Oh so good banana bread

i LOVE this recipe! it's easy, delicious and is a great use of extra ripe bananas. i'll post the original recipe but i'll put my alterations in parentheses. after making this, you'll never buy banana bread ever again! :)

ingredients:
1.5 cups of all purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3 very ripe medium-sized bananas = 1 cup mashed
3/4 cup sugar (i usually put less, like 1/2 cup or less)
1/4 cup cooking oil (more oil will make it very cake-y & moist)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

directions:
1) grease the bottom and sides of a 8x4x2 inch loaf pan - set aside.
2) in a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt. make a well in the center of this dry mixture - set aside.
3) in another bowl, combine the egg, mashed bananas, sugar, cooking oil and walnuts. add this wet mixture all at once to the dry mixture. stir until moistened (batter should be lumpy).
4) spoon batter into prepared pan. cover the top of the batter with a thin layer of sugar! bake at 350F for 50-55 minutes or until toothpick or knife comes out clean from the center. let cool for 10 minutes. remove loaf from pan and let cool.

Nobu’s Black Cod with Miso

this is a very special dish that olympia and i have made on rare occasions. you definitely want to make this if you want to impress someone, as it takes up to 3 days to prepare and make! be very careful NOT to burn the cod in the broiler b/c it cooks fast but a little crust is ooooh so good!

Nobu-Style Miso (from Wolfgang Puck)
3/4 cup mirin
1/2 cup sake
2 cups white miso paste
1 cup sugar
4 black cod fillets, about 1/2 pound each
1 stalk hajikami

My friend Nobu Matsuhisa shared this signature recipe with me when he appeared on my Food Network TV show. The recipe is adapted from his beautiful “Nobu: The Cookbook” (Kodansha International, 2001). The hajikami garnish he calls for is a pickled ginger shoot, which you can find in Japanese markets; regular sliced pickled ginger may be substituted. You’ll find the sake, mirin, and white miso not only in Japanese markets but also in most well-stocked supermarkets. You can use sea bass fillets in place of the cod.

1. First, make the Nobu-Style Miso: In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the mirin and sake and boil for 20 seconds to evaporate the alcohol. Add the miso paste and stir with a wooden spoon until it dissolves completely. Add the sugar, raise the heat to high, and stir continuously until it has dissolved completely. Remove the pan from the heat and leave at room temperature until the mixture has cooled completely.

2. Pat the black cod fillets thoroughly dry with paper towels. Put them in a nonreactive dish or bowl and slather them with the Nobu-style miso, saving a few spoonfuls of the sauce in a small covered bowl in the refrigerator to use as a garnish. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 to 3 days.

3. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Preheat a grill or broiler. Lightly wipe off any excess miso clinging to the fillets, but don’t rinse it off. Place the fish on the grill or under the broiler and cook just until its surface turns brown. Then transfer to a baking dish and cook in the oven until the fish is just opaque in its center, 10 to 15 minutes more.

4. Arrange the black cod fillets on individual plates and garnish with hajikami. Add a few extra drops of Nobu-style miso around each plate.

quick quesadillas

this is a quick and yummy snack that takes no time at all.

ingredients:
white corn tortilla
1/2 slice of cheese (any cheese is fine, i used pepperjack)
olive bruschetta or any spread

directions:
put cheese on tortilla and place in toaster oven. remove and place the spread on it. let cool and then enjoy!

kitchen chicken

i love dark meat of chicken and my favorite piece of all, is definitely the thigh. i call this kitchen chicken b/c i basically threw almost everything i had in my kitchen to marinade this.

ingredients:
chicken thighs
light soy sauce
sweet yoshida sauce
sriracha
fish sauce
salt & fresh ground black pepper
corn starch
greens

directions:
you just want to pour enough of the liquid sauces so it coats the thighs, leaving about 2 cm of liquid at the bottom of your baking pan. i poured quite a bit of the sweet yoshida sauce though. just enough salt & pepper to coat them and a bit of corn starch at the end. i massaged it all it and baked it at 375F for 40 minutes. i flipped the thighs about halfway through. came out succulent, tasty and golden brown! i placed it over a small bed of shanghai bokchoy and used cilantro for garnish.

it's about time

i got tired of always referring to my scrap pieces of paper for my recipes. i got tired of wading through my ocean of emails to find the exact amount of baking soda for the banana bread. but now we have a food/cooking blog to document all of our kitchen victories! but most importantly, now we can share all the sumptuous foods, tricks and tips that mean so much to us.

please share and let's cook! :)
karen