Banana Bread

This is my one and only recipe for Banana Bread. I have made this for almost 30 years. Okay, 28 to be exact. Several times a year I haul the recipe card (pretty smudged and worn) from the recipe box, and crank out a quick treat. Most likely I could  mix this up from memory and do without the card.
One thing is for sure, the smell as the bread bakes is unforgettable.

Banana Bread

1 1/2 cups flour       
1 tsp. baking soda       
1 tsp. salt

1/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar 

2 eggs
1 cup over ripe mashed banana's (2 or 3)

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup walnuts (optional)



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift together flour, salt, and soda and set aside. Cream together shortening and sugar. Add bananas and eggs to the sugar mixture and mix well. Alternate flour and milk, adding to the mixture slowly. Beat well after each addition. Pour into greased loaf pan. Bake 55-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, start checking at the 55 minute mark.

Valentine Boxes

Valentine's parties (elementary school style) were the best!

After raising 4 kids, it's nice to see some teachers going back to the 'old school' way, of having kids make boxes to hold their treats and cards.

This will be my 20th year of having a child in school. Less than a 1/2 dozen times have my kids been required to make a box.

Aimee and I had fun with hers this year. We recycled a gift box from Christmas.

Yes, the romantic french spelling of her name is how we rolled.

Drives people crazy...they always spell it wrong!

Never can find anything personalized spelled this way either!

Wishing you an old fashioned Valentine's Day wish.

Tiramisu

Mister and I had our Valentine night-out on Saturday. Not a typical date night for most but, perfect for us. We went to an auction. This particular auction house serves fresh cooked food. The carrot cake was scrumptious. Mister had a real pan fried hamburger patty. He said it was delicious.

 I'm an auction and flea market junky.

 Oh, the deals we found!!

I hope you are able to find a few minutes to celebrate the art of love this

V-Day 2011. Even if it means, finding something about yourself that you really love.

Happy Valentines Day

Tiramisu


24 Lady Fingers
4 large eggs yolks
6 Tablespoons of sugar
3/4 lb. mascarpone cheese
2 egg whites, beaten in a medium size bowl
                       until stiff peaks form
1 cup cold strong coffee cooled
2 Tablespoons of vanilla
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Beat the egg yolks with sugar until thick and pale in color. Fold the mascarpone cheese into eggs until smooth, then fold the beaten stiff egg whites thoroughly into the mascarpone mixture.

In a medium size bowl combine the coffee and vanilla. Dip the lady fingers quickly into this mixture, one at a time. Place a layer of dipped fingers into a 6x6 dish. Spread half of the mascarpone mixture evenly over the lady fingers and sprinkle with cocoa powder.

Dip remaining lady fingers into coffee and continue with another layer of cheese mixture.Top with remaining cocoa powder.

Chill for at least 4 hours.

I like this best when frozen!!

Lady Fingers $1.50
Mascarpone Cheese $3.89+1.94= 5.83
Eggs 1.29 a dozen only used 4 so .32
cocoa roughly .50
coffee/hey had it leftover .25
vanilla let's just say .75 worth
sugar .25 for the sake of counting
Total cost to make $9.40

A popular Italian restaurant sells one serving of Tiramisu for $5.75. That's for one slice.
This recipe makes 6 generous servings. So, for approximately a buck sixty, the home cook can easily recreate this indulgent dish in their own kitchen for a fraction of the cost.

Next time I want to use another layer of lady fingers. I'll like the cheese layer squished a little tighter with the lady fingers.

Tips

• Make sure the eggs and sugar are beat very thick and pale.
• Refrigerate well.

You will notice in one of my photos, I tried to slice a piece too soon and the cheese layer was oozing. This did not effect the taste, just the plating.

I don't mind posting recipes which have been tweaked and recreated as my own.

Chocolate and Bacon

It's delicious!


Memories from Valentine's Day 2010

Chocolate Covered Strawberry
and
Chocolate Covered Bacon
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania





What's in a name?

Columbia Creations came about when I was probably 9 or 10 years old. At least, the intrigue began then, even if I had no idea how the information mattered to me.

Two words columbia/colombia.

On Saturdays, my family would load up and go to the local Red Barn Restaurant for lunch or maybe Burger Chef. Then we made our weekly stock up on groceries at a store called Miracle Mart. Now, on our way we would always pass a sign that I found to be beautiful. For years, I couldn't read the words. I never thought to ask someone in the car to tell me what words were on the sign. Just a pretty font I guess.

Around the same time, an older cousin of mine became a student in the foreign exchange program. She was the older cousin that you always wanted to impress. Just as luck would have it, our Social Studies class in my little elementary school, began studying this foreign world. My world did not expose me to different cultures. I read about the food of that land and customs with great excitement because, my cousin was there.

In those impressionable years, I also had an aunt who grew strawberries. A huge patch of "pick your own" berries. How could a young girl help but enjoy visiting a place like that?

So, the three scenarios that I just laid out before you, have one word in common. Different spellings but, to a kid...well they sound the same.

• Saturday grocery shopping/family lunch we drove past a Columbia Gas sign
• My respected cousin was living in Bogota Colombia (such exotic sounding words to a kid living in podunk during the 70's.)
• The delicious strawberries grew at my Aunt's house on Columbia Road.

Oh yeah, and then there was that Juan Valdez fella with his Colombian coffee beans. A commercial that aired every morning around Captain Kangaroo time.

Anyhow, two spellings one word.

I garden and post quite a bit about growing stuff. I chose the spelling columbia so as to not confuse people. No "cash crop" growing here.

Gardening and food played a role in each of these childhood situations. And with each situation there was the word columbia/colombia involved.

I'm thankful for the naivety I had as a child. I still try to carry a little bit of it with me today. I am not competitive at all and don't try to out garden, out cook, or out write another person's blog. I just cruise along at my own speed popping in from time to time to keep you updated on my world of Columbia Creations.

Cream Puff Pastry

Pate a` Chou

 or

 Cream Puff Pastry 

1/2 cup butter

1 cup water

1 cup sifted flour

1/4 tsp. salt

3 eggs

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Lightly grease bake sheets
• Sift together flour and salt, set aside.
• Put the butter and water in a medium saucepan. Bring this to a boil.
• Turn heat to low, and add the flour mixture all at one time.
• Stir the mixture until a ball forms in the middle of the pan.
• Remove from heat.
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well with a mixer after each addition.
• Shape dough free hand or use a pastry bag
• Bake until golden brown and there are no signs of moisture
• Stick each end with a sharp knife to let the steam escape
• Turn off the oven
• Leave pastries in the oven to dry out inside.

10 minutes for smaller shapes

15 to 20 minutes for larger shapes

The chocolate buttercream on top was the highlight for me. I made a custard filling, and a whipped cream filling.

 I think this particular recipe would be better with a savory filling. Next time around I plan to use either a crab based filling or maybe chicken salad. I am on the search for a sweeter version of this recipe.

All in all this is a fun recipe and holds tons of possibilities.

Recipe originally came from The Fine Art Of Baking by Paula Peck.

On a totally different note, this neck of the woods (aka Columbia Creations) is covered in ice. I have been saving my reading of the Lee Bros cookbook, waiting until I could curl up and take it all in. Tonight might work. It took an ice storm to slow my world down long enough to indulge in carefree reading. What the hell!

Why the name Columbia Creations you asked??

It all goes back to my childhood. Learning to read, and family influences.

 More on that another time. The Lee Bros. and I have a date tonight!



Warm Spinach Salad



Warm Spinach Salad

I drew inspiration once again from Wolfgang Puck's cookbook How To Eat. This salad isn't out of this world. Could the omission of goat cheese have made all of the difference? Goat cheese isn't something that my home kitchen readily has on hand. So, I substituted brick cheese. The basic idea of the recipe goes something like this. My adaptation.


Fry bacon
(hey fry the whole pound, bag it, put it in the fridge for your next recipe)
Remove almost all of the bacon fat from the frying pan. To which you will add onion slices. Cook the onion until caramalized, add garlic, sundried tomatoes, balsamic, red wine vinegar, and olive oil. Using the vinegar to deglaze the pan before the addition of the oil. Cook just to heat.

Pile the spinach on your serving platter. Sprinkle with cheese crumbles and bacon. Remove the onions from the pan and place ever so pretty on the salad. Drizzle the warm dressing over the platter of salad.

Also, I took Chef Puck up on his suggestion to add hard boiled eggs.
Maybe I am just disgruntled because my home kitchen did not reveal a masterpiece of Chef Puck's French Bread recipe.

This recipe was just okay.

What I consider to be highlights of the cookbook are

Great photography ( the work of Ron Manville)
Nice suggestions on each page entitled Wolfgang's Easy Tips
Quick, easy, thumb through reading
I will say this though, for a regular retail price of $34.99, I did not find anything outstanding. I only paid $6.99 so I guess I got my monies worth.

The book will sit on my shelf, and eventually another recipe will be tried. For now, Nigella awaits.

Sedum

In a warm crevice grows a succulent Sedum Tetractinum. The herb bed closest to the house is surrounded by lovely old sandstone, to which this sedum thrives. The combination of the rock and the plant life makes this corner of my world happier. 



Early Spring

Midsummer

Chicken with Red Onion Marmalade Pan Sauce

Bacon fat. Two wonderful words. One marvelous ingredient.
The headliner at dinner this evening was the protein.

 Chicken with Red Onion Marmalade Pan Sauce

August of 2010 our garden provided a nice supply of red onions. I love to experiment with methods of preserving the garden treasures. This experimental approach lead me to the Red Onion Marmalade. The marmalade in itself was a stunning product. Add a smidge of bacon fat, and a nice juicy chicken breast and you have one comforting January meal. 

Click here for the Red Onion Marmalade Recipe.

For the sake of display, I removed the marmalade from the jar,  placed it into a zipper bag, and snapped a photograph. I think this is such a unique delicious treat.

A Club aluminum frying pan rocks. Although you can not see the color, this particular fry pan is turquoise and I love how it cooks.

Dab of bacon fat!

Fry the Chickey Dee.

Remove the Chickey Dee.

Simply stir in the Red Onion Marmalade to the hot pan and loosen all of those delicious bits! Cook for a few seconds and you have made one heck of a good sauce.

Bubbly goodness!

This pan sauce was all I had hoped it would be.

So go ahead, buy some red onions and can up some Red Onion Marmalade.

I plan to find a few more uses for this scarlet gem.

The future of farming.

"If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."  Thomas Jefferson

Over the holidays, it seemed to me as if there were an unusually large number of food recalls. In an effort to reduce the recalls the government has a plan. My ears have heard stories of tougher regulations to be placed on farmers.  Regulations that are set forth by government agencies.

Sometimes it takes me awhile to wrap my brain around current events and form  an opinion.

On this subject matter, I am more concerned about government sticking it's nose deeper into my world, than I am the possibility of getting bad food.

(now watch me end up with some crazy food born illness just cause I had to go and open my mouth)

I trust my local farmers markets. Our vegetables, and some fruits, are grown right here, outside our back door. The local markets, who grow right outside their back doors, offer a nice alternative to anyone who doesn't garden. This works fine. Do I want some agency strolling in and messing with it? No, I do not.

Please people, Shop Locally, Buy your goods from the small independent market places.
Now, here in Northeast Ohio, we do not have pineapple farmers. For this, I trust the market.
I would still rather take my chances with the food, than allowing some huge government document micro manage everything.

What has sparked this rant? Time spent in Williamsburg,Va. ignited me. It took me to a place of patriotism. Listening to Thomas Jefferson speak ( as portrayed by Bill Barker) made me thankful for these noble farmers of the past. This in turn, renews my passion to support the small, local people and their rights to farm.

Bill Barker and his tremendous gift of portraying Thomas Jefferson inspired me!
This inspiration is not one of politics neccessarily. I am inspired to protect our food sources and appreciate the farmer who lives next door.

Oh, how great it would be if you could be inspired as well! Too bad I don't have video of Bill Barkers performance to post for you.

My photo of Bill Barker as President Thomas Jefferson.

Just go out tomorrow and buy some fresh produce from a local farmer and my job here will be done!!