That respecting my food equates to respecting my body. I am trying to pass this on to my children, this idea that eating should be both for sustenance and pleasure, but not just for something to do. By constant snacking - especially snacking on empty calories - food becomes part of the background noise. It becomes an expectation. We eat when we are bored or lonely or happy or sad. We eat for something to do, and often it's when we're already being entertained. (I'm looking at you, movie theaters.) And as more of us have our butts parked in front of the computer (hi!) or the 4,382 channels on the TV or the Wii or let the kids play with [current trendy electronic device], we're doing less and less to burn those snacks off. By constant eating we take our bodies out of their natural rhythms. We don't learn what it means to feel hungry and instead, we eat right through those hunger cues. And by not knowing what hunger feels like, it becomes very difficult to learn what satiation feels like. There is no "clean plate" rule in our house for that very reason. In addition, many people also think they are feeling hunger when they are, in fact, thirsty.

I don't think snacking is completely evil by any measure. I always have a high-protein something after the gym or I don't feel very well. But I do think that getting children established in a routine where all outings and activities include something to munch isn't a great idea. And as I said, my son has to eat constantly or he loses weight so I certainly know that there are kids who really are hungry all the time. But I do suggest that we all try to be more mindful of what we're putting in our kids' bodies and in our own bodies, particularly between meals. I try to pack healthy, filling calories like full-fat cheeses, cashews, fresh fruit or vegetables, boiled eggs, etc. And I urge everyone to take a look at this article.

In Which There Is Stuffed Cabbage

I love stuffed cabbage. It's a great all in one dish and has lots of wonderful flavors and textures going on. It also always makes me think of my grandmother, because it is a specialty of hers. However, my grandmother makes a sweet version and the members of the Marzipan household prefer a tangy one. It's a little time consuming, but not at all bad if you break it down into steps. The rice, sauce, and cabbage can be prepared the day before. I like to make extra rice to serve on the side because the sauce is so delicious.

Stuffed Cabbage

1 Savoy cabbage, leaves stripped off
1 pound ground turkey
1 pound very lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
1/3 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt or sour cream
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Tangy Tomato Sauce

a 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes (preferably Italian flavored)
1 cup chicken broth
3 bay leaves
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

***

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Add the cabbage leaves and cook, until tender, about 4 minutes. Drain the leaves into a colander in the sink and run under cold running water. Set aside.

In a large bowl (I use my Kitchen Aid with the paddle attachment) place the meat, rice, yogurt/sour cream, pepper, and 2 teaspoons salt and mix together very well.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, about 7 minutes. Stir in the paprika and allspice and cook, stirring, about 2 minutes more. Add the onion mixture to the beef mixture and mix until well combined. Season with pepper to taste.

Lay the cabbage leaves on a work surface and blot dry with paper towels. Now take a look at the back side of your leaves. See that thick ridge at the base of the leaf? Trim it nice and flat with a very sharp knife. This way your leaves will lay flat on your work surface and not split. Just make sure you trim the ridge, not slice a hole in the leaf.

Starting with the largest leaves, place about 1/2 cup of the beef mixture in the bottom center of each leaf. (You should have enough for 10 very generously filled rolls.) Roll the bottom of the leaf over the beef mixture, fold in the sides, and continue rolling forward until completely closed. Repeat with the remaining leaves. If you need, you can make little patches with smaller leaves if the big ones tear.

Arrange the rolls seam side-down in a 9-x 13- x 2- inch baking dish.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a medium saucepan, combine the tomatoes, broth, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil and season with pepper to taste. Fish out the bay leaves, then pour over the cabbage rolls and cover the baking dish tightly with foil. Bake for 1 hour.

Remove the foil from the baking dish and continue cooking until lightly browned and cooked through, about another 30 minutes.

Cut open and devour.

AlmondGirl approved!

In Which There Is Steak Salad

There's a certain self-congratulatory pretentiousness inherent in calling oneself a foodie and so I'm reluctant to use the term, but I do love good food. The problem with loving good food is that it tends to get expensive and so if one has a weekly grocery budget to which one likes to adhere, one must stretch those ingredients however possible. And when one of the people one feeds is a 6'5 man with a proportionately large appetite, that can take work.

Last night we had steak salads for dinner. Salads are one of my favorite things to eat because of the fact that they are bulky and filling without being heavy. They're endlessly variable and provide an excellent way to make the most of pricey and/or calorie-dense foods. Steak salads are a always a hit around here and they are a great way to showcase some really high-quality ingredients. No dressing needed. All items shown were purchased at Wegman's

The components of last night's salads were Wegman's organic spring mix, Wegman's perfect portions of organic grass-fed sirloin, sauteed mushrooms and red onions, St. Agur (one of my absolute favorite blue cheeses), walnuts, and dried cranberries.














To begin, I sprinkled the steaks with kosher salt and seared them on the grill. While they were cooking, I sliced the mushrooms and red onions, then cooked them until caramelized in a pan sprayed with Pam.















When the steaks were done to our taste (we eat them rare at the Marzipan household) I let them sit for about 5 minutes, then sliced them.















Assembling the salads was a snap. Bed of lettuce, saute mix and steak so the juices would run down, then top with cheese, nuts, and cranberries.














Detail of the tastiness:














For dessert, the kids had some Pocky that I picked up from Han Ah Reum and Mr. Marzipan and I had rock glasses full of Traderspoint Wildberry Yogurt. It is amazingly creamy and rich and heavenly, and contains only a few more calories and far less sugar than that godawful stuff stabilized with cornstarch and gelatin. And such lovely packaging! It's in a glass bottle with this pretty label.

In Which I Have No Shame

I love sale shopping. I always feel faintly stupid when I pay full retail for an article of clothing, as though the store has bested me in an ongoing and elaborate battle of wits. I'm the slow-moving lady who peruses the shelves and stocks up on twenty bottles of clearance SPF 75 in October. I have a beautiful red satin evening gown that I love in part because it's beautiful and sexy but largely because I got it marked down from over $300 to $23. I haunt consignment shops and the Goodwill. (Really - you would not believe these fabulous Diesel jeans I picked up for $4.25.)

It annoys/amuses my husband at times I think. We sometimes have conversations like this:

Him: I like your shirt. Is it silk or something?

Me: Thank you, yes it is. I got it on clearance for $3.

This is in part because I do not cut corners on my food because I am a snob and therefore need to economize in other places. But I kind of get a rush from it, like a treasure hunt.

So today I was at Target, perusing the end caps as per usual (very good deals at the Owings Mills store, locals) when I found a shelf with about 30 packages of the store brand "personal warming gel" marked way down. This gave me pause. I recently attended one of those Very Special Grown Up Toy parties at a friend's house. The toy lady was raving about the benefits of such ointments and how they were the most glorious substances on earth and how unless you were a nun or a masochist, you should have an ample supply.

And there, in Target, I remembered her enthusiasm. I also remembered that she encouraged me to hold about a dozen different kinds of vibrators to the tip of my nose and that I had something called "The Dolphin" buzzing in my face when my friend's husband got home, but I can forgive. It had been a long time since I made such a purchase, but I had a vague idea that she was correct.

It was on sale, you guys. And so I bought discount generic personal warming gel. I feel like it would be awkward to remark upon the price if Mr. Marzipan likes it though.