combustication

This is a very easy recipe to put together if you have some overripe bananas in the kitchen. I was trying to cut the fat down from my usual banana bread recipe that I adopted from the Better Homes and Garden cookbook circa 1999 and managed to only use 1/4 cup of vegetable oil, with some very moist and tasty results. I made one large loaf and two mini loaves for my neighbors and the initial report is that this is a damn fine banana bread.

Sunday Banana Bread

Ingredients:

3 overly ripe bananas
1 egg
1 egg white
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup yogurt
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/2 cup applesauce
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup oats (not instant)

To Do:

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a loaf pan. Beat the eggs and add the sugars, yogurt, oil and applesauce. Smush the bananas and mix with the wet ingredients and add vanilla. Sift the flour and baking soda together in a separate bowl and add slowly add to the wet mixture. mixing just a bit - over mixing makes the bread rubbery. Add oats and mix till incorporated.

Bake for about an hour - until the loaf is a golden brown. Test the center with a skewer to make sure it’s done. Let cool for 10 minutes in pan and then pop the bread out and cool completely on a baking rack.

I’m back. For real. Specifically, in a lovely apartment in Brooklyn with tons of light and a fantastic kitchen. After the bike trip and the ranch, Phil and I bravely attempted to survive living in the suburbs while we looked for jobs and an affordable apartment. For the record, I really hate commuting on Metro North and I am much happier to deal with NYC’s subways and buses. Regardless, I’m cooking/baking again and will be posting up pics and recipes soon. In the meantime, take a look at the new kitchen and examine the fliers for two upcoming MiG shows for this week. One is a crazy loft party (BYOB style) and the other is Stereoactive/Hot Rocks party with a ton of good bands and drink specials and free beer. Whoo!

I don’t know where the idea of grilling pizza came from. I remember reading about it a few years ago and giving it a shot and it being completely amazing. Grilled pizza has a delicious and slightly charred bottom and a great (slight) charcoal taste. If you like pizza and BBQing, this is the summer recipe you must try. The above pizza was made during some Memorial Day shenanigans - I think we made six pizzas or something with various toppings. Who needs burgers?

Grilled Pizza

Ingredients:

Pizza dough (make your own, use store bought, or buy from a pizzeria – they will be happy to sell some to you and it’s super-fresh)
Olive oil
Mozzarella (or cheese of your choice)
Tomato sauce (use your own or get a small can of tomato sauce for pizza – it’s a little thicker than usual)
Toppings (basil, rosemary, olives, sautéed mushrooms, olives, whatever)

To Do:

First, heat up your BBQ. You can use a gas grill or charcoal – I prefer charcoal, but use what you’ve got.

In the meantime, stretch out the pizza dough to pie size of your choice (don’t make it bigger than your grill!) and form a crust. If you’re using store/pizzeria-bought dough, divide the dough in two and shape one pizza. Put the remaining dough under a damp towel until ready to use.

Dust the underside of a cookiesheet with flour and place the pie on top. Brush the top of the pie with olive oil and turn the cookiesheet over the BBQ (so that the olive oil crust-y side is facedown on the grill). Brush the top of the pie with more olive oil and using a metal spatula flip the pizza. Now you should have the crust-side facing up, begging for toppings.

This is the fun part! Ladle on some sauce and spread it around like a pro. Add some cheese. Put the toppings on. IMPORTANT!!! DO NOT OVERLOAD YOUR PIE! It will be tough to get off the grill and the dough may tear leaving you with a cheesy mess. Remember, you have another ball of dough waiting to be used, so don’t overdo it. Cover your grill with the lid and just chill for a few seconds. Have a sip of beer or lemonade. Open lid and look at your pizza. Is this cheese all melty? Does it look delicious? If so, take it off the grill and serve; if not, put the lid back on and cook for a few minutes or keep the lid off to keep an eye on it. This is BBQing, not rocket science.

Serve your pizza to amazed guests. You can BBQ anything!

Some combinations to try:
- Cheddar cheese, soy crumbles (or meat) and salsa for a Mexican-style pizza
- Olive oil, goat cheese and basil for a fresh pizza
- Mozzarella, tomato sauce, pineapple (and ham) for Hawaiian pizza
- Anything you ever wanted to get on a pizza but were to afraid to ask for

Gather some friends for a weekend at a farmhouse and you get good times, fire, lots of booze and tons of food. A big star was this chocolate cake/brownie concoction that we had for dessert on Saturday night with some vanilla icecream. Have you ever had whipping cream not whip? We went through two containers of heavy whipping cream that was just not feeling it. I think the chocolate saved the dessert, but the (non)whipping cream was just baffling. The recipe for the cake below is from Saveur and I didn’t change a thing. OK, I didn’t have super high quality chocolate or butter, but the thing was still amazing. When searching for “brownie” on Saveur a recipe popped up with this description: “bearing a strong resemblance to a rich, dense, gooey brownie, this dessert takes the cake.” SOLD! A very unfussy and delicious recipe, I highly recommend it as an elegant alternative to brownies.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Make Yr Own Bloody Mary

The farmhouse was also filled with ladybugs - lucky, right?

Marie José’s Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
14 1/2 tbsp. European-style high-butterfat butter (I used regular salted butter)
3 tbsp. flour
7 oz. quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small
pieces (I used bittersweet baker’s chocolate squares)
3/4 cup sugar
5 eggs, at room temperature, separated

To Do

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9″ glass pie dish with 1/2 tbsp. of the butter, dust with 1 tbsp. of the flour, tapping out excess, and set aside. Cut remaining butter into small pieces. Melt butter and chocolate together in a medium bowl set over a pot of simmering water over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Remove bowl from heat and stir in sugar, then the remaining flour, then the egg yolks, stirring until well combined. Set aside to let cool briefly.

Meanwhile, beat egg whites in a medium mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until soft peaks form, 2–3 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, fold one-third of the egg whites at a time into chocolate mixture. Pour batter into prepared pie pan.

Bake cake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with some moist crumbs still attached (cake will rise and top will crack as it bakes, then collapse on itself as it cools), 30 minutes. Transfer cake to a wire rack to let cool briefly. Serve warm or at room temperature, with ice cream, if you like. [Ice cream is essential!]

What a food-filled weekend! I think I’m still stuffed. There were so many things made and consumed. Me and my brother and sister (Rui and Amanda) made a special meal for our parents, Phil and his dad and Danielle (sis’s friend) on Saturday night before Easter. Let’s just say the creamy asparagus risotto, bruschetta, cannoli cookies with mocha crème and almond biscotti were a big hit. Hopefully, pics to come soon. I broke my camera during a wedding last weekend and had to rely on the help of others to document the food. That means no food porn for a while or at least until I get a new camera.

Easter was a feast of Portuguese Easter Bread, baby roasted potatoes, sautéed garlic shrimp, chicken marsala, filet mignon, asparagus with garlic and a delicious zucchini au gratin. Among me and my cousins we had 5 birthdays to celebrate, so there were three birthday cakes. What a weekend!

I guess posting frequently is a good idea. A very good post on blogging from Delicious Days which always has fabulous photography and recipes. Happy 2nd blog birthday!

In order to make Combustication more fun and exciting, I may attempt some foodie podcasts or even a cooking vid or two. Depends on how clean my kitchen is and how to record the darn thing.

OH! Before I forget, remember the whole Beg Yr Pardon thing? Maybe? Well it’s kinda DOA, but you can still get your fill of musical nights. Jenny P. has created Hot Rocks, which got a great shoutout in TONY this week. Man in Gray will be playing at the party tonight and there will be free beer and fun. DJs take requests, so come to the Delancey at 8pm with $5.

Also, the music maven D along with Jeff K. have had some awesome music shows with their promotion outfit Neon Lights Presents. Make friends with them!

Also, more food porn up later in the afternoon with a mouthwatering veggie po’boy recipe.

First off, a belated “Happy Halloween” and a presentation of the Phina Pumpkin.

Now, a trip to Coney Island - I highly recommend using the Ocean Parkway Bike Path if you can find it to get down to Coney Island. Much better than taking the train.

Dinner after the 10 mile round trip included a recipe from NYMag for brocolli rabe that was delicious.

Finally, an amouse-bouche that I made for my parents when they came over for lunch a few weeks ago:

Stuffed Brussel Sprouts

Finis!

Canoe camping is seriously the way to go folks. Sometimes it means a daunting paddle ride against the wind with some crazy choppy lake conditions to your campsite, but the important thing to remember that it’s YOUR campsite on a private island or peninsula. One word: awesome.

While the weather wasn’t entirely agreeable, we made the best of it. After the crazy paddle to get to the site before the rain really started coming down on Saturday, it was smooth sailing…I mean canoeing, all the way. At least the drizzle kept the bugs away and maybe bears too.

Everything also tastes better when you cook it on a campfire and eat outside. The aforementioned Hazlenut Cornmeal pancakes and bannock were made and were really tasty.

The cornmeal pancakes didn’t come out like pancakes (I think I added too much water to the mix), but this was super delicious. I call it Hazlenut Cornmeal Hash instead.

We ate the hash with a luscious baked apple drizzled with whiskey honey….mmmmmm

Likewise, we tried making the bannock on a stick, but ended up making a tinfoil tray for our grill and creating a more biscuit-like substance.

They were still really good with our eggs on Monday morning.

Oh, and of course the actual lake itself - I got so excited by that patch of blue sky.

The site in all of its glory.

This Labor Day Weekend shall be spent camping, no matter what you do Ernesto! Our reservation for a site at Indian Lake was made a month ago and “possible showers” will not deter me from cooking round a campfire. I demand s’mores! And Jiffy-Pop!

Other ambitious campfire meals include one for Hazelnut Cornmeal Pancakes first found in Backpacker Magazine. Apparently, it is an updated recipe from Lewis and Clark’s little jaunt through America a while back. The other campfire goodness will come in the form of bannock - I have no clue how this will turn out. There will be pictures.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the stuff, but this weekend was one of extreme consumption which started off with a picnic I threw at Prospect Park. Some of the goods:

Three Bean Salad with Secret Dressing (the secret is pomegranate syrup)

Jenny P. made some delectible chocolate chip/peanut butter cookies. Extra peanut butter this time!

Roasted Potato and Okra Salad…I am having a love affair with okra right now.

After the madness of the weekend, this week Phil and I are attempting to eat only raw foods. Tonight I made zucchini “pasta” with tomato sauce and it came out better than expected.

Tomorrow I’ll post up another pic and the recipe for the curious.