Too many bananas!

Here in Delray Beach, The Boys Farmers Market is famous for the outstanding selection of produce, the high quality prepared foods and baked goods, and the insanity of the crowds in such a small space. Outside The Boys, there is a stand where they sell their overstock and over-ripe produce for $1 a bag. Jerry always stops and checks it out to see what kind of bargains he can find. And they are bargains, perfectly usable food - if you can consume them right away. Often there are bananas in bags there and we do eat a lot of bananas. But, with half a dozen bananas waiting in the freezer to be used, this most recent purchase may have been too many bananas. I am trying not to waste food, which means I have to use up those overripe fruits today!

Breakfast was the first meal of my attempt and although we usually eat a lighter breakfast, this morning we had banana pancakes. My neighbor just yesterday gave me a copy of "La Dolce Vegan" by Sarah Kramer. I always try to research recipes on the Internet as well, and found several sites with recipes for banana pancakes, supposedly from the same book. However, the recipe in the book varies significantly from the recipe online attributed to Sarah Kramer's book. I have rewritten a recipe as I made it this morning.

Banana Pancakes

1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
dash of salt
1 cup “milk”
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 banana
2 tablespoons sugar
maple syrup
fresh blueberries

In a medium bowl, stir the flour, baking powder and salt together. In the bowl of a food processor, add the milk, oil, banana, and sugar and buzz until smooth. Pour the wet mixture into the flour mixture and stir gently until just combined. (About 20 circles around the bowl with a spoon.)

Heat a non-stick griddle or lightly oiled or non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Using a 1-cup measure or ladle, pour about 3/4 cup of batter for each pancake onto the pan. Be sure to leave enough room for the pancakes to expand and for flipping them over. Cover the pan and cook over medium heat until the centers start to bubble. The bottoms should be golden brown. Flip the pancakes over and cook on the other side for a couple of minutes. Keep cooked pancakes warm and repeat cooking process until the batter is gone.

Serve with maple syrup and a garnish of fresh blueberries.

Now what else am I going to do with nearly a dozen bananas?

A vision of breakfast

Nearly every morning I have a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. I wake up so hungry that I just have to eat right away. While the oatmeal is cooking, I chop apples, walnuts, dates or raisins and then feast on a huge serving.

Last night as I was falling asleep, I had a vision of the breakfast I would eat today and the blog post I would write about it. A message that powerful should never be ignored, so as soon as I opened my eyes, I went to the kitchen. The vision may have been inspired by the fruit I had leftover from trying a recipe by Jill Nussinow, The Veggie Queen. You can see her recipe on Veggie Queen Adventures blog.

Jill's Bright Autumn Salad includes pomegranates, persimmons, and kiwis. The pomegranates were buy one, get one free at Publix, so of course, I had to buy two. That gave me a fruit drawer with pomegranate, kiwis, tangerines, apples, strawberries and a hand of bananas on the counter. I sprinkled chopped walnuts and shredded coconut on top of the salad and enjoyed quite a feast without any oatmeal.

(I try to use local produce whenever I can. The tangerines and strawberries were local, but everything else traveled. The strawberries, bananas, and walnuts were organic.)

When I bought the pomegranate, I also picked up a clever full-color brochures from POM Wonderful showing how to get the arils (the flesh-covered seeds) out of the fruit. I had never successfully used a pomegranate in spite of trying on numerous occasions. I followed the instructions in the brochure and was rewarded with easily removed arils and a delicious fruit that I can now serve whenever I choose. You can see the same instructions at the POM website and become expert at opening a pomegranate.

Breakfast muffins

I wanted to see what a photo of food in the oven would look like. The first shot I tried was taken through the oven window and it was nothing but white from the flash. The second shot was through the oven window without flash and it was a very foggy image of the cupcakes. The final shot, above, was taken with only the oven light. I really rushed the shot because I didn't want the oven temperature to go too low and ruin the muffins.



The proof is in the Jerry! My biggest fan and harshest critic, my husband, just had his second muffin for breakfast. Now I know the recipe is a winner. You don't have to eat them only for breakfast. They would be excellent with tea in the afternoon and for those without a sweet tooth, like me, they made a fine dessert.

I really recommend whole wheat pastry flour for baking. It is especially good in fat-free baking and is commonly available in larger grocery stores and online.

Zucchini Breakfast Muffins

1 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup Florida crystals sugar or regular sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce or 3 4-ounce containers
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/4 cup rice milk
1 cup firmly packed grated zucchini
3/4 cup raisins
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. Place foil liners in 12 standard size baking cups. (Fat-free baking is more likely to stick to the pan, so I encourage you to use these.)

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, flaxseed, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar.

Pour in the applesauce, oil and rice milk (I prefer rice milk because it imparts no noticeable flavor to the muffins). Stir until mixed, stir in zucchini, raisins and walnuts. You want to stir enough to distribute all of the ingredients fairly evenly throughout the batter, but not so much that you begin to take out the air.

Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a knife in the center of one comes out clean and the tops are lightly browned.

Serve warm, at room temperature, or microwaved for 10 seconds if refrigerated.


Next time I plan to try adding about 1/4 cup of Ghirardelli's Sweet Ground Chocolate and Cocoa. But if no one asks in a comment, I won't tell you how it turned out!

Sunday Brunch

Every day is like a Sunday for us, but we still seem to have weekend brunches. Today we were up so early that we had our regular breakfasts and then mid-morning hunger struck us both. I wanted to take a picture of the pancakes with maple syrup dripping over the sides, but pancakes do not wait for photos. We enjoyed them hot out of the skillet. So, sorry, the best I can do is reuse the photo of the raspberries. I expect fresh berries would also work, but I always use frozen organic berries from Whole Foods.

Growing up in maple syrup country, I was very young when I developed a taste for this traditional sweet. My mother tells me that my grandfather used to have maple syrup for dessert so often that I thought the word was "dessyrup". I like the dark, grade B Canadian syrup, but I expect the best would be from a local producer in New York or New England if you are lucky enough to find one at a farmers' market.

La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer was the inspiration for this recipe. This morning the package of raspberries was nearly empty so I used an additional 1/4 cup of berries which worked beautifully.

Raspberry Walnut Pancakes

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon canola oil
1/2 cup frozen raspberries
1/4 cup walnuts, finely chopped (optional)

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda. Add the milk and oil and stir gently into the flour until just barely mixed. Stir in the raspberries and walnuts until blended.

Using a non-stick electric fry-pan heated to 400, pour in 1/4 cup measures of batter. Cook until the center is bubbled. Flip the pancake over and cook the other side until brown.

Makes about six pancakes.