This is bananas!

So...sad to announce that the Olive Bruschetta that I was planning on making today failed.  My food processor is broken and the mixture was not enough for the blender to blend.  I'm a little bummed, but it does mean I will be making the ciabatta again and it was pretty tasty.

After my mid-day flop, I decided to make something that wasn't in the book.  I looked up a recipe for banana bread, modified it a little and came up with this little gem.

K's Peanut Butter-Banana Oatmeal Bread
Ingredients

• 3/8 cup canola oil
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup quick cooking oats
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup mashed bananas
• 1/8 cup peanut butter
• 1/8 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup soy milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9x5 inch loaf pan and set aside.
2. Cream together the canola oil and sugar. Add eggs, beat until fluffy.
3. Sift together the flour, oatmeal, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add dry ingredients alternately with bananas and soy milk. Mix until blended.
4. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes; remove from oven and transfer to wire rack to cool.

I'm all shook up!  ('Cause Elvis liked peanut butter-banana sandwiches)

Not too sweet, some-what healthy, cakey, bread.  I may change it the next time I make it.

Have a great week, lovely readers.

Mambo Italiano!

Hey mambo!
#10!  and 11...

Ciabatta!  Made into Tomato Bruschetta...yum!

Yes, the book has a separate recipe (that counts toward the 100 from my book or 99 that I'm actually completing) for the tomato bruschetta.  Tomorrow I'm going to make the next recipe which is an olive bruschetta (made with the same bread).

This recipe took all day to prepare.  It had to rise for 4 hours, then mix some stuff in, then rise for 2 hours, divide in half, rest for 1 hour, divide in half again, rest for an hour, then bake.  8 hours of rising and resting.

I had to divide the dough twice during the rising periods and as you can see I didn't get them exactly even.

Here's the tomato bruschetta.

Easy peasy recipe that I modified since it's just for me.  The original served 4.

For 1:
1 peeled tomato, diced
3 basil leaves chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt & pepper

Then I rubbed some garlic on some toasted ciabatta and presto!  Bruschetta!

Tasty and dairy-free snack!

P.S.  I can't wait to make a sandwich with this bread!  Arrivederci per ora!

Deck the halls with boughs of holly...

Farl lar-lar lar lar lar-lar lar lar...

Right, I know that was ridiculous.  I'm ok with it.  In honor of my starting a holiday retail gig this week, I am dedicating this post to unreasonably early Christmas music exposure.

Today's bread is Farl.  "This bread is a very English loaf, traditionally baked on the bottom of the oven, hence its other name: oven bottoms!" - 100 Gread Breads

Here's what it should look like:

Here's what mine looked like:

It looks almost exactly like the Crusty Cob...I have yet to master a shallow cut in the dough.  I'm not 100% sure how to fix that except to have a sharper knife.  We shall see.

P.S. It tastes pretty good.  Though, it is a little too buttery for my taste.  In case you were wondering.

The Baguette Paradigm

What was expected and what was created were pretty disparate.

This extremely vague recipe was probably the most difficult one I have come across in my experiment.

Instructions like "enough warm water to make a thick batter" caused me some concern and then we had "add enough water to make a soft, pliable dough"  With no measured amount of water in the entire recipe, I figured I was headed toward disaster.

voilà...

As you can see the slashes across the top disappeared.

Here's what it should have looked like (in case you're unfamiliar).

On a more positive note it tastes pretty good.

Au Revoir mes amis!  Ayez un beau jour!

Bye Bye Miss American Pie...

Today I was craving something sweet so I went off-book.  I found a recipe at allrecipes.com for Apple Pie Bread.  I decided that since I was replacing the milk with soy milk I would find a replacement for the egg and make it vegan.  I found several websites that suggested 1/4 cup applesauce for 1 egg.  I also used bread flour because that's what I had.

So here it is the recipe for:

K. Britt's Vegan Apple Pie Bread

Ingredients

• scant 3 cups bread flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 1/2 cups soy milk
• 1/4 cup plain applesauce
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups diced apples
• dash of ground allspice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and cloves. In a separate bowl, mix together milk, egg and oil until well blended. Stir milk mixture into flour mixture. Fold in apple. Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour 20 minutes, until loaf springs back when touched lightly in center. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

Ta Da!  (Which is short for da da ta-da!)

It is delicious!  I'm really excited that this worked out.  Feel free to try it for yourself.

I leave you with this to ponder...

Did you write the book of love?
And do you have faith in God above?

Do you believe in rock ’n roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?

Thank you for these eternal questions, Don McLean.

Tea (and Scones) with Mussolini (really, just me)

I am currently eating a scone with some yummy organic strawberry jam.

Scones!

This recipe did not turn out perfectly...possibly because I got distracted by  Ellen and almost burnt them.  But it might have been  one of the swaps I made.  I traded plain, light soy milk for the milk in the recipe (because I'm lactose intolerant and don't ever drink milk) and I traded regular raisins for golden raisins (because that's what I had).

P.S.  I don't like rolling out biscuit-type things.

And here's my afternoon tea.

See, I've got my Earl Grey in a University of Cambridge coffee cup and my scone!  So delicious!

P.P.S. While looking for a cute title for this post I found out that the working title for Shaun of the Dead was Tea-Time of the Dead...just a fun little fact for ya.

Bangarang!

"Pan" the Man!

Today's bread (well last night's bread) is:

White Pan Bread!

• White refers to the color of the flour.
• It was baked in a pan.
• It is bread.

Also it tastes pretty good.




For breakfast this morning I used a slice of this Bangarang bread (as it will henceforth be referred to) and made Smashed Banana on Toast (it tastes good despite what you might have seen on Gilmore Girls).

Here's the recipe:

Toast 1 slice of bread
Top with smashed banana
Drizzle with honey

Served with green juice...yum!

I will end with this exchange from my quoted movie of the day:

Rufio: Boil-dripping, beef, fart-sniffing bubble butt!
Kids: Bangarang, Rufio!
Peter Banning: Someone has a severe ca-ca mouth, you know that?
Rufio: You are fart factory, Slug-slimed, sack-of-rat-guts-in-cat-vomit, cheesy, scab-picked, pimple-squeezing finger bandage. A week old maggot burger with everything on it and flies on the side!
Kids: [in unison] Ugh!
Peter Banning: Substitute chemistry teacher.
Lost Boy: Come on, Rufio, hit him back.
Rufio: Mung tongue.
Peter Banning: Math tutor.
Rufio: Pinhead.
Peter Banning: Prison barber.
Rufio: Mother lover.
Peter Banning: Nearsighted gynecologist.
Rufio: In your face, camel cake!
Peter Banning: In your rear, cow derrière.
Rufio: Lying, crying, spying, prying ultra-pig.
Peter Banning: You lewd, crude, rude, bag of pre-chewed food dude.
Thud Butt: [with the rest of the Lost Boys] Bangarang, Peter!
Rufio: You... you man! Stupid, stupid man!
Peter Banning: Rufio, if I'm a maggot burger why don't you eat me! You two-toned zebra-headed, slime-coated, pimple-farmin' paramecium brain, munchin' on your own mucus, suffering from Peter Pan envy!
Don't Ask: What's a paramecium brain?
Peter Banning: I'll tell you what a paramecium is! That's the paramecium! It's a one-celled critter with no brain, that can't fly! Don't mess with me man, I'm a lawyer!
Kids: [chanting] Banning, Banning, Banning is bangarang.
Rufio: Rufio! Rufio!
Peter Banning: Oh, Rufio, why don't you just go suck on a dead dog's nose.