caramelized bananas over oatmeal

I remember the first time I learned that you could utterly transform bananas into sweet, chewy, crisp, melty banana candy simply by slicing them and pan frying them with butter. I had helped my friend Kevin move, and as a thank you he made breakfast. It was either french toast or waffles, both of which I love and would have been more than satisfied with. Then he asked if I wanted bananas, and I was blown away.




Obviously, caramelized and fried bananas are hardly a culinary innovation. This is basically the same concept of Bananas Foster, without the theatrics of flambeing.

I don't add sugar when I caramelize my bananas, and they are still plenty sweet. If yours aren't particularly ripe, I suppose sugar would help, but I'd honestly advise waiting until the fruit sweetens up naturally in order to yield the best result.

There are two basic versions of this dish: thin sliced and thick sliced. Thick slices afford for the most variation in texture and flavor in each piece, as the center of a thick slice of banana will taste purely of banana. This is very good, but usually I like to slice my banana really thinly, which means that the inner banana gets very soft and almost melts away, while the exterior becomes a delicately crispy sugar shell. If you don't have enough butter in the pan, the fruit can easily stick and all the slices can quickly become a sticky caramelly mess. If that threatens to happen to you, do not fret. It's not as pretty, but it will still taste amazing.




So what can you do with these golden little beauties? They are a welcome addition to breakfasts, brunches and desserts. You could stuff them into crepes with mascarpone or ricotta, layer them with puff pastry and whipped cream, pile them atop a stack of pancakes or french toast, serve them over ice cream... The possibilities are endless.

Today, I chose oatmeal. It was an excellent way to enliven a somewhat dull breakfast food!

brunch for the girls

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this, one of my finest culinary moments of the year to date. Of course, I can hardly claim all the credit, as this was totally a joint effort. Back around Valentine's Day, Laura and hosted a brunch for a bunch of our girlfriends with a bunch of pink, sweet, girly food. In honor of Ms Leslie Knope, who provided the inspiration, I called it Galentine's Day. Don't you just love a cheesy portmanteau?



Now isn't that a picture perfect table? Do you like how I stuffed vases with tissue paper that I've saved rather than buying myself roses? You do? Yeah I thought it was pretty clever too.

And what do you see on that festive little table? A plethora of delicious treats! You can see that I made some chocolate covered strawberries, the Glazer girls brought those festively attired ginger muffins with the heart toothpicks, and Hannah brought a crazy good pound cake seen on the left. I think it had honey in it. The plate in the back is of cookies that DiDomenico brought, and the little green and white bag was full of coconut macaroons from Effie. Laura and I always have such generous guests.



This dish was our main course, a hearty savory breakfast dish to balance out all the sugar and sweetness to come. Eggs baked with onions, bacon, eggs, goat cheese and shredded beets, this was intentionally similar to the baked egg casserole I made for our marathon brunch. I made it with beets instead of squash partially because we always get beets from the food co-op, and they are always the last thing that we end up cooking, but also partially because I thought the pink beets would be appropriately festive.



Aside from the eggs, Laura came up with and prepared most of our menu when she found a great article about hosting a tea in the New York Times. The author's suggestion was to have a nice refined tea party in lieu of partaking in the Super Bowl festivities. Now, I'm all for tea parties and girly things, (although I actually quite dislike tea, the accoutrements are great), but I love me some organized sports as well, so we watched the game and hosted brunch/tea the next weekend.



Laura made these delightful tea sandwiches with an herb caper lemon butter, cucumber and radishes. So elegant.



We teamed up to make whole wheat crumpets with blood orange and meyer lemon marmalade and clotted cream. I bough special heart shaped cookie cutters because I am super adorable.



The "clotted cream" was a delicious and super easy mix of mascarpone and heavy cream, whipped together. Very rich, and very tasty, as were the crumpets, but the sweet and tangy marmalade was easily the best part, in large part because it's one of those things where you're just like "Wow, I can make that myself?!"



Finishing out the meal were these champagne floats with homemade strawberry ice cream. And then we watched Sleepless in Seattle. Does it get any more delightfully girly than that?

marathon brunch

Well it's been over a month since my last entry! And in that time we've celebrated the start to a new year, and this blog's first anniversary! Boy does time fly. I have some hopes for the blog in the New Year, mostly regarding improved photography and a real design and logo, but for now I have a lot of cooking to catch up on.

The first order of business is an epic brunch meal. My friends don't generally congregate before noon, but back in November Laura and I hosted our first brunch. It started at 10 am, and surprisingly enough people were pretty much on time. This wasn't just any old brunch– this brunch was kind of a big deal. You see, even though 5th Avenue is basically a dead end street when you live as far north as I do, there is one day a year where my quiet block becomes part of something big. The first Sunday of November, my block happens to be on the route of the New York City Marathon. The last 5 miles of the race run down 5th Avenue and through Central Park. I live just across the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th St, which marks the runners' triumphant re-entrance to Manhattan after a brief Bronx interlude.

I had never really given the marathon a second thought until last year, when I went and cheered along 1st ave with my good friend Mary, who was making a rare visit to the city from Long Island. We had tons of fun watching the race, so when I realized that I now lived on the route, Laura and I decided to celebrate the athleticism and dedications of all those runners by inviting my friends over for a super gluttonous and boozy brunch. Awesome!

Laura and I woke up bright and early to shop and cook. Even Nathan rolled out of bed in time to help out– without any poking or prodding on my part, which was pretty amazing. As a result, I was actually mostly done with the preparations by the time everyone else arrived, which was quite a relief. We put together quite a spread with a minimal amount of work!

The Menu:
Baked Eggs with Butternut Squash, Bacon and Collard Greens
Baked French Toast, (discussed in my second blog post ever!)
Deviled Eggs (by Nathan)
Apple Tart Tatin (by Laura)
Sweet Potato Pumpkin Ice Cream
Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls (by the Pillsbury Dough Boy)
With:
Spinach Quiche (by Grace)
Cream Cheese Cinnamon Pumpkin Dip with Gingersnaps (by Jess)
Irish Soda Bread (by Hannah)
Bagels and Cream Cheese (from Paul and his roommate)
Mimosas (from Marc)

If I've forgotten anything, I apologize. I really should blog these things sooner. But anyway, it was a lot of fun. The marathon is awesome. You really wouldn't think that it'd be particularly cool, watching people run, but the runners really seem to appreciate the cheers, and as the race goes on there are people of all shapes and sizes. It's really an exciting atmosphere!

Of course, we had to eat all that food, so we ended up watching most of the race on tv, and running down to the street briefly to watch the leaders come by. After gorging ourselves for several hours, we went back downstairs to cheer on a steady stream of runners. At this point, there were all sorts of national flags and costumes, so it was easy to call out to specific runners, hopefully giving them a little extra boost of confidence.

And as for the food, it was all pretty fabulous. We started off with some quick cinnamon rolls courtesy of Pillsbury, and Nathan's deviled eggs. He blended the yolks with mayo, mustard, a little vinegar and paprika. I think he would have eaten all of them himself, but he managed to exercise some manly restraint. I had a couple and they were just delicious.


deviled eggs

Meanwhile, I woke up really early to start on a baked eggs dish. It's not really brunch if there's no eggs, but I didn't feel like I could handle omelets or fried eggs for a large group. Baked eggs are great because you don't have to flip them individually or stir them around or anything. You can just bake a whole mess of them until the whites set, which takes about 15 minutes. I'd wanted to use my little ramekins, but I more guests than dishes, so I decided to use my pyrex baking dish. Not as cute, but more practical.

I've seen a ton of different recipes for baked eggs, incorporating all sorts of different ingredients, all of which sounded delicious, but I didn't make any of them. My food co-op had saddled me with butternut squash and collard greens, so I came up with my own variation that combined those ingredients with bacon, onions and mozzarella and cheddar cheese. Nathan doesn't like butternut squash, so I made a separate portion for him which substituted chopped tomatoes. Both versions were delicious.


baked eggs with butternut squash, bacon, collard greens and two types of cheese

The night before I cut my squash in half and roasted it in the oven until it was cooked through. The next morning, I peeled and cubed the squash. Then I chopped up some bacon and crisped it up on the griddle. Once that was nice and brown, I set it aside and threw some diced onion onto the pan. I let that soften for a couple of minutes, and then added a huge bunch of finely chopped collard greens. Spinach, chard or kale would work well also. Once that was all wilted, I mixed the bacon, collards, onions and squash together in my large Pyrex dish. I also added some small cubes of mozzarella and cheddar cheese and went to town with the pepper mill.

At this point, you are ready to add your eggs. Everything should be spread evenly in your pan, so you can use a spoon to create small divots to crack the eggs into. I think I may have poured a little milk or cream into the pan to make sure the greens wouldn't dry out in the oven, but that's optional. Bake at 350˚ for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the whites have set. I erred on the side of caution, and wound up with yolks that were beginning to solidify, so if you like yours runny, 15 minutes is probably better.

The great thing about this dish is that it can be prepared ahead of time. Your guests get all the eggy goodness they associate with brunch, but you're not slaving over the stove, flipping omelets. The oven does all the work for you!

The meal's real showstopper was an awesome tart tatin, made mostly by Laura. I oversaw the end of the process, which involves caramelizing the apples with deeply browned butter and sugar in a cast iron skillet, and then baking it with a pie crust on top. It takes a while to peel the apples and to make it all caramelly enough, but other than that it's pretty easy. It's gooey and sweet, and a great dessert that was gobbled up even after we'd consumed piles of eggs and bread and quiche. Yum.


apple tart tatin

I served the tart with some sweet potato pumpkin gingersnap ice cream. I adapted the recipe from The Perfect Scoop, and it was quite good. I've talked quite enough in this entry, so I'll just leave you with the recipe. Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Pumpkin Ice Cream with Gingersnaps
adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

1 large sweet potato
1¼ cup pureed pumpkin
1 cup plus 2 tbsp whole milk
⅔ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp vanilla bean rum
pinch of salt
1 cup of crumbled gingersnaps

Use a fork to poke holes around the sweet potato, then wrap in aluminum foil and baked in the oven at 400˚ for 45 minutes or until soft. Let cool to room temperature.

Pour the milk into a blender and add the brown sugar, sweet potato, cinnamon, rum and salt. Puree until very smooth, at least 30 seconds. If desired, press the mixture through a mesh strainer, using a flexible rubber spatula.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. During the last few minutes of churning, add the crushed gingersnaps.