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Banana cookies!

Two problems: a whole bunch of brown bananas, and a camping trip with 7 hungry children coming up. The two-birds-with-one-stone solution: Banana Cookies!

Note: I made this in two batches. Ingredients below are for one batch. Don’t double the recipe to make two batches, just make the recipe below twice. Disclaimer: I include specific directions for a Kitchen-Aid blender. If you don’t have one, just do the equivalent with whatever you have, or by hand.

Ingredients

• 1/2 c unsalted butter (1 stick), let warm to room temperature
• 1 c granulated white sugar
• 1 egg, let warm to room temperature
• 1 c overripe bananas (about 2 – 2 1/2 bananas)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 c white all-purpose flour
• pinch sea salt
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar

For banana-nut cookies:

• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1 c walnuts, chopped

For chocolate chip-banana cookies:

• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 c chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. In your Kitchen-Aid (at setting #6, with the whisk), cream the butter and sugar together smooth and fluffy. Add egg, continue creaming until the mixture is light and fluffy.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the bananas and the soda. Let sit for a few minutes to activate the soda.
4. In yet another bowl, combine flour, salt, and appropriate spices for the type of cookie you’re making.
5. Blend (KA: #6 with the whisk) the banana mixture into the butter mixture until evenly textured throughout.
6. Sift the flour mixture into the butter and banana mixture and mix (KA: #2 with the flat beater) until just combined. [The sifting step is very important to the texture and lightness of these cookies. If you don't own a sifter, do what I do and use a small wire strainer.]
7. Fold in the nuts or the chocolate as appropriate.
8. Drop in spoonfuls onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle each cookie with vanilla sugar.
9. Bake at 350° F for 12-14 minutes or until just golden brown. Let cool on wire racks. Eat! Or save for later! The choice is yours!

Yields

About 32 cookies

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Chile Colorado

Pork Chile Colorado

This ain’t traditional “chili”. It’s big chunks of pork slow-cooked in hot pepper sauce, which you then eat wrapped in a tortilla. It’s my attempt at recreating a dish served at our local Mexican haunt, Fiesta Mariachi (formerly Casa Fiesta), where also comes in a Chile Verde variety with tangy tomatillos.

The meat is rich, rich, rich with hot red chiles … not incredibly spicy, just intense … and is full of that ephemeral 5th flavor that some call “umame”. I mean it. It’s rich with the flavor of ripe capsicum. I used pork country ribs; the restaurant uses some other cut, but it frankly doesn’t matter much.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs pork country ribs
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 5 whole roma tomatoes, diced
• 2 whole green jalapeños
• 2 tsp finely chopped garlic
• 1/2 Tbsp ground cumin
• 1/2 Tbsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 whole dried guajillo chiles
• 2 whole dried ancho chiles

Directions

Set the crock pot to cook for about 6 hours.

In a crock pot, place the ribs, onion, tomato, and jalapeños. Season with the garlic, cumin, salt, and pepper and mix well.

Prepare the dried chiles by first seeding and stemming them. Then, place the chiles in a small saucepan with about 3/4 c of water. Bring to a boil and simmer about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, and then blend the chiles with all the water in a blender, or using a stick blender. This should yield a deep red smooth sauce.

Pour the chile sauce into the crock pot with everything else.

Cook until the meat is falling off the bones and very easy to shred. Remove the meat from the pot, then debone, remove any fat chunks, and shred the meat. Strain the reserved liquid from the crockpot and incorporate back into the meat.

Serve the meat with tortillas, sour cream, lettuce, pico de gallo, or however you like to eat Mexican.

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Oh ee (Korean stir-fried cucumber side dish)

ingredients

• 5 small cucumbers (Mark usually carves the skin into a decorative pattern, leaving most of the skin intact. Don’t seed or peel the cukes.)
• 2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
• 2 tsp sugar (refined or raw)
• 1 tsp+ Sriracha hot sauce, to taste
• 1/2 Tbsp vegetable oil

directions

Cut the cucumbers widthwise into thick slices, about 3/4 inch thick. Combine the remaining ingredients, except the vegetable oil, and mix them well. Pour over the cucumbers and marinate for just 10 minutes or so (for example, while cooking the recipe above!) Add vegetable oil to HOT wok. Add cucumbers (without any leftover marinade) and stir-fry until they begin to brown and the sauce is thickened.

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Daeji gogi (Korean-style stir-fried pork)

Meat

• 1 1/2 lbs fairly lean pork, sliced into thin strips (we used 2 lbs bone-in pork chops and trimmed the meat)

Marinade

• 1/4 c low-sodium soy sauce
• 1/8 c rice vinegar
• 1/8 c brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
• 1 1/2 tsp garlic, minced
• 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

Vegetables

• 1/2 medium onion, julienned
• 2 large carrots, julienned
• 1/2 lb green beans, sliced crosswise to the same length as the juliennes
• 1 1/2 tsp garlic, minced

Other ingredients

• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil (we used canola – use whatever can take the heat)
• 2 Tbsp Gochujang (Korean fermented “hot pepper paste“)

Directions

2-4 hours ahead of time: Combine all the marinade ingredients and mix well. Combine well with the sliced pork, and marinate in a tightly covered container for at least 2 hours.

At cooking time: This is a stir-fry, so it cooks fast. Make sure you have cut all your vegetables ahead of time, and have all the other ingredients readily at hand. I typically prepare each ingredient and place it in a small bowl by itself; then at cooking time I can quickly add ingredients when it’s their time.

Add oil to a HOT wok. Add the onion, garlic, green beans, and carrots. Fry, stirring constantly, until the garlic just begins to brown and the onions are getting transparent. Add the pork. Keep stir-frying until the pork is browned, and the liquid from the marinade is boiling and reducing well. When the liquid is well-reduced and the carrots and beans are getting tender, add the fermented hot pepper paste. Continue stir-frying until the pepper paste is well combined and the sauce is just starting to caramelize.

Serve hot with steamed rice and the cucumber side dish, Oh ee.

Fermented pepper paste, toasted sesame seeds, green beans, onion, carrots, marinating cucumbers, Sriracha, marinating pork.”]

From center, spiral-wise: Fermented pepper paste, toasted sesame seeds, green beans, onion, carrots, marinating cucumbers, Sriracha, marinating pork.

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Pseudo-scratch dressing

(Dressing, Not stuffing. Don’t cook bread inside of a wet bird.)

Anyway, this is a half-cheat where you use some Stovetop Stuffing but you extend it. Like ‘Semi-homemade’ but I’m uglier and more sober than Sandra Lee.

Ingredients:

• 1 box Stovetop “Traditional Sage” instant stuffing mix
• 6 cups well-dried cubed bread (white, wheat, or sourdough)
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 2 water chestnuts, diced (1/2 a can)
• 1 apple, diced
• 1 small box raisins
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 6-8 cups chicken broth
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp ground oregano
• 1 tsp crushed sage
• 1 tsp chopped parsley
• Salt to taste
• 1 egg, beaten

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a greased baking dish, combine the bread cubes and the box of Stove Top. Set aside.

In a saute pan, melt the butter with the oil and saute the onions, celery, and carrots until the onions are transparent. Add the apples, water chestnuts, and raisins and saute until everything is well incorporated and heated through. Pour over the bread cubes in the baking dish and mix well.

Into the saute pan used above, add the chicken broth and the spices. Heat through until steamy but not yet boiling. Pour over the bread cube mixture in the baking dish and mix well.

Finally, combine the beaten egg with the bread cube mixture and mix very well.

Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.

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Chili verde salsa (roasted green New Mexico chile sauce)

This is a spicy chile verde sauce made with New Mexico peppers that we grew in our Ohio garden and roasted in our barbecue. New Mexicos are long, deep green, thick-skinned peppers with an intense pepper taste and a medium-hot amount of spice. The finished sauce is great for enchiladas, burritos, or quite frankly just snacking with soft corn tortillas. It’s a unique alternative to either red chile colorado sauce or to green tomatillo-based verde sauce.

Ingredients

• 30 green-ripe New Mexico chili peppers, prepared as described below
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 large sweet white onion, diced
• 3 Tbsp flour
• 2 c chicken broth
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• generous dash of cumin
• generous dash of salt

Preparing the peppers

Directly over hot coals (no flame), roast the peppers until the skin is charred black, turning as needed to roast all sides. Place the still-hot peppers into a paper bag. Keep them in the bag until cool. You can then refrigerate them if you want until you’re ready to cook later. When cool, remove the skins, which should slide right off. Also remove the stems and the majority of the seeds. The more seeds you leave in, the spicier the sauce will be.

Chop the skinned, stemmed, seeded chiles roughly into a medium dice. It should make about 2 cups of diced peppers. Now you’re ready for ….

Making the sauce

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until transparent and soft. Add the flour and stir well. Still stirring, add the chicken broth. Stir continuously until all lumps are gone and liquid is smooth.

Add the peppers, the garlic, the salt, and the cumin. Stir well. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring often. Finally, run a stick blender in the sauce for only about 4-5 seconds, just enough to thicken it a little but still retain the chunky goodness.

Makes about 3 pints.

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Kansas City-style barbecue rub

If you’re new to dry rubs, I recommend this one first. This is absolutely FABULOUS on pork ribs, but it will work on anything, even chicken or lamb. The trick to KC style barbecue is a combination of dry rub and wet sauce: dry rub for cooking, and wet sauce for serving. It works either with or without smoke, which makes it more flexible as well. This recipe makes about 12 cup, enough for 2 full racks of baby back ribs.

The rub:

• 1/4 cup paprika
• 2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 3/4 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon celery salt (this is the kicker here)

Tips for a successful rub:

If you’re cooking pork ribs, it’s best to remove the membrane from the inside of the ribs: either rip the membrane end-to-end clean off the bones, or score the membrane against each of the rib bones. This is true for lamb as well: be sure to remove any membrane before rubbing. If you’re cooking a loin or other cut with a significant layer of fat, leave the fat on the meat but score it deeply with a knife in a a cross-hatch pattern. This will let the rub penetrate more deeply into the meat.

Rub with your hands! Get messy and knead the rub in like a deep tissue massage…really work it. You can let the meat marinate in the rub as long as you care, at least a half hour up to two hours or so.

Cook the meat dry. When done, serve the meat with a KC-style barbecue sauce on the side. Don’t baste the meat with barbecue sauce.

People do seem to like this rub.

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Murgh kali mirch (Indian black pepper chicken)

ingredients

• Juice of 4 lemons
• 1 Tbsp ground black pepper
• 2 Tbsp minced fresh garlic or garlic paste
• 1 Tbsp fresh ground ginger or ginger paste (not the dry powder if you can avoid it)
• 1 small minced hot chili pepper or red pepper paste
• 1 Tbsp peanut oil
• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 1 Tbsp butter
• Salt to taste
• Additional black pepper
• 1 whole chicken, cut into pieces, bone-in, skin-on

directions

Combine lemon juice, black pepper, garlic, ginger, chili pepper, and peanut oil. Brush the entire mixture over all surfaces of the chicken pieces. Let marinate for 1/2 hour.

In a dutch oven or large stirfry pan with a lid, place the chicken pieces skin-side down. Add the chopped red onion on tp of the chicken. On medium-high heat, cook the chicken on that side, uncovered, until the skin just begins to get golden. Turn the chicken pieces over, brush the skin with a little bit of butter, add salt and pepper to taste, and cover the lid. Cook on medium-high heat until the chicken is nearly cooked through, 30-40 minutes (this depends on how big the pieces are).

Turn the chicken pieces over one last time and cook, covered, under medium-low heat until the skin turns a darker golden-brown. The golden-brown, almost crispy skin is what really makes this dish “pop”.

Serve over rice.

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Corn and kielbasa chowder

ingredients

directions

Enjoy and relax.  Yummy.

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Pastilla

ingredients

• 1/2 c chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro
• 5 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 chicken, in pieces
• 1 sweet onion (Vidalia or similar), chopped roughly
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 pinches true saffron, crumbled
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp ground ginger
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup blanched peeled almonds
• 2 tsp cinnamon powder
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 6 sheets phyllo dough
• 1 stick melted unsalted butter (not margarine!)

directions

To prepare:
1.  Combine parsley and cilantro.

2.  Pour oil into large skillet (one with a cover). Add chicken pieces, onion, garlic, saffron, salt, pepper,  cinnamon stick, ginger, and 1/2 of the parsley/cilantro mixture. Cook, covered, over medium heat for 45 minutes, turning occasionally.  Your house will now smell like heaven.
3.  Combine almonds, 1/2 the powdered sugar, and 1/2 the powdered cinnamon in a food processor. Process until well mixed but still crumbly.
4.  Remove chicken pieces from skillet and put in refrigerator to cool.  You will be pulling the chicken meat later.
5.  Strain the reserved cooking juices to remove large pieces.  Re-heat the skillet with the cooking juices to medium heat. Add the 3 eggs to the cooking juices and beat until soft-scrambled.  Remove and set aside/refrigerate.
6. Let the chicken meat cool sufficiently. If you let it sit overnight in the refrigerator the flavor will blend quite deliciously. Pull the meat from the bones, and chop the meat roughly.
7. Assembly.  Get a lasagna pan and butter it well, then assemble in the following layers:
i.  3 sheets phyllo dough, each sheet brushed with butter
ii.  1/2 of the almond mixture
iii.  chicken meat
iv.  remaining parsley/cilantro mixture
v.  1 sheet phyllo dough, brushed with butter
vi.  scrambled eggs
vii. other 1/2 of the almond mixture
viii.  2 sheets phyllo dough, brushed with butter
8.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.
9. Remove from oven and immediately sift remaining powdered sugar over the top of the pie.  Dust lightly with the remaining powdered cinnamon.
10.  Serve hot or cold with harissa (Moroccan hot sauce).

This was a big hit!  It’s like a combination of Baklava and Chicken Pot Pie.  All three boys ate it up amid various yummy noises, and with my picky boys you know that means it’s a hit.  A bit of work, but well well worth it.  We served it with couscous and peas. Even my mom loved it. Yowzah!

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