Banana Bread

When I visit my sister Regina she often says "Sis, I have some old bananas, please make me some banana bread." The bread is the best answer for those last few bananas that are over ripe. Don't throw them away. Make this banana bread or peel them and place them in the freezer until you are ready to make the bread.

Ingredients:

3 or 4 ripe bananas, mashed

1/3 cup melted butter

1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350°f (175°c). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Makes one loaf. You can freeze this bread and reheat it later. It makes a great snack. Sometimes we will eat it for breakfast. 

Baked Roast and Vegetables

1 Roast

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 lbs of sliced potatoes

2 sliced carrots

4 chopped garlic cloves

Season salt

Brown the roast on all sides in the olive oil to lock in the juices. Place in a 9 x 13 baking dish. Add chopped onions, carrots and garlic. Sprinkle with season salt. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 1 hour. 

Green Beans and Mushrooms

Chris and I are trying to add vegetables into our diet. He gave me a funny  look when I grabbed the giant bag of frozen green beans at Costco for Thanksgiving. Then one night he brilliantly came up with this simple recipe that we both love.

1 lb of frozen green beans
1 package of giant mushrooms, sliced into large chunks
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons of season salt

Heat oil in frying pan, add mushrooms and green beans. Heat on medium until mushrooms are done. Add season salt to taste.

This recipe is great served with Skillet Salmon

Home Made Tortillas

1/4 cup butter

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup hot water

Blend the softened butter with the flour until it looks like the consistancy of cornmeal. Add the salt. Pour in the hot water a little at a time until you have the right consistency. (Doughy but not sticky). At this point you could let it sit for 20 mintutes, but that is optional.

Seperate the dough into six balls. Take each ball one at a time and roll it out on the counter. Make sure you place plenty of flour under the dough and on the rolling pin. (If you don't have a rolling pin use a clean bottle in your cabnit). As you are rolling out the dough, flip the dough and roll it out until it is the shape you want. You want to get them as thin as possible with out it ripping.

Once the dough is rolled out, place them one at a time into a hot skillet. Turn constantly until the tortilla is slightly brown like the picture above.

These are real easy to make but make a big mess, so I like to make a double batch and use them for several recipes. Tortillas freeze well.

White Girl Enchiladas

I love Enchiladas. It used to be that at every Mexican resturant I would order chicken enchiladas with red sauce. The red sauce started giving me heart burn however, so I found a great recipe for green sauce enchiladas. Then I moved to Korea and cannot find enchilada sauce. I was delighted on a recent trip back to America when my friend Laura served us enchiladas in white sauce. I could eat them without them eating me and I could find most of the ingredients in Korea.

Due to the ingredients I had available I had to modify almost every ingredient in her original recipe, but this is what I did.

2 cups chicken or turkey
360 grams of plain yogurt (or one container of sour cream)
1 envelope of cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 cups of water
1 cup of milk
9 or 10 tortillas (click her for my homemade tortilla recipe)
Lots of cheddar cheese

Bring the soup and liquids to a boil in a sauce pan. Stir the mixture until most of the lumps are out.
Add in the chopped meat and yogurt/sour cream.

You will layer the pan like you would for lasagna. Place some sauce on the bottom to keep the enchiladas from sticking to the pan. Then layer tortillas, sauce, and cheese, repeat tortillas, sauce then cheese two more times or until your pan is full.

Bake at 400 for 40 minutes.

The next time I make this, I will make it in the crockpot and see how long it takes.

If you are cooking this meal in America you may want to follow Laura's original recipe instead of mine:

3 lbs. cubed boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked

1 container of sour cream

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can cream of mushroom

1 8oz. can diced green chili's 

soft tortilla shells

shredded cheddar cheese

combine chicken, sour cream, cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, and green chili's in a bowl. In a baking dish, spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom to prevent sticking, on the top of the sauce layer tortilla shells until covering sauce. Then add another layer of sauce and top with cheese. On top of the cheese add another layer of tortilla shells. Then add a layer or sauce, and top with more cheese. Bake, covered, at 350 for 40-45 minutes.

Be careful when buying yogurt in Korea. I use plain yogurt instead of sour cream because it is cheaper and I can buy it in smaller quantities. This time we accidently bought the wrong yogurt so our enchiladas had a sweet taste to them. Since I was using turkey it reminded me of cranberry sauce. 

Cinnamon Rolls - Easy

I love fresh baked cinnamon rolls. However I don't have much patience to deal with yeast. So I am thankful to my friend Cheri who made me cinnamon rolls one day that did not require yeast. Here is a recipe I adapted from ehow.com. If you go to their website you can see their step by step pictures. I am only posting the pictures I took of my rolls..


Read more: How to make easy Cinnamon rolls in 10 minutes | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_4686415_make-easy-cinnamon-rolls-minutes.html#ixzz15xkWGzKB

These are what they looked like fresh out of the oven before I put the glaze on. I don't own a cookie sheet so I used two glass pans. They fit perfectly into my roaster oven. I used the wire rack from my toaster oven as a cooling rack.

 Things You'll Need:

DOUGH

2 cups of white flour

3 teaspoons baking power

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup of butter (softened)

2/3 cup milk

FILLING

3 Tablespoons melted butter

1/4 cup of white sugar

1/4 cup of brown sugar

3 teaspoons of cinnamon

3 teaspoons of nutmeg (Optional)*

GLAZE

1/3 cup packed powdered sugar**

1 Tablespoon milk

1. Assemble all ingredients, big mixing bowl, measuring cup and spoon. Getting all your supplies together, makes for quick mixing. I measured out the dry ingredients first and set them aside because I only have one measuring cup.

2. DOUGH - Sift and mix all dry ingredients.

3. Add the butter to the flour mix. Mix with a fork or beaters until it is the consistency of cornmeal.

4. Add milk, the amount of milk tends to vary. Add until dough makes a soft ball, with a little dry flour mixture around the ball.

5. Roll out on a floured board, in a rectangular shape. Dough should be about 1/4" thick. Spread melted butter all over the top of the rolled dough.

6. FILLING- Mix the dry filling ingredients and spread them over the melted butter.

7. Roll the cinnamon buns,starting from the longest side, lengthwise. Roll tightly all the way up, slightly pinching the edges together.

8. Use a piece of dental floss or a sharp knife and cut the roll into 1" slices. I cut some thick and some thin. We decided that we like the thicker rolls better because they are soft in the middle.

9. Put on a greased cookie sheet, with about 1/2" between each cinnamon roll. Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes, or until slightly brown on the top.

10. After the cinnamon rolls have cooled, add a white icing to the top. Serve slightly warm and enjoy!

*Nutmeg is not in the original recipe I added it because Chris always asks for nutmeg whenever I add cinnamon and sugar to something.

** I did not have powdered sugar, but that is not a problem. I just took regular sugar and blended it in the blender.

Apple Banana Bread

I often make this cake when I have apples and bananas that are to old to eat. 

1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 stick butter
3 ripe bananas
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups flour
1 tsp. vanilla
2 or 3 peeled, chopped apples

Beat sugar, eggs, and butter. Slice in bananas. Mash them with a spoon or a potato masher.  Add baking soda, vanilla, and flour. Fold in chopped apples. 

Place a round piece of parchment paper on the bottom of the crockpot and rub butter around the sides. Cook on high for 1 hour and then cook on low for 1 or 2 more hours until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. 

You can also bake the cake for 60 minutes at 350 degrees in the oven instead of the crockpot. 

Tip: When the cake is cooling remove the lid. We forgot to do this so our cake was a little gooey on the top. 

Strawberry Short Cake

Well after 16 months of living in Korea without an oven we finally have one. So of course I had to make my favorite dessert.

Strawberry Topping:

4 cups of  whole frozen strawberries

2 tablespoons of sugar 

1 cup of heavy cream

1/4 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Yellow Cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 cup milk

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 eggs

1. Remove the strawberries from the freezer. Place them in a bowl and add 2 Tbs of sugar. Let them defrost. As they melt use a fork to pry them apart. You can mash them up if desired.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9x13 inch pan. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.


3. In a large bowl, cream sugar and shortening until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, beating just to combine. finally, stir in vanilla. Pour batter into the prepared pan.


4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.


5. When the cake is cooked let it cool. 10 minutes before you are ready to serve the dessert prepare the whipped cream.


6. Place the heavy cream in a blender (A mixer is better, but I only have a blender). Add the 1/4 cup of sugar and the tsp of vanilla. 


7. Blend the mixture until it thickens. 


8. Slice the cake. Place the strawberries on top of each slice and then top them with the cream. 

Skillet Ramen Noodles with Pork

2 packages of instant Ramen noodles of your choice
1 package paper thin sliced pork

1 package of mushrooms, chopped

1 egg

2 Tbs of butter

1.     Add the ramen noodles to a pot of water and the mushrooms, bring the water to the boil.

2.     After the noodles have cooked for about 5 minutes, drop in the pork.

3.     Cook for another two minutes.

4.     Drop the egg into the water and stir it.

5.     Drain the water.

6.     Add butter and the seasoning packets to the noodles.

7.     Serve warm. 

Crockpot Ham Sauté with Cranberry Orange Barley Pilaf

Chris and I love food. We have tried dieting off and on for the last three years since we got married but nothing seems to take the weight off. We have decided to take a different method to dieting. Instead of depriving ourselves of the things we love, which we would only be able to do for a limited amount of time, we have decided to add healthy things to our diet instead of taking bad things away. Our theory is that if we had enough healthy items we wont have as much room for the bad stuff, but can still enjoy them once in a while. We are not going to diet we are just adding good things to our menus.

A few months ago, I was reading an article in the Kids Times about how healthy barley is. I had never cooked with it before, but decided to give it a try. Koreans really like barley and drink lots of barley tea. Chris tried the tea when he was sick, but said it tasted too grainy. So I decided to look up some recipes. I found several. The next step was to find barley. Most American recipes calls for Pearl Barley. I could not find it. Instead in Korea I am using Sweet Barley.

This recipe is a combination of two recipes that I found and combined together. Most of the barley recipes that I am going to try I found at www.barleyfoods.org

Start with the Pilaf, it takes some time to cook.

Cranberry Orange Barley

1 TBS olive oil
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 cup pearl or sweet barley
1-1/2 cups cranberry apple juice
3/4 cup fat-free chicken broth
1 cup dried cranberries
2/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted

In a frying pan heat the oil. Add the garlic and sauté  for 1 minute. Add the barley and cook for 2 minutes. Add the cranberry juice, broth and grated orange peel. I grated the orange right over the pan. Bring it to a boil. The next step it is lower the heat and let it simmer for 45 minutes. I don't have the space or proper pan to do this so I throw the mixture into my Crockpot on low for 45 minutes and the barley comes out just right.  This also leaves the frying pan available to make the ham saute. When the 45 minutes are up add the cranberries, almonds and orange slices to the pot and cover and cook for 10 more minutes.

Start chopping all the vegetables for the Ham Sauté as soon as you are done with the Pilaf. It takes a lot of time to chop all the vegetables.
Ham Sauté

1 TBS Olive oil
1/2 cup onion chopped
1/2 cup celery sliced
1 cup carrots sliced
1 cup mushrooms sliced
1 cup chicken broth or water
1 tsp gingerroot minced
1 TBS cornstarch
3 TBS soy sauce
3 TBS rice wine vinegar
2 TBS honey
2 Tsp sesame oil
1 cup cooked ham or pork tenderloin

Sauté the onions, celery, carrots and mushrooms for 1 to 2 minutes in olive oil.  Add the chicken broth and bring it to a boil for 3 minutes. 


In another bowl combine the cornstarch with the remaining ingredients minus the ham.  Add it to the pan of vegetables. Cook until thick about 3 minutes. Add the ham and stir until the ham is warm. 


Serve over the Barley Pilaf.