Thursday, August 14, 2014

Marbled Banana Bread

I made this banana bread a few weeks ago.  It was really tasty.  I did not even notice it had banana in it. The recipe is from My San Francisco Kitchen.  I am going to make it again, maybe tomorrow.  


Marbled Banana Bread
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 70 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
¼ cup butter, softened
2 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt
½ cup semisweet chocolate chips


Instructions:

1.       Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.       In a mixing bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together.

3.       Add sugar and butter to a large bowl and beat with a mixer at a medium speed until well-blended.

4.       Add banana, eggs, and yogurt; beat until blended.

5.       Add flour mixture and beat at low speed until just blended.

6.       Melt chocolate chips in a microwave or in a double boiler stirring until smooth.

7.       Add 1 cup batter to chocolate, stirring until well combined.

8.       Spoon chocolate batter alternately with plain batter into a greased 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch loaf pan.

9.       Swirl batters together using a knife.

10.   Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

11.   Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack, then remove from pan and cool 10 minutes before serving.

Makes 1 loaf.



Enjoy!



The Creative Cook

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Easy Eggs Benedict

I posted about making Eggs Benedict quite a while ago.  I don't make it often because it is a pain in the you know what to make.  It is messy and somewhat time-consuming.  Well, today I found some steps to simplify the process.  I was talking about The Mad Genius who gives food tips on Food & Wine Magazine's website last night and when I searched for the video he made for shelling eggs with a spoon, I found another of his videos showing how to easily poach eggs.  I tried it this morning and it worked fairly well.  I also found a great tip about using an immersion blender to make the blender Hollandaise sauce!  I hadn't thought of that myself.  It is much better to use an immersion blender for this process rather than using my big "Ninja" blender because it makes a mess and you lose half the sauce to the sides and bottom of the blender.  I had always worried that there wasn't even enough sauce in the blender to get it properly blended.  All this worry goes away just by using an immersion blender.  The rest of the process of making the Eggs Benedict is really a snap.  Just fry up some Canadian bacon and toast a few English muffins!

Here are the links:

Immersion Blender Hollandaise Sauce:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/04/foolproof-2-minute-hollandaise-recipe.html

or

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/blender-hollandaise-recipe.html

How to Make a Perfect Poached Egg:


http://www.foodandwine.com/blogs/2014/5/5/the-one-fool-proof-way-to-make-perfect-poached-eggs

or

Perfectly Poached Eggs in the Microwave:

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-poach-an-egg-in-the-microwave-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-125453

http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/inside-our-kitchen/article/for-perfectly-poached-eggs-the-microwave-is-your-friend

Enjoy!

The Creative Cook