Banoffee Bread

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Banoffee Bread

3 large overriped bananas.
1/2 C packed light brown sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
1/4 C plain yogurt or sour cream
2 tsp vanilla
2 C all purpose unbleached flour, (8.8 oz)
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt
3 1.4 oz. Heath bars roughly chopped (or other toffee candies, like Almond Roca)
Optional coconut topping: 1 tablespoon of cream cheese and 1/2 C of sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F. Adjust the oven rack to the lower middle position or one level below the middle. Butter and flour a loaf pan or line it with parchment paper.

Optional - making the coconut topping: mix the cream cheese and sweetened shredded coconut until it is evenly mixed (I just used my hands). Set aside for later.

In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas until a few chunks remain. Mix in the melted butter, sugar, eggs, yogurt/sour cream and vanilla until smooth and evenly mixed.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together and evenly mix and aerate the ingredients. Add half of the dry mix to the banana mix and fold the batter with a rubber spatula a few times. Then scatter the chopped toffee and the remaining flour mix. Continue to fold the batter gently until there are no more streaks of flour.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Scatter the coconut mixture on top if using.

Bake at 350 deg F for 60 – 70 minutes, or until a skewer stuck into the banana bread comes out clean. Rotate the loaf pan 180 degrees about 30 - 40 minutes into the baking time. Keep an eye on the coconut topping, if it starts to get too brown, cover the top of the pan loosely with a piece of foil. I did this and rotated the pan about 30 minutes in.

French Toast

Breakfast is the one meal where I don't feel guilty about eating a lot. After all, it's the most important meal of the day, right? When I have time to make a big, sit-down breakfast, I like to go all out and hit my major food groups--meat, eggs, carbs, and coffee. Yup, I think that just about covers it.

The last time I made French toast was before I started med school so I had aallll the time in the world to make everything fancy and gourmet. I even baked my own bread. If I hadn't gotten accepted, I would probably be making my own Nutella and grinding my own powdered sugar in a mortar and pestle. Luckily, nowadays, I doing something a little more productive with my time. The raisin bread I bought from Safeway makes for some pretty darn good French toast, and I don't even like raisins. Maybe it's the power of butter and maple syrup. Other than PB&J's I can't think of any other good uses for this bread, so it looks like I'll be making a few more servings of French toast with the rest of the loaf. Oh, I guess I could make bread pudding!

As for the rest of the breakfast...
Steven and I both love hash brown patties and prefer them over the more homemade shredded potato variety. I'd like to blame McDonald's for getting us hooked on deep fried processed potato in patty form.

Then, we have our breakfast sausage, taking the place of bacon, the usual suspect. What can I say, living on the edge today.

And finally, one of my personal favorites. A fried egg over medium with soy sauce and a sprinkling of furitake flakes. It's way better than plain old salt and pepper, trust me.

French Toast
6 slices of bread (something soft like sandwich bread, challah, or brioche)
1 large egg
1/2 C milk or half and half
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 Tbsp flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

In a bowl whisk the egg, flour, and sugar together until there are no lumps of flour remaining. Add the milk, vanilla, and salt and mix until smooth. Pour into a pie plate or small tray.

Melt a half to one tablespoon of butter in a skillet or griddle, depending on the size of your pan. Dip a slice of bread into the batter and let each side of the bread soak for approximately 3 seconds. Make sure there are no dry spots on the bread. Soak only enough slices that you can cook in your pan at one time. Fry each side on medium low heat for 3 - 4 minutes, or until the bottom is a crisp golden brown. Flip and cook the second side until crisp and golden brown. Repeat for the remaining bread slices.

Serve with powdered sugar or maple syrup.

Guest Post! Shanghai Drunken Chicken

Shanghai Drunken Chicken at Rasa Malaysia

Yes, I'm still here. No, I haven't forgotten about this blog. I know the crickets have been chirping here more than I've been posting. If only I have more free time because right now it's virtually non-existent.

I can't remember the last time I've been sick but a bug was bound to get me sooner or later. I woke up this morning with the whole nine yards--fever, sore throat, cough, and aches all over. I tried to catch up on my reading but that wasn't happening. I should have known reading about urine and kidneys gets nowhere when you're sleep-deprived and feverish. So, instead of studying, I resigned myself to spending the day in my pajamas with chicken noodle soup, catching up on food blogs and many issues of Bon Appetit (au revoir Gourmet, you will be missed!).

This is long overdue but check out my guest post on Rasa Malaysia! I was torn between drunken chicken or crab cakes; drunken chicken won but I did make some crab cakes after Bee got me thinking about them. This project was 3 months in the making due to a combination of my hectic schedule and perfectionism. The recipe was far more seasonally appropriate when I started it in July. Bee, thank you for being a great host and for being so understanding about my numerous delays in getting this done.