Recipes Discovered

Banana Coconut Cake Recipe

My mom loved coconut, so as she was flipping though my new cake cookbook, it’s not surprise she picked out this banana cake with coconut topping. The picture in the cookbook looked outstanding, and the cake seemed fairly simple. Since we had some really ripe bananas that needed to be used up, I decided to make the cake for her.

The first thing I did was toast coconut. The recipe isn’t really clear about this step, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to toast all the coconut or part of it. I decided to toast all of it. I toasted 3 ½ cups of coconut, which is about ¾ of a big bag, on a cookie sheet under the broiler. It took about 5 minutes total, and I found the key was to stir it every minute so it didn’t burn. When it was done, it was a pretty light golden color. I set it aside to cool while I made the cake. >> Read more

Black Bean Burger with Chipotle Ketchup

I recently got a new Mayo Clinic cookbookthat had a recipe for black bean burgers. Since I really enjoyed the black bean burgers I made a few months ago, I though it would be fun to try a new recipe to compare them. The Mayo Clinic recipe was a lot more complex, but it had a lot different ingredients to add flavor. Plus, included in the recipe was chipotle ketchup, which sounded really good.

I made the ketchup first by combining fresh tomatoes, sweet onion, garlic, tomato paste, vinegar, a chipotle chili, cumin, and salt in a small saucepan over medium heat. Chipotle chilis are smoked jalpenos, and the adobe sauce is a sweet vinegar sauce the chilis marinate in. They are a fairly spicy, so I like to scrape as many seeds out of the chili as I can, so the heat doesn’t overwhelm the dish. I let the ketchup simmer for 15 minutes until it was thick enough to qualify as ketchup, and then I removed it from the heat and let it cool. >> Read more

Strawberry Vinaigrette Recipe

I wanted really unique, flavorful salad dressing the other day, so I changed up a strawberry vinaigrette recipe I had. I switched out the strawberries for blueberries and cut the sugar down to about a tablespoon. In a blender, I mixed blueberries, lemon juice, sugar, vinegar, and olive oil until it was smooth. I put the mixture into a bowl with some poppy seeds, and then poured it over a salad. It was a bit tart, but it did have a unique flavor. I’ll have to try the real recipe at some point, but this was a yummy start.

Elderberry Cobbler Recipe

While walking with my mom, I noticed a lot of tiny berries along the road by their house. My mom told me they were elderberries, which happen to be my Uncle George’s favorite pie, although my aunt doesn’t make it very often. I don’t think I heard of elderberries before, at least not that I can remember. After some research, I found that elderberries are very popular for making wine and jam. More interest, the berries are actually mildly poisonous if eaten raw. My curiosity got the best of me, so I had my mom pick a bagful of elderberries.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to make pie, even though it’s an easy recipe to find. After a lot of searching, I found an elderberry cobbler recipe that I thought would highlight the berries. >> Read more

I know this sounds insane, but I really wanted peanut butter toast today and with no toaster, my options were limited. I did the only thing I could think of – I toasted by bread with a hair dryer. Crazy, right? Even crazier, it actually worked. I figured it would only warm the bread, but it actually created a toasty edge. It didn’t brown the bread obviously, but it made it crispy, and it only took about 30 seconds on each side. So there you have it – blow dryer toast.