Banana Bread Treat

It’s the first rainy day we've had in Vancouver in quite some time and I'm enjoying the lazy evening in with some baking.  I have been at my new job for about a week now and wanted to bring in a morning treat for our daily meeting.  Trying to think of a crowd pleasing recipe, it was a no brainer to make my friend Melanie’s banana bread. 

Melanie has the recipe posted on her own blog and has recently opened a pizza deli in Lonsdale Quay.  In her recipe she gives several suggestions on combinations of ingredients to use and the recipe below is one of several possible variations.  I think the part of this recipe that makes it so tasty is the bananas and sugar on top of the loaf, they caramelize ever so slightly for an extra sweet kick in each bite.  In an attempt to reduce my intake of refined sugar I substituted coconut sugar for the brown sugar and sprinkled just a bit if brown sugar over top of the bread and bananas.        

Banana Bread

1 tbsp soft butter

1 cup coconut sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

3 ripe bananas mashed with a fork

1 ½ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ cup chocolate chips

½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut

½ raw pumpkin seed

½ cup walnut pieces

1 banana sliced into thin slabs

1 tbsp brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 C

Beat the butter and coconut sugar until combined. Add the vanilla and eggs.  Mix until combined.

Add the mashed bananas.

In a separate bowl add all dry ingredients and mix.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just incorporated.

Pour batter into a greased loaf pan.  Top with sliced bananas and brown sugar.

Baking time varies anywhere from 45 minutes to over 1 hour.  Bake until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Allow to cool in pan 10-15 minutes before removing and cooling on wire rack.

Enjoy!

Chana Favorite

A weekly staple in our household is chana masala.  It’s quick, cheap and vegan, so it covers most special dietary needs.  It can be a simple meal served just over rice or it can be dressed up with a salad, chutney and naan.

Four years ago, Colin and I spend 7 weeks in New Zealand during one of their wettest summers.  We drove around in a rented station wagon with a bed fashioned in the back just big enough for our lanky bodies to fit.  With the rainy weather we often sought shelter in the local libraries.  I spent that time surfing the internet looking for tasty new recipes, and this is where our recipe comes from.  We had to make some camping adaptations such as mashing the living daylights out of the tomatoes and ginger with a knife in the absence a food professor but the results were great and we’ve been making it ever since.    

Chana Masala

2-3 ripe tomatoes cut into chunks

1 inch of ginger, peeled and sliced

½ - 1 jalapeno pepper (depending on your heat preference; can also use any other type of hot pepper you have on hand) seeded and sliced

2 tbsp grape seed oil

1tbsp flour

2 tsp ground coriander seed

1 tsp ground cumin

¼ tsp turmeric

¼ tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste if you like less heat)

½ tsp salt

1 can chick peas

 1-1.5 cups water

1/3 cup cilantro chopped

Place the tomatoes, ginger and jalapeno in a food processor and pulse until the mixture resemble a puree with small specks of ginger and pepper in it. Set aside.

In a pan, heat the oil and add to it the spices and salt. Stir often until spices are fragrant, just a few minutes.

Add the tomatoes mixture and cook stirring often for 6-8 minutes.

Add the chickpeas and water.  Stir to combine and bring to a gentle simmer.  Simmer at least 15 minutes to heat through. 

Serve over rice and with the chopped cilantro.