Oui, Chef

Nutella Banana Bread

Fate dealt me a lovely hand last week when I found a bag of chopped hazelnuts in the pantry that were getting a little long in the tooth and needed to be used.  I can't remember why I had bought them in the first place, in fact, I can't remember buying them at all.....dang memory.

My first thought was to toast them and toss them into a grain and veggie based salad to have with some grilled chicken over the weekend, and as I was rifling through the grain bin to find a suitable partner for the nuts, I glanced overhead and found a half-eaten jar of Nutella in the chocolate bin above.

Pumpkin Date Bread

Not unlike our recent "Tortilla and Chicken Lasagna", this treat came to be as a means to use up some hangers-on in our pantry.  A recent inventory turned up a few cans of pumpkin puree leftover from holiday baking, as well as some medjool dates that were starting to show their age and dry a bit.  We always have a few boxes of dates lying around, because they are an easy and healthy sweet treat for our after school scavengers, and terrific with a spot of tea as an afternoon pick-me-up for us elders.  Sadly, one of our boxes of dates got buried under some nuts in the pantry and languished there until their skins turned papery, robbing them of their normally glossy curb-appeal.

Chop Chops Cocoa Banana Bread

I had the good fortune a few weeks back to meet Sally Sampson, a woman I've admired for some time. Sally has worked for years as a cookbook writer, and as such, brought a number of my favorite cookbooks to market.  Some of my most worn volumes were written by Sally, including Todd English's The Olives Table,  The Olives Dessert Table, and the first book of his I ever owned, The Figs Table. Sally is also the author of my most used cookbook (if its physical disrepair is any indication), the terrific Party Nuts!, from which we've pulled many recipes for the nut mixes we give friends and family in our annual holiday gift baskets.

Cranberry Bread Pudding with Pumpkin Creme Anglaise

This is a dish I made recently sans kid-lets, though they did do their all for the team by helping to devour this treat in record time.  The recipe came about as a submittal to a Food52 contest for a "Best Non-Pie Thanksgiving Dessert", and as someone who comes from a family where there were never any non-pie desserts at Thanksgiving (not even a jello-mold thank you very much), I had to come up with one from scratch to enter into the contest.

Monkey Bread

 

This is one of those dishes that should come with a warning label.  

You know, something written in neon ink, and including words like....."not to be made or consumed without proper adult supervision"...and...."the manufacturer shall not be held liable for any physical or emotional damages incurred as a result of the chaos typically associated with the consumption of this product".

I am not kidding.

The sharks will start circling about half-way through baking, when the aroma of this lovely will have finally found its way to each corner of your home.  The real fun starts though with the onset of the feeding frenzy which is guaranteed to commence as soon as the bugger is cool enough to touch.  You've undoubtably seen it before, the gruesome footage they show over and over again during "Shark Week", of sharks in such a tizzy over a bucketful of chum, that they actually start eating EACH OTHER in their frothy confusion.  

You've been warned.

Cranberry Nut Bread

This recipe is from the simply gorgeous Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes, and is a really terrific take on this New England favorite.  Having some cranberries to use up after making last week's cranberry tart, I was determined to find a new recipe for one of my favorite cranberry studded treats, cranberry nut bread.  I cruised the web looking for the best recipe I could find, and while I came across tons of them, found Elise's to be the most appealing for a number of reasons.

First, she used less sugar than most in her bread, and given that I often eat this treat for breakfast, I find a less sweet version more appealing.  Second, her addition of orange juice and zest adds a depth of flavor that makes this bread truly memorable.  There is hardly anything better (for breakfast, or at any other point in the day) than to toast up a thick slice of this goodness, slather it was some lovely salted butter, and luxuriate in its tender, tart-sweetness.

Artisanal "5 Minute" Bread

 

For years now we have talked about baking our own bread, but the vigilance and care required to nurse a sourdough starter, or the time required to mix, knead, proof and bake a traditional loaf, always proved too much of a hurdle for us to overcome.

That all changed recently when we were given the game-changing cookbook, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking , by our sister-in-law Margo, who is a very accomplished bread baker in her own right.  Margo has been baking fabulous breads and bagels the old fashioned way for years, keeping everyone she knows abundantly supplied with delicious baked goods.  She has trained at the King Arthur Flour Education Center in Norwich, VT. (which she has come to affectionately refer to as “Mecca”), and has diligently baked her way through a few of the bibles of bread baking such as The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread , & Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers.

In short, this gal knows what she’s doing, so when she endorsed the new “short-cut” methodologies in “5 Minutes a Day”, we decided we had run out of excuses for not making our own....it was time to get baking.  

Challah French Toast Bread Pudding

This started out as a Bon Appetit recipe years ago, but we've tinkered with it over time to come up with this luscious, yet easy indulgence. I think the only thing we haven't changed is the use of Challah, because it is absolutely perfect in this dish. My favorite thing about this treat is that it is made in its entirety the night before serving, so in the morning, you just have to pop it into the oven, and set your timer. It is so easy, that I can even manage it before my first cup of morning coffee, and THAT is saying something.

Lamb Sausage, Feta and Mint Stuffing

My wife is of Lebanese descent, and over the past few years I have enjoyed eating, and learning about her family’s delicious, middle eastern cuisine. I cook a fairly traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but wanted to give a little culinary nod to her folks who will be joining us for our feast again this year.

Thanks to Food52, and their recent "Best Thanksgiving Stuffing" competition, I decided to rework my turkey day stuffing to reflect some flavors of their culture.  The resulting dish will be a welcome addition to a more “international” day of Thanksgiving. Lamb sausage, pistachios, mint, feta cheese, and zatar, combine with local flavors such as apples, cranberries, and leeks to make a deliciously new take on an old standard.

Anadama Bread

I had never heard of Anadama bread until we were presented with a couple of loaves by a friend of ours about a year ago.  As I recall, the whole episode went something like this......

Ding-dong....the doorbell rings, and I hop up to answer it......

HERE...HAVE SOME DAMN BREAD.

Huh?

TWO LOAVES OF DAMN BREAD TO BE PRECISE, HOT OUT OF THE OVEN.  I MAKE IT ALL THE TIME, IT'S A BIT OF A SPECIALTY OF MINE.

Excuse me?

YOU KNOW.....I THOUGHT I'D BRING SOME BY AS A SORT OF HOUSE WARMING GIFT, A LITTLE WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD KIND OF THING.  I MAKE THE BEST DAMN BREAD IN TOWN!

Oh.... I get it, this is like when George and Mary Bailey (Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed) bring bread, salt and wine to the Martini family when they move into their new home in "It's a Wonderful Life".   Only Mary's presentation was a bit more, how shall we say, lyrical? 

You remember what she said, don't you?

Bread.....That this house may never know hunger!
 
Salt......That life may always have flavor!

and Wine.....That joy and prosperity may reign forever!

Ahhhh......Donna Reed, she was something special wasn't she?  Broke the mold after she was made I dare say, and she had such a way with words.  Of course that was a gentler time, and given that we now live in a  faster-paced world, there's something to be said for a more direct approach as well, like "HERE, HAVE SOME DAMN BREAD!"

JEEZ, I SAID "HERE HAVE SOME ANADAMA BREAD"....DO YOU NEED A HEARING AID OR SOMETHING?

Oops....help me Clarence, it's time to earn your wings!