Food is Food

I am a zombie.  Yesterday morning, Carson and I woke up, flew to LA, attended the Emmy's, and then flew home on a red-eye last night.  Essentially, we spent 12 hours in Los Angeles and another 12 hours on a plane in a 24-hour timespan.  I am a zombie.  BUT, it was allll worth it because The Voice won an Emmy!!!!  I was so proud of Carson and everyone that works so hard on the show, and it was very exciting to be there in person to cheer them on.  Tonight starts a new season, so tune in!!

Moving on to this ridiculously delicious banana bread that I made on Saturday morning in guilty preparation for leaving my children.  I think it worked, because they barely missed us and made us pretty cute "welcome home" signs.  Go, banana bread, go!  I tried out a couple of new techniques after seeing this recipe.  First, I caramelized the bananas by roasting them in the oven with a little honey and cinnamon.  Then, I browned the butter and let it cool slightly before adding it to the batter.    

By doing these two things, the banana bread tasted sinful.  Almost as if I had added rum or peanut butter.  It has a caramely, slightly nutty flavor, and it's perfectly moist and plain old delicious.  No need to bake this out of guilt, just bake this!  And watch The Voice tonight!  Ok, I'll take a nap now...

(Makes 1 loaf)

4 ripe bananas

Honey

Cinnamon

1 1/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

6 T unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup sour cream

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Peel bananas, and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Drizzle with honey and sprinkle with cinnamon.  Place in oven, and cook for 20 minutes, until bananas begin to caramelize.  Remove, and set aside to let cool.  Reduce oven heat to 350 degrees.

While bananas are roasting, melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, until it begins to brown and let off a nutty aroma.  Remove from heat, and set aside to let cool.

In a small bowl, whisk together dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg). In a larger bowl, add the bananas and mash.  Stir in the butter, vanilla, sour cream, brown sugar and eggs, and combine until just smooth.  Add the dry ingredients, and stir to combine.  Pour batter into a greased bread pan, and bake for one hour.  

One of my go-to "I have no idea what to cook tonight" meals is breakfast for dinner.  It's different for the kids, it's easy, and you can get rid of all your leftovers.  Just scramble eggs, and throw everything in it!  I had never really thought about putting corn in my eggs until I had breakfast at Martha's 22nd Street Grill in Hermosa Beach, California.  They make a white corn scramble that's to die for.  During the summer, I almost always have leftover corn in the fridge, and I love slicing off the kernels into salads, pastas and now... scrambles!  This was delicious, probably due to the cream and Boursin cheese I added (no judging) but also because of the delicious, fresh, summer corn.

(Serves 4)

2 T unsalted butter

6 large eggs

1/4 cup milk or cream

4 ears of cooked corn, kernels sliced off

1/4 cup Garlic & Herb Boursin cheese (or garden veggie flavored cream cheese), crumbled

1 T chopped fresh cilantro (or parsley)

Salt and pepper 

In a large skillet, heat butter over medium heat.  While heating, whisk the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl.  Add to skillet, and cook until fluffy using a rubber spatula to stir eggs.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  

You know those "first kid, second kid" commercials?  I think that perhaps I write them in my sleep and submit them to the diaper companies.  There is nothing more true than how much your parenting mentality changes from one kid to the next.  Our first kid had only age appropriate toys that I sterilized once every few weeks in a bucket of soapy water.  Our third kid plays with (and sucks on) my car keys.  It's just the way it goes!  Similarly, I made ALL of Jack's baby food.  All of it.  Down to pureed ground lamb, turkey and chicken that I called "meat paste" - oh man, did it look revolting.  Second and third baby?  Well, I definitely made a few things... but those baby food pouches are just SO convenient (enter major mom guilt!).  

However, I always say to new moms: it is SO simple to make homemade baby food.  Chop, steam, blend... it's truly that easy.  You can even make large batches of food at once and freeze individual portions.  Products like the Baby Brezza make the process foolproof.  At the touch of a button, you can steam and blend your food at desired intervals, or you can steam only, blend only, etc.  The other day, I made a smoothie for London with strawberries, mango, banana and yogurt, and with the leftovers I made frozen push-pops for the big kids.  6 thumbs up from them!  I do math!  

(Makes 4 small glasses, or 4 frozen push-pops)

1/2 cup fresh or frozen strawberries, roughly chopped

1/2 cup fresh or frozen mango, roughly chopped

1/2 banana, sliced

1/2 cup whole milk yogurt

Place first 3 ingredients into the Baby Brezza.  Choose the 'Steam and Blend Only' feature for 15 minutes.  Once the fruit has been blended, add the yogurt, and choose the 'Blend Only' feature until your desired consistency is reached.  Pour into glasses and place in fridge to cool.  I poured some into push-pop molds and froze for the big kids. 

Found my "Cool Cones" at Michael's, but can also be purchased here.

I don't know why this idea hasn't occurred to me before.  I love the combination of eggs and avocado!  If I'm going to have a fried egg sandwich or an omelet I almost always slather the green stuff on top.  So to add diced avocado to egg salad seems totally obvious and I'm smacking my own head for figuring it out just now.  (Ok, I'm not really abusing myself, but there was that drunken period of time in college when I thought it was hilarious to slap my own face.  Not sure why I admitted that.)

This is an easy and fun twist on regular old egg salad.  Call it "green eggs" and serve it with ham!  Or serve it on lightly buttered toast with lox and a squeeze of lemon, like I did.  However you eat it, don't hit yourself, because that's weird.  

(Serves 2)

4 eggs

1 avocado

2-3 T mayo

1 tsp dijon mustard (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

We're on our way back home today and I couldn't be more excited to start baking holiday cookies and treats.  I am going to call myself "Intha" for the entire month of December, which is a name I just made up by combining Martha and Ina.  It's a beautiful name, isn't it?  I will most likely name my 4th or 5th or 6th baby Intha.  What's more important, however, is the spirit that Intha represents, which is "holiday food and decor created in an obsessive and perfect way."  Yeah, Intha be crazy.  So look forward to that!

But first, please enjoy this easy (my phone just autocorrected "easy" to "rash" and that made me chuckle) breakfast snack.  It's very simple to throw together and extremely versatile, meaning everything and anything can go into it.  Here's what I did:

To make 6 bites, whisk 6 eggs together in a bowl with a couple tablespoons of milk.  Add one cup of chopped kale, and stir.  Season with salt and pepper.  Spray a muffin tin with baking spray.  Add one slice of pancetta to each cup (optional), and then evenly distribute the eggs.  Bake for 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees.  I put the broiler on for the last few minutes to make them golden brown.

Did you know that Trader Joe's is currently selling THIRTY FIVE different pumpkin products?  Did you know that women across the country, wearing cozy sweaters, boots and scarves, are buying ALL of them?  They might even be secretly listening to Christmas music in their cars on the way home!  I am not, of course, talking about myself... and even if I were talking about myself, I would claim it was all in the name of "blog research" - holiday music included.  I'm a normal person.

So I may or may not have a lot of pumpkin puree around the house, and I may or may not be in search of recipes.  Similar to this recipe, for these Pumpkin Scones.  They are moist, they are full of all those spices that accompany pumpkin so well and they are topped with sweet, sugary icing (I ran out of powdered sugar, therefore only made the basic glaze).  Also, they are perfect with coffee for breakfast.  Joy to the World!  (I'm talking about myself I'm listening to Christmas music already help)