beyond banana bread

i don't actually remember how i came across this, but the ingredient list and images of the the finished product appealed to me, so i printed it out and waited for some overripe bananas to show up in my life. about a week later, they came-- literally to my doorstep, from a neighbor-- so i knew it was time to try the recipe.

let me tell ya folks, it did NOT disappoint.

wow.

i am not even a big fan of banana bread. this is no ordinary banana bread. super moist, with a tender crumb, the chocolate makes it decadent, the lemon makes you forget it's banana bread, and the olive oil and whole wheat flour make it wholesome, arguably, possibly even good for you. bake it in a ring pan, and it feels like a fancy cake.

i urge you to try it the next time you have mushy bananas to deal with.

i used whole wheat pastry flour, and just used regular choc. chips, because that was what i had on hand. i also used orange zest instead of lemon, which was okay, but i bet it's better with lemon. you can find the recipe here.

geez...

well, apparently i cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. ever since i got this full time job, can't seem to manage to keep up with things like blogging, and cleaning the house. i know that many of you moms out there have been doing it ALL, all along. i admire you, and feel truly privileged to have had this time away from the work-a-day world, to focus on cosmo, our home and family, and to pursue the things i love.

the good news is that i still get to follow my passions in my new job. i'm working for a non-profit, and i get to do things like set up a roof-top kitchen garden, build rain barrels, raise worms for compost, design edible landscaping, and do space (and even menu) planning for a small take-out cafe.



i am not complaining, and am thrilled to have work. there is an adjustment period though, for all of us. cosmo is handling it all pretty well, and carl is uber-competent in his stay-at home-dad role. mostly it is difficult for me to accept that i cannot do every. single. thing. that i did before. i still try to, and am reminded about how much more efficient i become, the busier i am. but i have been forced to prioritize, to let go, and to say no. i'm sure it's good for me.

we have had our share of fun times lately, and i think i'll just go photo-essay-style to catch up.



cosmo started montessori in late august. he loves it, we love it. it seems to suit what kind of kid he is, and he took to it readily. this week is children's evening (open house) and i can't wait to see what he chooses to show us in his classroom. at home, he is into games: board games, card games, computer games, and ones he makes up, with, say, over 500 wooden poker chips i found for him at the free swap. he reads almost anything now, and has lots of interesting questions, like why do spirals go round and round, and never end? or, how do you think about nothing? makes me wonder if maybe his is a bodhisattva, after all. he has crossed over into a delightful stage, of being almost helpful, often cheery, chatty, and thirsty for knowledge. he started doing a little reading to himself, in the car (mostly he reads with us, to us--does not yet curl up on the couch with a good novel), and the books he chooses for this are not usually stories, but non-fiction books about subjects like geography or outer space.



here he is with carl's 12 year-old nephew, clem. he like to say "i'm a lot like clem," and by that he means, reading to himself. luckily, he still loves being read to, and is currently absorbed in the magic tree house series.



he got to ride a horse for the first time, at a birthday party, and is crazy for miniature golf. here he is pictured, putting, in the beauty and serenity of the jellystone campground and RV park, just south of town.



we visited the chili woman's farm, where cosmo fed a llama, and complained about wanting to go home. we participated in the annual hub ride fundraiser, for mother hubbard's cupboard. even though we took the shortest (4 mile) route, it was a bit rainy, and there were some hills.



so, we did a lot of walking of the bikes, and coaxing cosmo to find the strength within himself to finish. i was nervous about being out on roads, where cars are, with such a new rider (truthfully, i thought i might have a heart attack).



by the end though, i think we were all glad we persevered, and didn't have to call the SAG wagon. plus, cosmo got to meet a parrot, who also went on the ride!



cosmo accompanied me for some tabling at a sustainability event on campus. i got to strap a rain barrel to my bike rack, and cosmo got to dye a silk scarf with indigo leaves. cosmo also demonstrated, at that event, that he is beginning to overcome his shyness. he made friends with a group of young men, all on his own, and cried when they left without him. he also kicked a ball around with a kid and his parents.



i entered the salsa contest again this year, hoping to hold steady with another third place ribbon. but this year was carl's turn to shine. he made a hoosier harissa, from our own dried chili's, and it was to-die-for. i can't believe he didn't get first in the specialty category (he won third).



the following weekend, i convinced him to make more, and serve it with some other middle eastern/north african specialties, plus homemade pita bread, baked on the grill! they cook so fast, and puff up beautifully, without fail. so simple, even a child can do it.

dear friend, alan, shows off a perfectly puffed pita

Pita Bread

Makes 8 pitas

3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon sugar or honey
1 packet yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 teaspoons yeast)
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, roughly at room temperature
2 tablespoons olive oil, vegetable oil, butter, or shortening

Mix the yeast in with the flour, salt, and sugar. Add the olive oil and 1 1/4 cup water and stir together with a wooden spoon. All of the ingredients should form a ball. If some of the flour will not stick to the ball, add more water.

Once all of the ingredients form a ball, place the ball on a work surface, such as a cutting board, and knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes (or until your hands get tired). If you are using an electric mixer, mix it at low speed for 10 minutes.

When you are done kneading the dough, place it in a bowl that has been lightly coated with oil. Form a ball out of the dough and place it into the bowl, rolling the ball of dough around in the bowl so that it has a light coat of oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.

When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release some of the trapped gases and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes. This step allows the dough to relax so that it'll be easier to shape.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven to preheat as well. If you do not have a baking stone, turn a cookie sheet upside down and place it on the middle rack of the oven while you are preheating the oven. This will be the surface on which you bake your pitas.

After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on a work surface and place one of the balls of dough there. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough and use a rolling pin or your hands to stretch and flatten the dough. You should be able to roll it out to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before trying again.

Open the oven and place as many pitas as you can fit on the hot baking surface. They should be baked through and puffy after 3 minutes (illustrations and more info here).

Or, put a baking stone on the grill, and cook them outside. as long as there's enough heat, it should work fine, since they cook so quickly. we closed the lid, and checked on them every few minutes. we have an inexpensive charcoal grill, nothing fancy.

the garden has done well, despite the drought. did you know that okra can reach heights of 13 feet? we have pickled it, fried it, made bindi masala, and many other yummy dishes with ours. you can get rid of the sliminess, trust me, and it is delicious.

note: the okra pictured here are pretty, but way too large to eat. you have to pick them when they are under 2 or 3 inches long. they grow quickly, it's difficult to keep up.

some seeds refused to germinate in mid-summer, which made for a weak fall garden, and some crops (like red-russian kale, for instance) flourished, only to be recently attacked by strange, gray aphids like i have never seen. the plants are strong enough to recover from it, and my brussel sprouts have been defended from cabbage worms, by the predator wasps that buzz around the garden. i learned in the grow organic educator series (GOES) class that i am taking this fall, that those wasps are attracted to umbel flower sets, like dill, fennel, and queen ann's lace. i'm taking the course at a discount, since i volunteered to take care of the refreshments for the class each week (basically, coffee and tea). it pushes me to bake something every wednesday, not because it is expected, but because i enjoy it. truth be told, i don't need much prodding to bake.

i made a lattice-top apple pie last weekend, and a lovely pumpkin persimmon pie today (the pies are for us, not the class). sometimes i bring cookies (pictured: currant jelly thumb prints), or a sweet bread that carl has made. the class is fantastic, and can lead to a master gardener certification. more importantly, i am learning a tremendous amount. it's the perfect time to take such a course. after three years of hands-on in the garden, now i am ready to hear from some experts about specific techniques and approaches, and to find out what makes a compost heap do its thang. it's fascinating stuff, and i find my self buzzed and energized after each class, though it makes for such a long day.

we're in full-on fall mode here, saving seeds, drying peppers, gathering persimmons, and apple picking. cosmo's doing his part, putting dry leaves in the compost bin.

i'm trying to put the garden to bed, but it keeps producing. after at least 100 lbs of tomatoes harvested, there are still more coming. we have a nice crop of lettuce, arugula, and carrots for fall, and i'll be planting the garlic any day now.

there's more to tell, but i must stop here, to make sure this gets posted. i hope to write about our road/train trip to NYC, next time. oh, and i want to post about this awesome outdoor pizza oven that our friends built...so, stay tuned!

tastes like summer

fresh, local summer fruits are months away. good thing we stocked up last summer. lately, i have been digging into the pantry and the freezer, and throwing together the most delicious fruit galettes (basically, a rustic pie).



this one is made with frozen blueberries that cosmo and i picked last june, plus some peach jam we made from local peaches, at the peak of the season. i have also been known to sneak in some gleaned pears that we have preserved in a fancy liqueur called eau de vie.

as far as i'm concerned, anytime is pie time.

autumnal clichés

there's nothing like living in houston texas, for nearly a decade, to make one appreciate the splendor of the 4 seasons. when we were living in houston, carl's friend michael (of mike & patty's fame) once sent him an email in october that facetiously suggested he must be enjoying all the wonders of fall: bulky sweaters, apple picking, the rosy-cheeks of the school children...
it's still hot and sticky down there, well into october, but now that we live in the mid-west, we actually do get to experience these seasonal markers. for instance, on sunday, we went apple picking.



the trees were low, and easy for little ones to reach, but since the coveted jonathan variety was almost gone, we still got to do a little bit of searching, to find those precious few that remained. then we filled our bag with golden delicious, and red delicious, and topped it all off with a caramel apple from the quaint little country store.



we used most of the bag for applesauce, which we canned last night. cosmo went through so much of that last winter, i think we'll need to do another batch.



it is so simple: just cut apples in quarters, stick 'em in the biggest pot you can find, with a little bit of water. cook until soft enough to mash with a potato masher (stirring to prevent scorching), then run them through your handy-dandy food mill, to remove the skins and seeds. after that, you just ladle the sauce into the sterilized jars, add a little lemon juice on top (to prevent discoloration), seal the jars, and put into the boiling-water canning bath for 20 minutes. that's it. pure, homemade, nothin-but-apples-applesauce. yum.



we have also been gleaning the fallen pears from a lovely neighborhood tree. one night, we made a crisp, from the pears, plus some black raspberries we had from earlier in the season. it was heavenly. we'll probably try some pear chutney, or perhaps pear butter? any other pear ideas out there?

ciabatta

oh. yeah. that's. what. i'm. talkin'. about.
this one is half whole wheat, half white flour, and was very easy to make.

whole grain bread

since i can't garden much in the winter (though i DO try...) i've taken to exploring the art of bread baking. i've done some yeast bread baking in the past. a few years ago i discovered that i could make a decent, crusty, sour(ish)dough, baguette with very little effort. it's quite satisfying to pull one of those out of the oven, just in time for dinner. sadly, there's just not much nutritional value in white flour, and my experience with home baked whole grain breads left a lot to be desired. in particular, they seemed to always be too heavy, and too sweet.


some library patron was looking at this book while hanging out with a little one in the playroom at the downtown branch one day, last fall. they must have decided it wasn't for them, because they left it behind, and i picked it up. it was exactly what i was looking for (though i was not actively looking, just vaguely thinking about it now and then): a way to make yummy, crusty, artisan loaves of bread using only whole grain flours. i checked out the book, and started reading it. from the beginning. the famous baker, peter reinhart (well, famous in the artisan bread baking community...), tells the story of his journey to whole grain baking, and my, what a journey it has been.


getting ready to mix the soaker, getting ready to mix the pre-doughs into the final dough

fascinating, in ways i couldn't have imagined, he goes into the chemistry of bread baking, gluten development, enzymatic activity, delayed fermentation, the purpose of a making a soaker, the difference between a wild yeast starter, and a biga, making a sponge, how to mix your pre-doughs into your final dough, the autolyse method, and oh, so much more. to an experienced baker, it must be a completely different read than it was for me. he explains what happens in traditional methods, and then how his method differs, and why. he talks about all the test bakers that he sent recipe after recipe to, and how he incorporated their feedback, to finally come up with the wonderful recipes included in his book. it took me several renewals, returning, then checking out again before i even tried to make one of the breads. carl was starting to wonder if it was JUST a research project, or if he was ever going to get a chance to sink his teeth into some homemade bread.


before and after shots of the bread dough, proofing in the pan

one day in late november, a woman i barely know, showed up at my door with a healthy, whole wheat, wild yeast starter, that she had kept going for 2 years. i decided to work it into reinhart's master formula for whole wheat sandwich bread, treating it as the mother starter he describes. it worked fine, and the bread was delicious. i made two loves: one in a loaf pan, and one on a baking stone. the loaf pan one was higher, a bit lighter, and, i think, a bit better.


whole wheat sandwich loaf

then the book came due again, no renewals. then i went on a trip. then another trip. i neglected the starter, did not refresh it, or even check on it, for weeks and weeks. when i finally took a peek, it was moldy, and destroyed. but, i had received the book as a christmas present, so, i started again, making my own wild yeast starter, from scratch. in fact, i made two. using two different methods(pineapple-juice-based, and mash-based), to compare. i ended up with two separate mother starters in my fridge. since they need to be refreshed regularly, i have been making bread, often as i refresh a starter, and the results have been exciting. i made two more sandwich loaves, a rye metiel, and a straun, incorporating quinoa and cooked brown rice. the straun was a freestanding batard. it spread out considerably on the baking stone, but was fairly light in texture, and so moist and flavorful.


straun, and a close up shot of a free-standing whole wheat loaf

i couldn't distinguish a difference in the two starters i had going in the fridge. the author says they are interchangeable, and since they both seemed healthy, i let one of them go. next i made a straun using rolled oats and cornmeal. carl and i both agreed that this one wasn't as good as the others i'd made. it had a tangy bite to it that neither of us appreciated, and i found it to be too dry, and too heavy.


sandwich loaf, made into sandwiches, and grilled cheese, with yummy tomato soup (carl made the soup)

i had to admit to myself that all of the breads i'd made from this book, were too heavy for my taste, and i wasn't impressed with the quality of the crumb. i wanted to try a more rustic type of bread-- chewy, with big holes. and, i decided i wanted to try one of reinhart's transitional breads, which means they have some white flour mixed in with the whole grain. i figure this is really the only way i am going to get the kind of bread i'm looking for. so, i tried his transitional country hearth bread. the dough was lovely to work with, and satisfying to knead. one of the complaints i have had about the other breads in this book, is that the dough is very wet and sticky. he recommends wetting your hands as you knead the dough, to prevent sticking. i guess it works, but it is so unpleasant. this dough, by contrast, was soft and supple, and felt so good in my hands. this dough also did not require the wild yeast starter i have in my fridge. instead i made a biga, with comercial yeast, and left it in the fridge overnight, for a slow rise. the dough is more that 50% whole wheat, which is still a lot more hearty than most commercial breads that i like.


transitional country hearth bread

i made three mini baguettes, which puffed up in the oven, forming lovely rounded loaves, with crispy crusts and superb flavor. while this bread was not perfect, it is definitely the direction i want to head in with my future bread baking.

i skimmed through the book, picking out breads that i wanted to try, and found that all of them call for the biga instead of the wild yeast starter. i find that maintaining the starter is a pain in the ass, there is a lot of waste (i have to throw out 75% of it, each time i refresh it), and it takes up tons of room in our small fridge. since i do not really prefer the breads that are made with it, i think i am going to let it go.


my bread journal

i've been keeping a bread journal, to keep track of the various schedules for each bread, what kinds of grains i have tried, and my thoughts about each bread. it's a great winter hobby, warms up the house, and, let's face it, homemade bread, fresh, slightly warm, with butter on it...can't be beat.