baking bananas - a good use for those black beauties

The road trip continues and our most northern destination was my adopted hometown of Seattle! It has been awesome to come down from nearly two weeks of camping to my mother's house and into the throngs of foodies that surround us when we get here. We have had a whirlwind tour of eating, as happens every time we come here and there is a special kind of anxiety I experience when I realize I'm just not going to get it all in (neither time nor stomach are willing).

While here we have tasted pulled pork pizza with cotilja cheese (Flying Squirrel pizza), smoked basa fish tacos (Roy's BBQ), the Don King donut (Mighty-O Donuts), and the coup de grace, carrot cake with homemade cream cheese (Sugar & Salt)!!! But I also took advantage of my mom's massive kitchen to put our rapidly blackening bananas to good use.

There are about a gazillion banana bread recipes out there and often it comes down simply to personal preference. I am a big fan of the banana-chocolate combo so I usually put chocolate chips in. Sometimes I even like to throw in a little peanut butter but this time I kept it simple. I think that the secret to this particular banana bread recipe was the amount of butter, a whole stick of butter, so if you had any pretense that this banana bread was a "healthy" treat, well, you might want to think better of it...it's mostly fruit right?

The key is also to use bananas that are well-ripened. If you are just dying to make banana bread and your bananas are pretty new, then give them a good couple of squeezes before you peel them to get them on their way. I usually have a couple of really black bananas in the freezer though, and those make fabulous banana bread.

RECIPE

banana muffins with milk chocolate chips

makes 12
adapted from Bon Appetit

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 large bananas, mashed
1 large egg
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted (I use salted)
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 - 1 cup milk chocolate chips

- preheat oven to 350 degrees
- mix together all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl (the first four listed here)
- mix together all of the wet ingredients in a medium bowl (the next five ingredients)
- add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir to combine
- mix in the chocolate chips
- fill lined muffin cups (or silicon muffin liners on a baking sheet) about two-thirds full
- bake in the oven for about 30-35 minutes (until a tester comes out without crumbs)

Banana meet Rosemary

My genius friend Heather had another of her genius ideas (or maybe she stole it from elsewhere, but who cares?!)...the random ingredient-inspired food club.

The idea is this: randomly pick out of a hat one fruit or vegetable and one spice or herb. Then, all invitees must make a dish with at least one of the selected ingredients (in my book, you get serious kudos if you manage to work in both).

Naturally, my first inclination was banana cream pie. I had all of these fanciful ideas of fresh bananas, shortbread crust and a subtle, but invigorating rosemary whipped cream. But then I thought, everyone is going to make dessert given how sweet bananas are, I should go for the extra challenge of making something savory out of bananas!

So, Chicken in Banana Curry here I came. I found the preliminary recipe on Food & Wine's website and then seriously doctored it up, adding coconut milk and some extra veggies for color and crunch (see recipe below).















The result was surprisingly tasty and unique. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was my favorite curry, but it was good. I don't know that I would have liked the recipe as it read out of the magazine however, as I think the coconut milk was key for creaminess.

If you're looking for something exotic, with Caribbean flavors and you want to make your guests say "banana, really?!?!" then this is certainly a recipe you should try.

RECIPE

Caribbean-style Banana Curry

2-3 medium-ripe bananas, cut into pieces
1 can coconut milk
1.5 Tbsp curry powder
2 tsp ground coriander
zest of 2 limes
2 Tbsp lime juice
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 chicken breasts cut into bit-sized pieces (can use whole breasts if desired)
1 medium onion, sliced
2 cups of green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 red bell pepper, diced

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Place bananas, half the can coconut milk, curry powder, coriander, lime zest, lime juice, salt & pepper into a blender (or food processor) and blend until pureed. Place the chicken into a roasting pan with onion, green beans and bell pepper. Cover with the curry sauce. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Stir the remaining half of the can of coconut milk into the sauce (remove the chicken from the pan if using whole breasts). Serve over rice and garnish with cilantro.

Enjoy! And stay tuned for next month's challenge - Sweet Potato and Cumin