The Aromas of Fall

Betty dried her hands on the checkered apron tied around her waist and checked the timer on the stove. She could just smell the allspice wafting out of the oven, signaling her nose that the apple pie was almost done.  Stopping to stir the cider as it bubbled on the stove, a heavenly aroma of cinnamon filled the kitchen.  She smiled, watching the clove-studded orange slices float on the surface.  Betty turned down the heat under the kettle and turned to the honey-spiced bread, carefully cutting generous slices of the still-warm loaf and wrapping it in the rust-colored towel before depositing the fragrant bundle in the basket on the kitchen table.  The timer dinged and Betty slipped on her oven mitts, careful not to bump the pie plate as she set it on the trivet.  Standing back, she surveyed the fall bounty.

And then she frowned.

"You did it again," she mumbled.  "You prepared the feast, but forgot to invite the friends.  Better hope the neighbors are hungry."

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Inspired by the picture above and my own tendency to bake, bake, bake in the fall and winter.  And then eat, eat, eat more than I should.  Gratefully, my kids are getting old enough to help their mom out with some of the culinary creations coming from our kitchen, so I can cook with abandon and not feel any guilt!  And I get to enjoy the added bonus of a house filled with these delicious aromas of fall!

The recipe for the honey-spiced bread is on my blog:  Honey Spice Bread.

Food For Thought

Jack Johnson has a terrific song entitled, "Banana Pancakes".  (Please go over and have a little listen ... it'll make your whole day!)  A sweet little love song about good food and good company. :)  It's about staying in bed, not hurrying off to tackle the demands of the day and taking a break from the usual grind ... all because it's raining.  I think I would like to sign up for my own rainy day and let someone make me banana pancakes.

But ... I want mine to be chocolate banana pancakes.  "What?" ... you ask.  "Chocolate banana pancakes?"  Is there such a thing?  Yes ... and they're worth writing a song about.  Maybe Jack could get right on that.  :)  

Until then ... here's the recipe ... and a few more choco-nana recipes to enjoy on the rest of your rainy days!

Chocolate Banana Pancakes

(From Food Network's mini-cookbook, May 2010 ... simple and sweet.)

Ingredients:

1 cup + 3 T flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

2/3 cup sugar

1 T baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1 1/4 cup milk

1/2 stick butter, melted

2 eggs

1 t. vanilla

2 ripe bananas, smashed

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  In a medium sized bowl, whisk the milk, butter, eggs, and vanilla.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix them just until the ingredients are combined.

Chocolatey goodness

Add the bananas and fold them into the batter.  There will be lumps.  Lots of them.  Delicious chocolate-banana lumps.

My handy Pampered Chef thingy did

the trick with mashing the bananas.

Cook them on a hot griddle and serve them with just a smidgen of butter and perhaps a bit of peanut butter.  No need for syrup ... they are deliciously sweet just as they are.  When I made this recipe I made 1 1/2 of the batch and we ate them all.  Next time, I might have to double it.

Not too sweet with little pockets of banana goodness.

Banana-Chocolate Chip Bread

(This recipe is from Epi ... my favorite cooking app.  They were previously muffins ... and I tweaked them as usual.)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)

1 large egg

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup milk

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I chopped up a Hershey's bar for this recipe.)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease one bread pan.  Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Mix mashed bananas, egg, melted butter and milk in medium bowl. Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients just until blended (do not overmix). Stir in chocolate chips.

Pour batter into bread pan and pop it in the oven for 45 minutes.  Bake until the top is pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out with some melted chocolate attached but no crumbs.  Let the bread cool for 5 minutes before turning out on a cooling rack.  

We ate all the bread before I could get a picture of it ... sorry!

Chocolate Banana Pops

(This is something I put together for my kids ... I'm sure we'll be making more this summer!)

Ingredients:

Bananas

Chocolate chips, melted

Popsicle sticks

First you will want to melt your chocolate chips.  I have a modified double-boiler trick that I use that you can read about here.  Check it out and then come right back. :)

While the chocolate is melting, peel the bananas (we did three), cut them in half and carefully slide a popsicle stick through the middle of each piece.  I placed these on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper.  You will want to pop them in the freezer for about 20 minutes so that the stick will stick :) to the banana and not slide off when you try to dip their little heads in the melted chocolate.

Waiting to dip ...

When the bananas are a little frozen-firm, use a spoon to help coat them with the chocolate.  Put them back on the waxed paper and pop them back into the freezer to set.  You could sprinkle the melted chocolate with chopped peanuts, sprinkles or mini chocolate chips if you want ... we liked them just like this.

Waiting to eat!