Banana breakfast pancakes

Tags

breakfast, Cooking, food, Knitting, recipe, weekend

What better way to spend a rainy, windy Sunday morning than to cook banana pancakes for breakfast and peruse knitting books at the same time?

I can’t think of anything more relaxing.

These were so delicious that I am contemplating making more for mid-week morning snacks.  They are scrumptious with a plain cream cheese topping.  Someone else in the house had them with peanut butter and milk toffee spread, and someone else ate them plain.

They’re my own recipe.  Would you like to make some too?

This is what you need:

2 ripe bananas (smallish ones)

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp butter, melted

generous 1/4 cup sugar

milk  (for consistency)

Mash the bananas, and mix in the eggs and sugar until well combined.  Add to the separately sifted flour, baking soda and baking powder.  Mix in the melted butter.  Add milk if the mixture is too stiff, about a tablespoon at a time until you have a soft, cake mixture that is spoonable (but not runny).  I used about 2 tablespoons of milk, but how much you need depends on how big your bananas and eggs were and what kind of flour you are using.

Heat your skillet on medium heat.  When it is hot, start cooking the pancakes.  Each pancake will be a large tablespoon of mixture.  When the mixture bubbles on one side, flip it over.  It’s done when the pancake surface bounces back when pressed lightly.

Makes approx 15 pancakes.  Serve with your favourite topping or eat plain with a frothy hot cocoa on the side.

Hope you are having a good weekend!

The autumn harvest

Tags

Cooking, food, home, jam, Knitting, life, shopping, Sunday market, Wellington, yarn

The best thing about autumn is the abundant fresh produce that suddenly appears in the fresh market one weekend.  It seems to be an overnight thing – like a timer going off, the vegetables and fruit, quietly maturing all summer, suddenly announce, “I’m done!”

Today, I thought I’d take you on a small tour of the local market I frequent on Sundays:

I didn’t take many pictures.  The largest boy suffered agonies of embarrassment at my whipping out the camera for a few sneaky pics, and made his feelings clearly known.  Which made it…difficult.  Sigh.  Ah the teenage years – filled with such awkwardness!

A few close-ups of the tempting goodies:

I can’t help but think of pretty, hand-dyed yarn when I look at the colours in all the fruit and vegetables…

There is an adjacent section to this market that sells cooked food and meat, and just next to the open market (held in what is normally a car park), there is an indoor area that sells  more of the speciality foods.  I haven’t taken any pics.  Sorry!

I couldn’t help myself and came home with more plums to make jam.  These are Omega plums.  Last week I used Black Doris, so I thought I’d see how my favourite eating plum came out in comparison.

Omega plums produce a much lighter jam, both in colour and flavour –  softer and more rounded.  In comparing the two varieties, I think the Black Doris produces a richer, more flavoursome jam, with a deep, dark colour and tangy, piquant sweetness.   I don’t think anyone will really mind which variety it is when they’re eating the jam though.  Both are delicious.

In contrast to my last jam making episode, this time, I had an eager little volunteer ‘taster’ at my elbow.  ;-)  Good to know he’s discovered what’s good!

Wouldn’t this apple colouring make pretty sock yarn?

As the apples are starting to come out too now, I got these to make into pie (or perhaps cake, we shall see.  I was too busy making other stuff this weekend to bake it).

The majority of the stalls at this market are run by holders who only grow a small portion of the vegetables they sell.  Most of the produce comes from the wholesale markets.  However, interspersed between these are a few of the true “grower, seller” stalls.

One such “grower, seller” is the apple seller.  She’s only at the market during the apple season, and drives several hours from the orchard to the market every weekend between now and August (when the apples finish).  Her apples are more expensive than the average stall, but oh boy!  they taste so much nicer.  You have to be quick to get her apples – they sell out very quickly.  I didn’t see her this week until too late.  Next weekend will be a different story though!

When I was a teenager, we had a largish property with several varieties of apple tree growing on it.  I thought all apples were as crisp and sweet and tasty as the ones that grew on those trees… until I left home and got supermarket ones (bleck!)  Well, this lady’s apples taste just like the ones I picked off the tree in the morning and stuffed into my bag for lunch as I cycled down the drive to school.

There’s a bit of an art to successful market shopping.  First, you do a round of the entire market, examining the produce for quality and price.  Then, you home in on the stalls selling the produce you want at the price you want.  I’ve got it down to a fine art – we usually don’t spend more than half an hour there.  The savings are enormous though.

What shall I get next week?  I’m thinking pear chutney might be nice…?

Sundays

Tags

Cooking, food, jam, Knitting, Summer

Every Sunday, the boys and I go to a local farmers’ market to buy our fresh fruit and vegetables for the week.

As the summer stone fruit season is in full swing, there are boxes upon boxes of delicious apricots, peaches, plums and nectarines on offer.  They all look so tempting, but I don’t buy much because the boys don’t really like eating them.  The preference is kiwifruit, grapes, bananas, apples, pears or pineapple.

This summer, feeling rather left out of buying seasonal fruit, and encouraged by the success of last winter’s chutney-making efforts, I have decided to try making jam.  All the taste of summer fruit, but without the risk of it spoiling before it can get eaten!

Last week, I tried making apricot jam.  It was delicious!!  Further encouraged by that, today I made plum jam. I also decided to stock up and make more bread & butter pickles before the cucumber season finished.

It’s extremely satisfying to see my pantry filling up nicely with homemade jams and chutneys (in my motley collection of re-used jars…).  I may have just found a new interest!  I’m thinking marmalade when the citrus season starts… and what about tamarillo jam?  So many possibilities!  I’d always thought that jam making was a very mysterious process, and that it was complicated and hard to achieve a perfect result.  This is not true!

The youngest boy watched me making the plum jam, testing for the set point, and enjoying naughty spoonfuls of jam-in-the-making while I was at it.  I offered some to him, but after gingerly trying it, he declared that he only liked strawberry jam and the other berry jams I got him from the supermarket.  I decided not to make an issue of it.

After a brief outing this evening, we came home to perfectly set plum jam.  Success!! I snuck some on to fresh, buttered bread and offered it to him as a snack without telling him what was in it.   Within a few minutes there was a patter of feet in the kitchen… “That was yummy!  Can I have another please?”  I said “That was the plum jam you know!”  ”I know!  You’ve done a good job” came the cheeky reply.

Perhaps I should make more plum jam next week.  I only have four jars of it in the pantry…

The colour reminds me of the aptly named Damson colourway of the yarn I’m using for Gemma.

She’s coming along nicely.

Holiday eating: Strawberry shortcake

Tags

baking, food, recipe, strawberries, Summer

For someone who prefers Winter, Summer does have some consolations.  Take strawberries.  This is that short time of year when those juicy, delectably fragrant berries become readily available for avid consumption.

My boys don’t like fresh strawberries.  I’ll be damned if I let two naughty lads get away with not eating this highly nutritious, health-giving fruit though, so I’ve had to come up with creative ways to get them to eat it.  Besides, I like strawberries.

Enter strawberry shortcake:

I’ve had a picture of this in my head for a while.  I searched all the cookbooks I could find, but none of them had what I wanted.  So I fiddled a couple of recipes that were in the range of what I had in mind, and this is what I came up with.  It was an instant hit.  My boys actually request this cake now [evil snigger].

As its happy eating season, I thought I’d share the recipe for this extremely moreish cake with crisp outer shell and chewy interior.  My cooking has been pared down to be as time-efficient as possible these days, so this is a very quick and easy cake to bake.  You can substitute any suitable fruit you like for this.   I imagine apricots or blackberries would taste equally delicious.

Strawberry shortcake

(measurements in the metric weight system)

100g butter (cut into small cubes)
3/4 cup caster sugar + 1/4 cup caster sugar
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
250g strawberries (hulled and cut into quarters)
icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 190C.

Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar over the hulled strawberries, stir through gently, cover and leave to marinate in a cool place for approx 2 hours until the juices run from the fruit.

Pulse the flour, 3/4 cup sugar, butter and baking powder together until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Alternatively, rub the butter into the dry ingredients by hand.  Break the egg into this mixture and knead until it forms a soft dough.  Now divide the dough into halves.  It does not matter if the dough is a little sticky – just use flour when you’re rolling it out later.

Line a 20cm (8″) shallow cake tin with baking paper.  Roll out one of the halves of dough to fit the bottom of the tin and place it into the tin.  Spoon the strawberries on to this dough (do not use the strawberry juice), leaving a small margin at the sides free of berries.  (You might not use up all the strawberries).  Roll out remaining piece of dough and gently lay this on top of the strawberries, pressing down around the edges to seal in the fruit.

Bake for approx 30 – 40 mins or until nicely risen and golden (use a knife to check that the dough under the crust is cooked).  Leave to cool before removing from the tin (if you use a spring tin with a removable base this isn’t an issue) and then sprinkle with icing sugar and serve warm or cold.

The best bit?  While the boys wolf down shortcake, I get to eat the leftover marinated strawberries, tossed in fresh mint and lemon balm and topped with creamy yoghurt.  Mmmmm!