Basic Banana Bread

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I can’t imagine talking about comfort food without talking about BANANA BREAD. I love a good ole moist banana bread. This bread is very moist and has a fanatic flavor and texture. Need I say more? Okay I will! I love Banana Bread but not when it’s bland or dry. Good thing this recipe is anything but that!!  You NEED to make it and honestly it’s really easy.

Gather your ingredients

Peel your bananas and then MASH away. (I broke mine so they would be easier to mash.)

Cream the bananas, shortening, buttermilk, baking soda and sugar.

Once you’ve finished creaming everything together       add in flour and salt. Mix together and your banana bread dough is done!

This is also the point in which you would add your nuts if that is something you desire. However I’m not a nut person so I decided to say goodbye to the nuts.

 

 

Grease you’re your pans up and split the dough between them.

Because I skipped out on the nuts, I thought that milk chocolate and white chocolate chips would be a worthy substitute!

   

The Chocolate Loaf                                              The White Chocolate Loaf

I really wanted to try white chocolate chips with macadamia nuts, unfortunately I didn’t have macadamias on hand so that will have to wait till next time, which honestly won’t be long!

 Bake them and TA-DA

  

This bread is fantastic by itself, but if you are like me then you will probably top it off with a spread of butter!

Until next time

Chipotle Apple Cake

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I would say I’m a spicy girl. Let’s be honest,  I like it hot but not to the point where my mouth turns into a fire hydrant! I say that only as a word of caution on this recipe. This is one SPICY cake. I also have to clarify that the recipe calls for pureed Chipotle chilies; however I could not find chilies to puree, so I finally settled for chipotle chili spice which is why it could have been packed with heat. What do you do though? When it calls for chipotle, you get the chipotle! I would suggest cutting the chili in half, depending on how hot you like your food to be.

I took the cake to our families Easter dinner, and to be honest with you all, it got mixed reviews. The consensus came back that it was “Too Spicy”. I also made both of the sauces that Chef Brad suggests: the caramel sauce and the honey glaze. The family absolutely loved the caramel sauce, (which I have to say was heavenly!) I did not put the chipotle chili in either of the sauces because I felt the cake was already “warm” enough.  Three of my cousins really enjoyed the cake, but confessed that it was pretty spicy.

Personally I was not a fan of the cake. Yes I like spicy, but I’m not a big fan of “smoky heat” and chipotle in my opinion has a smoky taste to it. That’s probably why it goes well with apples. But if nothing else I suggest at least trying it, you’ll never know until you try right? So like I said, feel free to decrease the amount of chipotle chili and I highly suggest eating it with the caramel sauce. And please let me know if you like it better made with fresh chipotle chilies rather than the spice, I would like to see how the heat factor is changed.

Gather your ingredients

 You’ll need to grate your apples. Use a fine blade, but not too fine of a blade or else it just kind of juices the apple while not really grating them.

I used the bigger of the two blades because I wanted to get a bite of the apple in the cake and it worked out GREAT.

Then gather your pistachios and chop them.

Finally you just combine everything and pour it into a pan.  Now chef brad say to put it in a large pan. I’m not quite sure what that consists of, but I put mine in a bunt pan and the excess in a loaf pan.

Then just step back and WHA – LA! You’re done.

Don’t forget to make your caramel sauce and serve. Just remember to keep a glass of milk close by because you are gonna need it!

Until next time…

Red Quinoa Coconut Cookies

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Okay so it’s been a rough start to the blog…. Let’s face it life gets hectic! But low and behold, I did it! The first recipe and it was GREAT!!!

Before this recipe I had tried Quinoa on only one other occasion, my freshman year at my Biology professor’s home. Professor Jellen was a quinoa F-A-N-A-T-I-C!  When he had his students over for dinner he would cook quinoa into everything, but it was great. When I read this recipe I was really excited to cook with it, and it was really easy to use.  I also have to say how wonderful the coconut was in the recipe. It calls for Fine Coconut and I loved it!!! There were no long coconut strings to chew and chew and chew before you remotely feel as if you can swallow it. What I’m trying to say is that this cookie was VERY,  VERY good!

So, on to the delectable cookies!

Gather your ingredients.

And yes there is a whole pound of butter in this recipe! We may be using whole grains, but let’s be honest it is a comfort food book, so say hello to the butter!

 Here is the red quinoa un-soaked and uncooked

Before you start on your cookie dough you need to soak your quinoa on for 15-20 minutes. After it has soaked, drain the water and then cook it in a ratio of 1 ¼ cup water to 1 cup quinoa, that way it will be chilled when you are ready to add it to your cookies.Uncooked yet soaked Red Quinoa 

Next cream your butter, white sugar and brown sugar. Drop in the eggs and vanilla, then add all of the other ingredients EXCEPT the coconut and quinoa.

Just so you know, this makes a very large batch of dough but no fear because everyone loves them!! (Seriously, they only lasted a good 15 seconds at my in-laws house)

Once that is all combined, add in your coconut and red quinoa and mix again.

When it’s all done, scoop the dough out on to your cookie sheet. Chef brad suggested using parchment paper, (which I love!) and it makes for easier clean up.

Cook for 8- 10 min

For my cookies I had to increase the cooking time to 13 minutes. I also discovered that the first couple of cookies I made turned out EXTREMELY THIN, almost see through.

When it was all said and done I ended up adding 2 extra cups of WonderFlour and then they turned out perfect and tasted amazing! These cookies have become one of my favorites, they are definitely a WOW cookie!!

Until the next recipe…

 

Making Wonderflour

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After reading through some of the recipes I started to notice that  a lot… okay honestly, almost all of these recipes call for “WonderFlour”. What the heck is that? I had no clue what that was. As I did more reading, I found that it’s a mixture of equal parts Spelt, Barley and Brown Rice. My next task was to find some of this goodness! So who did I turn to? My Mom – the Chef Brad fanatic herself…Of course she told me that Chef Brad grinds it all with the “WonderMill”.  I guess I’m going to be grinding this mixture myself!

It dawned on me that if I’m going to be cooking all of these recipes, I’m going to need a lot of WonderFlour! I presented the idea to my husband and of course he told me that we couldn’t afford one. I even told him that it was a necessity, not just a want! He didn’t budge…Well I decided to let the begging and pleading begin. After only a couple of weeks my sweet husband finally broke. (I always get what I want in the end…hehehe). On our anniversary he surprised me with a brand new WonderMill! Thanks babe!

So now my new journey can officially begin.

I am going to grind my own grain to make all of these recipes that use whole grain to make delicious comfort foods. I’m sure I will soon be begging my husband to buy me a new wardrobe after all of these recipes start to  find their place…But on to the real stuff …THE FOOD!

HOW TO MAKE WONDERFLOUR

The Wonder Trio

The Wonder Trio

First you’ll want to gather all three of the grains in equal parts:

1) Barley

2) Spelt

3) Brown Rice

Second you will combine the trio of grains

I mixed the grains before grinding them

 Then you need to get your self a WonderMill, however any Electric Mill or a Hand Mill will get the job done. Follow your specfic mill instructions and pour the whole grain into the mill.

AND

You now have freshly ground WonderFlour!

Fresh WonderFlour

The last and final step is to use your WonderFlour in all of these new recipes to follow!

Until next time…

A New Challenge

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This Christmas changed everything for me! Picture it…There I was on Christmas morning, the whole family was in the front room gathered around the tree. My turn to unwrap a present finally comes! In my hands I have a small thin gift, and in my infinite wisdom I already know what it is… it’s hard, yet it’s bendable and sturdy… It’s a book!

The thing that I love ALMOST as much as cooking is reading…but that’s a story for a whole different day.  Back to that Christmas morning …Here I am thinking what kind of book would I enjoy that is so small?   As I open it a surprise awaits me… It’s a cook book! I already have a thousand, but now I have one more! In fact I have so many cookbooks that my husband actually bans me from buying any new ones even when I beg! So when I get one as a gift there is nothing he can say about it.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, “So what? It’s just a cook book, what’s the big deal?” Well  for starters I took the book home and showed my mom and she pretty much ripped it from my hands! Then she starts yelling, (as if I we weren’t in the same room), “Oh I love Chef Brad! I watch his show all the time, and everything he makes look SOOOOO good!!”. Whoa Mom, calm down. Then she starts to read the recipes aloud and make comments like, “Oh that sounds good!” “We should make that!” and, “Whitney doesn’t that sound great?”

During this whole time I’m thinking two things:1) I definitely need to get my mom out of the house more, and 2) These recipes actually do sound great! While I’m scanning through the recipes I notice that  my mom still can’t stop talking about how amazing Chef Brad’s recipes are! One of the reasons I chose this cookbook for my cooking adventure is the simple fact that it’s smaller that any of my others. Also there’s not one recipe that I think I won’t like. (This could be a serious issue for my wardrobe…but hey if that’s the price for eating tasty food then so be it!) Aside from all that, let’s be honest…IT’S PURE COMFORT FOOD! Every recipe is made with whole grains, so that makes me feel somewhat healthier…

I just graduated from college this December and have been looking for a little something more to fill my time other than just work. I also need to work on developing my cooking skills, and this cook book is the best of both worlds for me because it combines cooking and baking. In the end, it doesn’t seem like it will be such an overwhelming challenge to commit to cooking when I say I’m cooking  every recipe.

So yes… I am starting a new challenge! I’m going to work my way from the front to the back of this cook book and make every recipe in here! I will be blogging about each one, and since I firmly believe that in order for a recipe to be worthy of trying, PICTURES ARE A MUST! So I will be taking pictures of everything. Please bear with me in that regard, as I am totally camera illiterate!

Until next time…