Banana Muffins

Buschs had really ripe bananas on sale for baking. This worked out perfectly, as I've been wanting to make some banana muffins. These muffins aren't very dense or overly sweet and have a very hardy flavor and texture. They also freeze well.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
  
• 1 cup applesauce
  
• 1/2 cup Banilla (or Vanana) yogurt
  
• 2 cups of white flour
  
• 2 cups of wheat flour
  
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2 cups ripe banana, mashed
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar <- okay so this probably not enough
  
• 1/2 cup pea, potato and spirulina protein powder (it is almost tasteless so it's good to cook with, tastes almost like apple if anything)
  

Simply combine the ingredients and bake at 350° F until the center is cooked. This made a little more than 18 muffins.

Edit: They game out good, but there was something a little off about them...Stephanie said they needed more sugar...the batter was pretty sweet when I tasted it, but it seems as though this sweetness was not enough when cooked.

Turkey Meatballs with Pesto

My basil has doubled in size over the last 2 weeks when I was gone, so I decided to make some pesto. Ground turkey was on sale, so I decided to make some turkey meatballs in pesto sauce with penne. I added capers and balsamic vinegar to the pesto to give it a sharper flavor.



Ingredients for meatballs:

• 1.25 lbs of ground turkey (93% lean works well)
• 8 oz of mushrooms, finely minced (optional but highly recommended)
• 1/4 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1/2 onion, finally minced
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan and/or romano
• basil, oregano, cayenne, thyme, salt, black pepper
• 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar

This is easy, combine all the ingredients (add a few dashes of each of the herbs), form into small balls and cook. I fried them up in some olive oil...I usually bake meatballs, but the turkey is pretty lean as it is, and I didn't feel like making the house really hot by running the oven. I forgot to get mushrooms; this was the first time I made turkey meatballs without them and found that the texture was a little grainy...they weren't bad but the mushrooms definitely help the texture and the flavor.

I made the same pesto I normally make, but with pine nuts, a teaspoon of capers, and a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.

I put the pesto over the meatballs and penne. I topped it all with another teaspoon of capers and some more grated parmesan. Next time, I think I will roasted up some red peppers and other vegetables to have with the pasta.

Shrimp Gumbo

I was watching Good Eats over the weekend and the theme of the show was gumbo. The recipe looked good, so I decided to give it a try. I made some modifications based on what was on hand, and overall it came out pretty good. The original recipe can be found here.



Ingredients:

• 15 raw, shell on shrimp, de-veined (I used 31-50 count)
• 2 andouille sausage links
• 1 onion, diced
• 1/4 cup of bell peppers, diced
• 1 rib of celery
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1/2-1 cup of zucchini, diced
• 1/4 cup tomato, diced
• 1 teaspoon of garlic, diced
• 4 ounces of flour
• 4 ounces of vegetable oil
• salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, thyme, bay leaf

The first step is to make the shrimp stock. I placed all the shells in about 3 cups of water, and began heating. To this I added about 1/8 a cup of diced onion, half a rib of celery, diced carrot, a few black pepper cloves, and 1 bay leaf. I let this simmer for about half an hour.

While this was simmering, I chopped up all of the veggies into 1/3 inch pieces. Once the stock was done, I strained out the shells and vegetables and set the liquid aside. I made a simple roux in the pot over medium-low heat (I didn't make it in the oven like in the recipe because I was lazy); I added the oil and flour to the pot, making sure to keep it moving (I used a wisk). Once the roux was almost at a brick red color, I added all the diced vegetables (minus the tomatoes), again, keeping the whole mixture moving to avoid having the roux burn. I cooked until the onions were translucent.

I then added the tomatoes, a little cayenne pepper, black pepper, salt, thyme and a bay leaf, and stirred to combine. I next wisked in the shrimp stock, and let the mixture simmer for about 30 minutes.

I browned the sausage (cut into 1/4 inch thick slices) in the pan before adding them to the soup. This cooked out a lot of oil. I turned off the heat and added the sausage and raw shrimp, and let the gumbo sit for about 5-10 minutes (which should be enough to cook the shrimp). Last I adjusted the level of salt and gave a few more grinds of black pepper.

I cooked up some rice and mixed it directly into the gumbo, rather than just serving gumbo on top of rice...this was easier for leftovers. It came out a little soupier than on the show, mostly because I left out (i.e. didn't have) file powder which is a thickener, but still it had a great flavor.

Strawberry tea sorbet

It's hot and humid in Michigan right now, so I decided to make up some more frozen treats. I've been wanting to make a tea based sorbet, so this was my first attempt.

On a side note, when I was a little kid (and apparently too young to be left unsupervised) I would go with my father to the health club when he would work out. I would usually spend the time unattended (instead of being at home unattended, myself and the other unattended children would play with the wooden swords and rubber knives that were left out in the karate/self defense room). Afterward, I would often get a strawberry FrozFruit bar from the juice bar (it had chunks of strawberries in it...it was great). A few years ago I bought myself a box of them and was really disappointed; they just didn't taste the way I remembered. While I was out in LA with Nicole, she bought me a box of the 365 brand strawberry fruit bars...they taste the way I remember the FrozFruit bars tasted as a kid. I would recommend getting a box from Whole Foods.

Onto the recipe...

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of water
• 1/4 -1/2 cup of sugar
• 2 pints of strawberries (it was the bigger plastic container, not the small sort of mesh one...I think this is 2 pints)
• 2 tea bags (I used Orange Pekoe, because that's what I had on hand, green tea would probably be good too)
• 2 tablespoons of lemon or lime juice

I heated the water to a boil and added the sugar. I sort of forgot about it, so it probably reduced by about half a cup. Once the sugar was dissolved, I turned off the heat and let the two tea bags steep for about 3-5 minutes...if you were using green tea, you'd probably go more like 1-3 minutes. I let the mixture cool before taking care of the strawberries.

I pureed the strawberries in my food processor. I processed about 1 pint really smooth and made the other pint a little chunkier, because I found this to be a pleasing texture and flavor in the previous batches. To the strawberries I added the lemon juice, then combined this with the sugary tea.

Last step is to throw it into the ice cream maker! The strawberry flavor is more prominent in the strawberry orange or strawberry tangerine I've made in the past. It almost tastes like the frozen fruit bar, but with a nice, subtle flavor from the tea. I think green tea would be a better choice next time, since the black tea tends to have a little bit of a bitter flavor in the finish. I was going to substitute a little honey for some of the sugar, but I forgot....

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Also for a freezer meal, I made a roasted red pepper sauce for pasta. This comes out like a really light tomato sauce. The recipe made enough for about 2 people. I put the sauce on top of penne rigate, roasted cauliflower and red onion, and sauteed shrimp, scallops, and calamari.

Ingredients:

• 1 roasted red pepper
• 1 slice of roasted red onion
• 2 teaspoons of capers
• 1-2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
• 1 clove of garlic
• 10 leaves of basil
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• juice of 1/3 lemon
• salt, black pepper

I sliced the red pepper into large pieces (basically cut the faces off), and then threw these on the grill. I removed them from the grill once the pepper was nice and soft, and the skin had started to peal from face. I also grilled a slice of red onion. I rinsed the red pepper under some cold water and peeled the skin off.

I added the garlic, red pepper, red onion, capers, olive oil and about 1/4 cup of water to the food processor. I added enough water to easily process the ingredients into a smooth mixture. I then added 1-2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, and the basil leaves and processed again. I added a dash of salt and a few grinds of black pepper to taste.

I added parmesan and romano after mixing the sauce with the pasta and other ingredients. The sauce is light and a little bit sweet. To make the sauce a little richer, you could add a small amount of cream. I topped this over roasted vegetables and seafood, but I imagine this would be really good over top sausage, peppers, and pasta.

Cauliflower puree revisted

For dinner last night I made Nicole and I grilled red snapper with a cauliflower puree. I followed the same basic recipe from last time with a few changes (Salmon and Cauliflower puree recipe). This time around I used fresh cauliflower (I'm in CA right now and the produce is great!), bouillon cubes, and goat cheese.



Ingredients:

• 1 head of cauliflower
• 2 cups of water
• 1 carrot
• 1 celery stalk
• 1/2 a bouillon cube (I used Rapunzel Vegetable bouillon with sea salt and herbs from Whole Foods)
• 1/4 cup of goat cheese crumbles
• 1 pad of butter
• 3 tablespoons of milk
• lemon juice
• ginger, black pepper, sea salt, garlic powder (or fresh garlic)

I diced the carrots and celery into small cubes and added them to about 2 cups of water. I added a few grounds of black pepper, about 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, 2 teaspoons of ginger and 1/2 a bouillion cube to the water and brought it to a boil. I let the carrots and celery soften a little (about 10 minutes simmering) before adding the cauliflower. I chopped the cauliflower up into about 1/2 inch pieces before adding them to the water. I then cooked the cauliflower until it was soft (probably about 10 minutes).

Once soft, I transferred the cauliflower and other veggies into the food processor. I added about 1/4-1/3 cup of the liquid, basically enough so that I could create a smooth puree. I next added the butter and milk and continued to puree, adding more cooking liquid if needed. The first time I made this, I didn't process enough and the result was good, but a little chunky. I kept pulsing until the mixture was nice and smooth. I added a dash more ginger, a squirt of lemon juice, and the goat cheese crumbles and processed one last time. The goat cheese added a nice creaminess to the puree, but isn't necessary--it tasted great without it.

The bouillon cubes added a really well rounded flavor to this, rather than just the slightly "salty" flavor in my first attempt at it.

Black Bean Veggie Chili

Also along the line of making food for Nicole's freezer, I made up a small batch of chili.

Ingredients

• 8 oz of diced tomotoes
• 1/2 cup of diced red pepper
• 1 small onion
• 1 cup of diced zucchini
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/3 cup of rice
• 1 cup of textured vegetable protein
• 1/4 cup of crushed tortilla chips
• 8 oz of black beans (or refried black beans)
• juice of 1 lemon
• salt, black pepper, cumin, crushed red pepper, oregano, cilantro, chili powder, paprika

I diced all the veggies and sauteed them in a little olive oil with a dash of crush red pepper. Once the veggies were soft, I added the black beans. The other day, we had opened a can of refried black beans (the super healthy ones not made with lard), so I threw these in instead of whole black beans. If you use whole beans, drain them first, then add about 1/2 cup of water and let them simmer with the vegetables a little to get soft. Once they are soft, mush them up a little with a fork.

After the bean and veggie mixture was warm, I added a dash of chili powder, paprika, and cumin and a grind of black pepper. Next I added the tomatoes and the let the mixture simmer. While this was going on, I cooked the rice. When I've made this for myself, I've used whatever rice I had on hand--basmati, sushi, or even the kashi pilaf. Once the rice was cooked, I added it to the mixture, and then added in the TVP, to avoid overcooking the TVP.

Once the TVP was heated through, I added the juice of a lemon and the crushed tortilla chips. I readjusted the seasoning at this point and added a few tablespoons of of fresh chopped cilantro.

It tasts great with topped with pepper jack cheese and a tortilla chip.

TVP Vegetable Ragu

I've been out in LA for the last week or so, visiting Nicole. I've been stocking her freezer with different meals (residency does not allow her a lot of free time and the food at the hospital is crap). Since it freezes/reheats well, I made her baked ziti, but added in textured vegetable protein (Boca brand this time). This was my first time actually cooking with TVP, but the result was pretty good.

I followed the basic sauce recipe for the Pork Ragu (or the one in the baked ziti), but left the ground pork/sausage out. Like in the other recipes, I sauted onion, garlic, carrot, red pepper, and zucchini, and added in about one stalk of celery (because I had it this time). I also had a variety of cherry tomatoes, which I also added to the mix. I used 1 cup of TVP for 16 oz of crushed tomatoes; this ratio seemed to work well, as the TVP wasn't overpowering and didn't give the sauce a strange texture. Nicole says she has made the mistake in the past of adding too much TVP...less seems to be better.