Deviled Eggs

Picture the scene.  It's Memorial Day and I'm planning to make guac for a party.  Head into the grocery store and find nothing but rock hard avocados.  It's time for Plan B. Ok, what can I whip up that will be just as popular as guac?  Aha, deviled eggs.  Brilliant.  Look up a few recipes on my phone, come up with the consensus on an ingredient list, and head home.  And then I remember that as much as I love eating them, I hate making deviled eggs.  I always get the timing wrong on boiling them, ending up either too hard or too soft.  And I have bad luck with peeling them, scared for life by the time I made a batch of 18 and spent hours picking off shells piece by piece.  I knew that I needed to find a rock solid recipe to back up my endeavors.

Sweet Potato Hash

I have sweet potato guilt.  I know they are off the charts healthy, they are beautiful, they are delicious, they are easy to prepare...but in spite of good intentions, they rarely make it onto my shopping list.  I spent months dreaming up a super veggie breakfast.

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Bananas aren't just for banana bread.  They make a fantastic cake, nestled under a blanket of cream cheese frosting and topped with fun sprinkles.

Chicken Marsala

My history with Chicken Marsala is similar to my history with Penne alla Vodka: never had it, wasn't sure what it was, but the named sounded cool so I decided to seek it out.  Unlike Penne alla Vodka, I didn't realize that alcohol was involved until I got hold of the recipe.  On the day that I first made it, I headed up to the grocery store on my lunch break.  I went through the wine section but there was no Marsala wine to be had and no one around to ask.  The clock was running out, so I turned to google for help.  No one had a good suggestion for a Marsala substitute, but someone mentioned that in their grocery store Marsala was in the vinegar section.  And so it was in mine.  Since using up that first bottle of "vinegar" Marsala, I've always been able to find it in the wine section.  "Wine" Marsala is less salty than "vinegar Marsala", but both are fantastic.

Bailey's Cheesecake Brownies

A while back, I stumbled onto a Bailey's cheesecake brownies recipe.  I knew it would be good, I just didn't know how good.  A deeply chocolate cakey brownie hugging a layer of Bailey's infused cheesecake.

Spinach Artichoke Pasta

This is a recipe that brings a smile to my face every time I make it.  It's a lightish version of spinach artichoke dip bundled up into a pasta dish, the perfect thing to make for company or for yourself, and the leftovers are freezer friendly.  Reason enough to smile, but there's more to the story.  The first time I made it was girls' night a few years ago.  My best buddy and I scoured the internet for the perfect dinner, and after much back and forth, settled on this.  We stopped at the store on the way home for frozen spinach and wine and headed to her place.  Dinner came together quickly and kicked back with happy bellies and settled in for the movie of the night.

Banana Bread

Banana bread has two extremes.  It can get goody-two shoes with no sugar, no fat, and a good helping of fiber.  Or you can pump all the sugar and grease you can get your hands on to make a sickeningly sweet treat.  When I went searching for a go-to banana bread recipe, I wanted middle ground.  I wanted something soft but not too cakey.  It was a bit of a search to find the right one.  Looking at banana bread recipes is like looking at chocolate chip cookie recipes.  They all have the same ingredients and there's no way to tell a good one from a bad one.  One weekend afternoon last winter I was burrowed in during a snow storm with a supply of ripe bananas and decided to whip up a random recipe that showed up on my Pinterest feed.  The rest is history.

Ingredients

(Recipe from the Food Network)

• 3 ½ overripe bananas
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup canola oil
• 1 ⅔ cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt

 Method

The journey begins with four very ripe bananas. The riper the banana gets, the sweeter it is.  There's a lot of timing involved.  I can't speak for other single people, but it's a pretty rare event for me to end up with four overly ripe bananas on my hands at one time, and in the rare case that this might happen, what are the odds that I'm going to have the time and desire to bake?

The secret is your freezer.  Just stockpile the ripeys until you end up with enough bananas and a craving.  Because I don't buy bananas very often, I have a banana pact with my special someone who has a steady supply. Instead of throwing his overripe bananas in the garbage, he throws them in the freezer, and we both get banana bread.

If you're working with frozen bananas, you may want to pull them out of the freezer and let them thaw for a bit so that they're easier to peel and you don't freeze your hands in the process.  Frozen bananas get very squishy when thawed.  It's a little off-putting, but rest assured that once they're baked, a frozen squishy overripe banana = a fresh overripe banana.

For the mixing, I like to use a blender to make sure that the banana gets fully dispersed, but you can use any tool that you want.  Start with the sugar and eggs.  The original recipe says to do this for 10 minutes, which had me shaking my head and asking why.  A few spins in the blender did the trick.  

Add the bananas, vanilla, sour cream, and mix to combine.  Follow up with the oil and give everything a final blend.

Toss the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and stir together.

Whisk in the banana mixture, just until combined.  Do not overmix.

Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray and pour the batter in.

Bake until the bread passes the toothpick test.  The original recipe says 45 minutes to an hour.  I've had it take up to an hour and 15 minutes.

Let it cool on a wire rack for a few minutes.

Turn it upside down to release the bread from the pan.

Butter generously and eat.