you have no idea how many bunches of bananas i had to buy and how many weeks it took me to get to these little darlings. i have been wanting some banana bread type stuff for about two months now…and of course by the time i finally got to baking something up, i lost my appetite for them….not to say these aren’t fantastic, because, well come on…banana and chocolate cannot go wrong together.

my roomate (sean’s brother) geoff is a banana fanatic. every time i purchase a bunch, so they can get all brown and ready for muffins, geoff eats them…like in a day. this last time i tied a bow on three out of the bunch and announced their purpose. i also gave the “don’t-touch-my-bananas” glare every time either of them (sean often assists geoff in his banana capering) walked by the fruit bowl…really not a bowl, but a cake stand. luckily this time they went untouched and muffins were made!

not much else to say…it’s been hectic round these parts. my preschool class is graduating today (hehe, yeah preschool graduation), so i made cupcakes…more on those soon. plus, i started (finally!) to get the ball rolling on the whole wedding planning thing (we’ve been engaged 3 1/2 years)…oh my. i sense craziness in the near future.

banana muffins
i got the recipe for these from simply recipes. it’s super easy and i just added a handful of chocolate chips to the batter and sprinkled some chopped hazelnuts on top. i really want to concoct some pb & banana muffins or bread…mmm…sometime.

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cup of flour
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts

no need for a mixer with this recipe.

preheat the oven to 350°F. with a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.

mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla.

sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.

add the flour, mix until it is just incorporated. fold in the chips.

pour mixture into a prepared muffin tin. sprinkle tops with nuts. bake for 25-30 minutes. check for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin. if it comes out clean, it’s done. cool on a rack.

makes 12 regular sized muffins.

it was a busy memorial day weekend and i don’t even know where to begin. my mom came to town and we had a grand time. lots of eating and drinking and very little time in the kitchen. i did manage to make this fantastically refreshing mango sorbet though…perfect for the warm weather and sun-shiny skies we’ve been having. i even made a sorbet float with some sparkling water. yum, yum!

i don’t have much to say, except that mango sorbet is amazing and my mom is the kewlest EVAR. seriously, she’s awesome. people tell me all the time, like i don’t already know, that she is the most generous and welcoming lady in the land….and she is hilarious and will always tell you like it is. i really need to dedicate a long post about her, but for now here are a few pictures from the weekend.

this is my mom, chae…and she’s wearing her mother’s day bonbons!

some old casino lights and some drinks at west street wine bar

(one of) the reno arch (es…there are two for some reason) and some pigeons on the golden nugget

mango and ginger sorbet
adapted from epicurious

4 1/2 cups mangoes (peeled and chopped)
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup lime juice (from 4 medium limes)
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

bring sugar and water to a boil in a medium saucepan, until all the sugar dissolves. set aside to cool.

once syrup is cooled, place chopped mango into a blender with the syrup, lime juice and ginger. puree the heck out of it. chill if needed and process in an ice cream maker according to manufacturers instructions.

when i was a kid i tried not to lie. not necessarily because it’s wrong, but probably because i didn’t want to get caught in said lie. my little brother, ian, on the other hand pretty much lied when confronted about anything. i think it was just his first reaction…i mean, he’s not some crazy-lying-delinquent, not totally anyway (hehe).

anyway, since my brother lied often and poorly and was often the culprit of whatever he was accused of, it was easy…sometimes too much so…to frame up the blame on him. i know, i may be admitting that i was a master-manipulator as a child, but oh well. i swear i’m really nice and not trying to blame you for acts you may or may not have committed.

on with the story…
i used to mix up all sorts of potions in the bathroom, bathtub, the garden, garage, kitchen, sandbox…wherever. sometimes i would mix flour and water and make “pancakes” on the sewer cover in the middle of the street in front of our house. sometimes it would be my mother’s garden flowers mashed, shredded and steeped with water into a tea…that i would then feed my brother. sometimes i would just mix random things together, just to see, just because.

so, once i was mixing up some baby powder and water and every time i squeezed the bottle little poofs of powder would puff out. apparently i liked this effect, so i did that pretty much until the bottle was emptied. then i swept what was left on the counter into the sink and rinsed it down. well, mom came into the bathroom some time later to find a fine dusting of baby powder on every surface: toilet, mirrors, floor, and so on, except the sink. she confronted us, we both said we didn’t do it (of course) and she left us to decide who did it and who would clean it up.

i convinced my brother, with his forgetful memory, that maybe…just maybe he blacked out and did it. i told him that sometimes he forgot things and that is what likely happened…because you know, i never lied (ha! wink…) i then made up some (apparently) believable story that would prove my “black-out” theory…which i am sure had many holes in it, but i was preying on my less knowledgeable (at the time, argueable still…but he would probably negate that) younger brother, so it worked. anyway, long story shortened, he believed me and cleaned up the mess.

i did feel bad..as i often would in these situations of letting my brother take the blame. so, usually i would give him something or treat him to something as the guilt ate me up. usually that was some sort of candy or sweet treat. my brother isn’t a big fan of things chocolate…the kid can eat a costco package of airheads though in one sitting. he thrives on sugar and he prefers that sugar un-muddied by the likes of chocolate…except for two things chocolate: pie and ice cream. so, i guess you could say i made this ice cream for him…you know, because of the guilt.

…too bad he lives in southern utah. bet he could use some ice cream in that heat….is it hot there ian?

i’m trying out some bigger pictures…too big? what do you think?

chocolate ice cream
i adapted this recipe i found on use real butter. it’s real good. real good.

since i didn’t have heavy cream i used half and half. i think it would be even more tasty with cream…

2 cups half and half
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (i used valrhona)
5 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped (or use chips, good ones)
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar ( i used vanilla sugar, since i had some)
pinch of salt
5 large egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

in a medium saucepan bring 1 cup half and half to simmer with cocoa powder, whisking constantly. place chocolate in a large bowl and pour heated half and half mixture, stir until smooth. add remaining half and half.

place yolks in a medium bowl and whisk.

in the same saucepan heat milk, sugar, salt until just before boiling. remove from heat and temper yolks with the warm milk and sugar mixture. scrape custard back into the pan and heat over low, stirring constantly being sure to get into the corners of the pan, until mixture thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon (wipe your finger on the spoon and if the custard does not run into the track you should be good).

pour custard through a fine mesh strainer and mix into the chocolate mixture until well incorporated. cool completely and refrigerate to chill. process in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions.

sean graduated from unr this weekend with his bs in civil engineering. i am so proud of him! no surprise, i didn’t do any baking. we had a pretty low key weekend: dog park, graduation, dinner with sean’s fam, lake tahoe, and generaly just big kickin’ it.

i think dinner may have been the highlight (aside from graduation). we went to this super cute, comstocky-style victorian restaurant in carson city called adele’s, i highly recomend it if you are ever in the reno-tahoe area. there was an herb garden in the back! sean had his first oyster on the half shell (yuuuummmm, i could eat a ton of raw oysters), escargot, lobster, grouper (my entree, with oyster mushrooms and bacon, drool), salmon, oh my. sean has been a fish hater his whole life, but i’ve been needling him for the last year or so to just “get over himself” and try it. i told him raw oysters taste how the freshest sea air smells. aparently it was just mind over matter, because he mowed through everyones seafood leftovers after slurping down a few oysters, in addition to the orange and saffron chicken that he had (which was incredible as well) needless to say, it was a successful weekend for sean in so many ways :)

next weekend promises to be event filled, sean’s extended family will be in town and so will my mom (who i haven’t seen for 6 months…a long time for me, i’m a mama’s girl). i am hoping to post sometime this week…but, for now here are some lake pictures at chimney beach.

happy your day mom :)

a very happy day to all the moms…even if you are only a mom to your pet (cat, dog, garden, rock…), happy day to you too.

xoxo

two funny things happened to me last week. i won a giveaway, little green pinch bowls, (whoooo!) from hannah over at honey and jam… lovely little blog written by a super sweet girl. then, kristina from stoneyfield farm offered to send me some coupons for their oikos organic greek yogurt. um, free yogurt? hellz yeah.

sooo, i wanted to come up with a dessert that would feature the yogurt. usually i like to eat greek yogurt plain with some honey, but i thought i’d dress it up a bit. i went with a yogurt panna cotta sweetened with a little honey, but first i cooked down a few stalks of rhubarb with some vanilla sugar. i spooned that into the bottoms of the vessels i used (little tea cups), popped those in the freezer while i was mixing up the panna cotta (to prevent the two from mixing) and then i layered the panna cotta mixture over the top.

they turned out great. i really liked the flavor, nice tang from the yogurt, and the rhubarb added a nice fruity flavor too. my taste-testers, sean and geoff, really liked them a lot. geoff more so than sean, who has a (weird, weirdo) aversion to honey. i think it’s the whole floral flavor.

i can’t say that i love oikos organic greek yogurt over any of my other faves…i didn’t do a side-by-side comparison…it was thick and creamy like i like and also a bit more affordable for me. if you’ve never had greek yogurt, try it out, i’ve loved it for a while and was (and am always) happy to try something new.

yogurt panna cottas
the amount of servings will differ depending on the size of vessel you use. i used 3 ramekins and 3 small teacups (4 and 3 oz. respectively). i also didn’t follow a real panna cotta recipe, i kind of jumbled a few things together to get the texture that i wanted, so here is the recipe i came up with.

150 grams greek yogurt, plain
1 cup half and half
2 tablespoons honey (i used orange blossom, use what you want)
1/2 vanilla bean, gutted (hehe)
2 teaspoons powdered, plain gelatin
2 tablespoons water

1 1/2 cups rhubarb
1/3 cup sugar (this was to taste, adjust to your liking)

sprinkle gelatin over water in a small bowl to soften. about 5 minutes.
place yogurt into a large heatproof bowl.

heat half and half in a small saucepan with half of vanilla bean (pod and scrapings), until just before a boil. cover and turn off heat, allow to steep for 15 minutes.

meanwhile, cook chopped rhubarb with sugar until rhubarb breaks down and thickens a bit. spoon into vessels and place in freezer.

remove pod from half and half and stir in honey, followed by the softened gelatin until everything dissolves completely. pour this mixture into the bowl with the yogurt and blend well. pour into prepared ramekins and refrigerate for 4 hours or until firmed.

to invert onto a plate i just pushed the panna cotta’s along the top edges, turned them over and prodded them a bit more. slid right out and onto the plate :)

thanks hannah! cannot wait to use the heck out of these little guys.

…and vanilla. and i hear she loves chocolate too, and maybe a few other flavors…banana, kiwi, lemon…

strawberry is a bit of a hussy i guess. but, whatever. go get it strawberry.

instead of making a pan-pie or a rustic-fold-over-the-sides type pie, i made mini pies using a biscuit cutter. cute, but a little difficult to work with. the filling kept squinching out the sides. only a few came out pretty…and the others i fed to the sharks. i mean, sean and geoff. but you…you do what you want.

*apparently i didn’t even mention how they were…pretty radtastic is the answer to that. yum!

pie crust
this is a martha stewart recipe. it’s an all butter dough. feel free to use your favorite recipe.

1 cup very cold, unsalted butter cut into cubes
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
4-8 tbsp ice water

put flour, salt and sugar in food processor and add butter while machine is on to cut in. pulse until the butter looks about the size of small peas. while machine is on gradually add ice water, a tablespoon or two at a time until the dough forms.

turn out dough and shape into two equal disks. wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before rolling.

for the filling i mixed about 1.5 cups of each rhubarb and strawberries, 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, and 1/2 cup of vanilla sugar. it was all to taste and what i thought looked right, so i can’t be sure of the measurements.