Apple Banana Torte

They have these bananas here called apple bananas. They're smaller and firmer than the regular bananas I'm used to. The taste is different too, kind of a tart-sweet. This recipe came from The Hawai'i Farmer's Market Cookbook. According to the book, regular bananas don't really work with this since you have to fry them in butter. I believe you can get apple bananas in the store there but if not, I think you can use plantains too. Let me know.

2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
8 apple bananas, cut in half lengthwise
1 sheet puff pastry or pie dough trimmed to fit pan
cinnamon to taste

Preheat oven to 400. In large skillet, melt 1 Tbspn butter. Saute half the bananas until golden brown. Remove from heat and saute the rest with the rest of the butter. Spray an 8x8 baking pan and sprinkle evenly with sugar. Lay bananas over sugar, arranging in rows. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Lay pastry over the bananas, making it double thick along the edges. Bake until pastry is golden brown, about 15-20 minutes.

Remove from oven. Cool slightly, then invert tart onto platter. The recipe says to cut it into squares then into triangles. I have no idea why. I would say, just cut it. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Serves 4

Mini Pot Pies (Sort of)

I put this together with leftovers. On Sunday we had pot roast with rosemary potatoes and yorkshire puddings. So the next day I put together a hash with chunks of meat, the potatoes (I boiled up another one for bulk), a chopped up carrot and some peas with gravy to hold it all together. I didn't have quite enough gravy so I made some more in the form of a white sauce with beef broth instead of milk. I didn't add other seasonings (maybe a touch of salt) because there were already seasonings on the meat and potatoes. To reheat the puds, I gave them a few minutes in the toaster oven.

Once I had all of this, I cut the tops off of Yorkshire puddings and filled them with the hash. You can either put the tops back on them and eat them like a sandwich or with a fork or you can put filling on both halves and eat it that way. They were so cute and surprisingly filling. Jason was done after two and I could have stopped at one and a half. Also, the little bit of rosemary from the leftover potatoes really infused into the whole thing.

Here is the recipe for the Yorkshire puddings from Allrecipes:

3 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
2 Tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 375. In a medium bowl beat eggs with milk. Stir in flour, set aside (I did this step in a blender because that was how my friend in London did it). Divide butter evenly in the 12 cups of a muffin tin (about 1/2 teaspoon each). Place tin in oven until the butter boils. Remove tin from oven and divide the batter evenly. Bake 5 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake another 25 minutes or until puffed and golden.

Note: When I had these before, they had puffed up and then fallen so they were like little buttery filled sink holes. For some reason, this time they didn't fall the same way so I was able to cut off the tops for the next night. If yours turn out the right way then you can just pour the hash on top.

Macadamia Nut Crusted Mahi Mahi

This is one of Jason's parents' staples. Macadamia nuts are big here, they even call them mac nuts. This recipe came from Alton Brown.

1 1/4 cups coarsely ground (or well chopped) roasted mac nuts
1/2 cup bread crumbs (it calls for panko but I just used regular ones)
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 cup butter, melted
4 mahi mahi fillets, 6-8 ozs each
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons coconut milk

Preheat oven to 425. In a medium bowl, stir together the nuts, panko, flour and butter. Set aside.

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and brush liberally with oil. Place the fish on the foil and sprinkle each piece with salt and pepper on both sides. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush each fillet with coconut milk (Jason's mom doesn't use the coconut milk, I'm not sure why but the topping sticks fine without it). Divide the nut mixture among the tops of each piece, patting the mixture to spread and adhere to the fish. Return to the oven and bake for 5-10 more minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Homemade Hamburger Helper

This is a recipe from Jason's mom that she uses as a quick, go to recipe. The amounts are dependent on how many you need to feed.

Ground beef
Can Stewed tomatoes (provides the seasoning)
Tomato Sauce
Slices of American Cheese
Cooked elbow macaroni

Brown the ground beef in a skillet. Add the stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce. Stir in the pasta. Layer cheese on top in the pan and let it sit while you set the table then mix it in once it's melted.

Mounds Cake

I told Megan I would post this. It's truly evil.

It's a chocolate cake with coconut marshmallow frosting and chocolate sauce topping.

Make your favorite chocolate cake.
Top it with the coconut marshmallow frosting.
Smother it with the chocolate sauce.

Here is the recipe for the coconut marshmallow frosting:

1/2 c. sugar
2 Tbsp. water
2 large egg whites
1 jar (7 oz.) marshmallow creme
1 cup coconut
1tsp. coconut flavoring

Place the sugar, water, and egg whites in a medium-size heavy saucepan. Cook over low heat, beating continuously with an electric hand mixer on high speed until soft peaks form, 2-3 minutes. If your hand mixer has a cord, make sure to keep it away from the burner. Remove the pan from the heat. Add the marshmallow creme and beat the mixture with the mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form, 2 minutes more. Fold in the coconut and coconut flavoring. Frost your cake.

If you buy the Walmart brand marshmallow creme, there is another recipe for easy marshmallow creme frosting on the side.

Also, the chocolate topping makes the marshmallow frosting melt off the cake. It still tastes delicious, but it doesn't look fantastic. If anyone comes up with an idea for a better chocolate topping for the cake, let us all know. I know I will be making this again soon, Maggie requests it on a regular basis.

Sandwiches

I recently discovered a great way to cut Anna's sandwiches. She doesn't eat the crusts and when I cut her sandwich into squares. A lot gets missed because it's in the corners. So I've taken to cutting them into four triangles. That way, there is no corner of crust and she eats a lot more of her sandwich.

Spinach Pasta

This one is from the tv show Everyday Italian. I made it a little bit ago but the garlic was SO strong that I almost couldn't eat it. This time, I roasted the garlic first to mellow out the garlicky-ness of it all.

1 lb. whole wheat penne

3 cloves roasted garlic *

2 oz goat cheese

1 oz cream cheese

3/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

6 oz spinach

2 Tbsp. Parmesan

Cook the pasta. Meanwhile, in a food processor or blender (I used a blender and had to add a bunch of the pasta water for it to be thin enough for the blender to blend.) mix the garlic, goat cheese, cream cheese, salt, pepper and half of the spinach (this will be bright green, kind of fun). Put the rest of the spinach in a bowl. Drain the cooked pasta and spoon on top of the spinach. Mix in the sauce. At this point, she says to add water from the pasta to moisten. Mine was saucy enough after the water I added to get it to blend. I guess either way, you have to thin it down. I mixed in Parmesan cheese until it looked good or you can just sprinkle it on top.

* Roasted Garlic

Take a bulb of garlic and cut off the top 1/4 inch or so. Drizzle it with olive oil and pepper. Loosely wrap in foil and bake in a 250 degree oven for 50 minutes or until soft. You can also eat it spread on toast, bread or crackers.