Sunday, October 7, 2012

Revamped Banana Bread!

Oh how I love banana bread!  And I have finally tweaked my mom's recipe to modernize it.  Bye-bye Crisco!  Here we go:

1/3 c. applesauce
3/4 c. sugar or 1/2 c. agave nectar
1/2 T. oil (I use safflower generally, but grapeseed or canola works fine)
2 eggs or egg replacer
1 tsp vanilla
2 to 3 ripe bananas (the blacker the skin, the better)
2 c. all purpose flour (or K.A.'s white wheat)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 c. soymilk + 1 T white vinegar (aka "buttermilk")
1 c. chopped nuts (optional)

Mix your wets (except for the soymilk/vinegar), and add mashed bananas.  Mix your drys separately.  Add your wets to your drys, mix.  Gradually add the soymilk/vinegar and mix well.

Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for 1 hour in a 350 degree oven.  Check with a toothpick for doneness (doneness?).  Cool 5 min in pan, then flip out and cool 5 min upside down.  When completely cool, eat it, or wrap it up and freeze it.  Mom used to make a double batch and freeze one for later.

Oh and by the way...if you use that egg replacer, it's VEGAN!!!  :)


Dinner in courses? Yep!

So if you haven't read the book French Kids Eat Everything, and you have a picky eater at home--it's time to Amazon it, asap.  This book shows a great philosophy to eating in general, but especially where kids are concerned.  After trying some of the author's ideas, I've found a pretty good system for busy weeknight meals at home.
Serve meals in courses.  I know it sounds long and annoying and totally impractical--but it will actually SAVE YOU TIME.  And time is a resource we all need more of.
     a) 1st course: vegetables.  Keep it simple--raw or lightly steamed veg.  Just one variety, whatever is on sale and is seasonal/local.  Examples: lightly steamed broccoli with red wine vinegar, sliced avacado, sliced radishes w/ sea salt, boiled/mashed sweet potatoes with a drizzle of maple syrup, artichoke hearts with lemon juice, etc.  Something that does not take long to prepare.
     b) 2nd course: main.  Keep your weeknight main courses VERY simple--hearty soup/stew (can be made on Sunday and eaten later in the week) with bread, pasta with vegetables/pesto/tomato sauce, flatbread baked in the oven with sliced peppers/squash/mushrooms or other seasonal veggies.  That's it. If there are folks in your house that get cranky without a hunk of protein for their main course, you can add a side of protein: baked chicken thighs, baked tofu, sausage, etc.  Again--keep it very, very simple.
     c) 3rd course: dessert (sort of).  In our house, you have 3 options for your final course: yogurt (or soy yogurt), a small amount of cheese, or fruit.  I let the kinds spoon some homemade jam or honey into their plain yogurt (this has way less sugar than store-bought flavored yogurts).

The rules with dinner are simple: you can't move on to your 2nd course until you have had a significant amount of your 1st course.  The same is true in moving from course 2 to course 3.  Tantrums are not allowed.  Neither is gagging and pretending that you will throw up if you eat something you don't like.  Or actually throwing up.  Dinner table manners are mandatory.  If any of the above happens, we calmly excuse you from dinner and you are sent up to bed.  I know this sounds harsh, but it took about 3 nights for my kids to figure out that we were not going to budge on the rules, and now they just eat.  AND now that the dinner-table-wars are over, we laugh and have fun at the table--which is what family dinners should be about!

I still love to cook long, involved, complicated meals, but now I save this for the weekends.