Yeasted Banana Sandwich Bread

     I came across the recipe for Yeasted Banana Sandwich Bread a couple of months ago on the King Arthur website.  I found it intriguing.  A banana in a non-desert type bread, how could I not try this!  The banana gives it just a hint of sweetness without having a strong banana flavor.  The banana keeps the loaf very moist, and it's not as dense as I though it would be.   It has a real nice crumb and a tender crust.  This bread is easily cuts into nice eve slices.   Oh - it was really good with some extra-crunchy peanut butter and a little honey.  I'm looking forward to making nice gooey grilled cheese sandwiches with it.
     One of the best things I've learned is that you can freeze bananas.  This is great tip for buying very ripe bananas when they've been reduced and freezing for use in a normal banana nut bread.  I love having a bag of frozen bananas so I can easily whip up a quick banana nut bread.  The worst part is the bananas are very slimy when they thaw.   I told my friend Rhonda about freezing bananas.  She was a little skeptical at first.  She was even more so when they thawed for use.  Rhonda did say the thawed bananas made the best banana nut bread she ever made. 
     Rhonda was our Family and Consumer Science teacher (aka Home Ec) at St. Bernard High School.  At the end of the school year, her Nutrition and Foods classes would cook a wonderful full course  meal.  The table would be set with linens and china.  The students were allowed to choose two teachers to attend.  The other counselor, Keri, and I were lucky enough to be chosen several times.  (This really annoyed our principal that the kids did not choose her.  Of course, Keri and I had to rub it in.)  The students would serve us the meal they expertly planned and executed.  Rhonda was obviously a good teacher, because the students always did an excellent job in showing what they learned.  I used to love to visit Rhonda's classes year round, but Easter time was always my favorite.  Not because it was when Rhonda had her chocolate unit, and she would feed me homemade Easter eggs.  Not because the aroma of sweets that wafted through the room.  Not because the atmosphere in her room was charged with enthusiasm and decorated for the holiday.  Instead of making chocolate bunnies, Rhonda had a chocolate mold of a bunny pushing a handcart, and that was what the students would make as the centerpiece for their baskets.  The students would decorate there chocolate bunny carts with a variety of  royal icing decorations.  I could always find at least one student who would use two different color flowers on the spokes of the cart wheels.  This would drive Rhonda crazy, and make me laugh with mischief.  I can still hear her telling the students, "Don't do it.  Don't listen to her.  I'll take points off.  Ms. Belles is a trouble maker."  That is why Easter was my favorite time to visit Rhonda's room.  Ah - good times. 

Laginappe - Hot Dog Buns

     "Made groceries"* on Monday and I forgot to buy the hot dog buns for Fat Tuesday.  Wayne and I were planning on hot dogs with chili and Zapp's Voodoo chips for lunch while watching Mardi Gras on WWL-TV on line.  Wayne offered to go buy buns, but I thought, "I bet I can make them."  It was a fairly easy recipe, and Wayne no longer wants store bought buns. 
    
     *Commonly, New Orleanians  "make" groceries rather than buy them - from the original French-speaking Creoles who used the verb "faire," which means "to make" or "to do."

     If you've never been to New Orleans you might want to listen to the video Yeah You Right on You Tube.  If you want to read a New Orleans Lexicon , you can read the terms commonly used by New Orleanians.  I didn't realize how much of a "yat" I am until I moved.

Pomegranate Love Buns

     I actually did more baking than usual this week.  On Sunday, I made Spicy Brownies with pecans topped with a chocolate Irish Cream butter/cream cheese frosting for Wayne's birthday.  On Monday, I made a rustic pizza dough that incorporated some rye flower in the mix, and we made pizza for Valentine's Day.  On Wednesday, a friend of ours, Anita, came over to bake bread with me.  We made a variation of Lemon Love Buns from the King Arthur site.  One of the things I really liked with this recipe was the baker's blog.  The photo explanation on how to shape the knots and hearts was wonderful.  Even a couple of novice bread bakers were able to figure it out.    The buns are very slightly sweet even though they are sprinkled with sugar crystals.  Someone suggested substituting pomegranate molasses for the extract.  The pomegranate flavor was not a strong as I had hoped.  The rolls are very light and tender, and just really pretty to look at.
     Wayne loves having company.  It usually means he gets to eat things I don't normally cook.  Like green onion cilantro burgers with real beef, not turkey.  This morning we had scrambled eggs with cheese, thick sliced peppered bacon, and pomegranate love buns.  Wow, Wayne had bacon today and it wasn't even his birthday.  Wow, it will probably be many months before he even gets a whiff of bacon again.
     It's really appropriate that Anita came to bake with me the week of Valentine's Day, and even more appropriate that we made heart shaped love buns.  One of the big jokes in our house before I retired was, "Wayne taught 5 years then got well and quit, but I never got over it."  Wayne met Anita a Chalmette High his last year of teaching.  The next year, Anita transferred to St. Bernard High where she met me.  At that point, the wheels in Anita's head began to turn.  She introduced Wayne and I to one another, and it stuck.  We had our first date on December 4, 1982 and on June 4, 1983 we were married.  Wayne and I have had a life time of shared experiences. We supported each other through the deaths of parents and his sister Gerry.  Our home was struck by lightening, hit by a car, and finally flooded by Katrina (yes, same house).  Wayne worked on the road for many years and the time away from on another was tough.  But there were many smiles and joys along the way.  Like "Boughs" (you have to imagine the music from Jaws) our first Christmas tree that grew in the trunk on the way home.  We've traveled much of the United States.  I learned that Cream of Wheat is made from wheat, don't ask.  Wayne learned that tomatoes do no appear on plants overnight unless someone applies them with wire (would I do that).  Wayne taught me to compute, and I taught him how to make grits ( I think I came out ahead on that one).  He encouraged me to get my M.Ed. in counseling.  I encouraged him to get a second bachelor's in CIS.  We've always been each others biggest fans.  Wayne is my rock, and I love him more than cookies.  He loves me more than coffee. 
     Anita, is responsible for 29 years of Wayne and I being us.  We refer to her as our almost sister.  She has and always will be an important part of our lives.  So to Anita, not only thanks for baking with me, but thanks for giving me Wayne.

Challah

     This week I made challah following the recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I expected the challah to be a heavier bread than it is.  I've never eaten it, but I have seen it in grocery stores.  (I truly believe that just about all super market breads are made from the same dough then shaped and finished differently to give the illusion of  variety.)  The challah is a very tender bread.  It is pretty, slightly sweet,  moist, and tender bread.  The egg wash gives the crust a beautiful sheen on the braided loaf. 
     I've read that challah is an excellent bread for French toast.  I guess we will find out on Saturday morning.  Lost Bread has was always a weekend treat growing up.  Since my mother worked, weekdays were usually cold cereal because that was something my brother and I could fix for ourselves.  On weekends, however, we had wonderful breakfasts.  Being good southerners, cold days meant grits, eggs, and bacon.  My mother would always cook extra grits, so she could make fried grits the next day.  She would fry the cold grits in the bacon grease from the day before.  My brother loved fried grits; I was always a grits purist and thought frying them was a way of ruining perfectly good grits.  Sometimes we would have pancakes.  I grew up with Aunt Jemimah pancakes and Mrs. Butterworth's syrup.  But my favorite weekend breakfast was always Lost Bread aka French toast.  If you read about Lost Bread (pain perdu), you'll learn that Cajuns and Creoles did not believe in letting anything go to waste, hence Lost Bread is way of salvaging stale bread or bread that would have been "lost."  My mother would usually make it using sliced, stale, white bread, but occasionally we would have some left over French bread (my absolute favorite).  My brother liked his Lost Bread with syrup, but I always liked it with powdered sugar.  My  mother would dip the bread in a mixture of eggs, milk, a smidgen of sugar, and a little vanilla extract and then cook it in a cast iron frying pan.
     Here I digress.  Many years ago when I was teaching English to eighth grade boys, I had an end of the year spelling/vocabulary test.  The spelling part was 50 words, and then the students had to use any 25 of those words in sentences.  I will always remember the sentence using the word abstract, "My mother uses vanilla abstract when she bakes." 
      Back to Lost Bread.  Today, Lost Bread is still an occasional weekend treat.  Sometimes I'll use almond, rum, or orange "abstract" instead of vanilla.  Sometimes I'll use a little brown sugar, or nutmeg, or cinnamon, or pumpkin pie spice.  I've also been known to use a little flavored coffee creamer from time to time.  No matter what variation I use, it always makes me think of  those childhood weekends and my mother's Lost Bread.

Anadama Bread

     I hadn't made a loaf style of bread in a while, so I decided to try the first recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, and it is out of this world.  The main ingredients in Anadama bread are a cornmeal sponge, bread flour, and molasses.  I used a dark unsulphured molasses and a very course ground cornmeal.  The loaves rose beautifully.  When the bread was removed from the oven, there were two perfectly browned large loaves.  While the Anadama was baking, the aroma was divine.  The molasses added just a hint of sweetness to the fragrance.  As always, the worst part was waiting for the bread to cool before slicing it.  The dusting of cornmeal atop the loaves added a nice texture to the soft tender bread.
     Naturally, we had a slice of the bread yesterday.  Wayne knows how much I love him because I let him have the end.  We had green onion, jalapeno, cilantro burgers on toasted Anadama for lunch today.  The burgers were good, but the bread gave the burgers a little extra umph. When I told Wayne we were gong to have burgers for lunch he said, "I don't want to eat a 'Burger'."
      Burgers have a different meaning in our household.  Seven years ago we took in a litter of kittens from a stray cat that had them on our patio.  There were 6 kittens.  We took one in when he was about 2 weeks old.  His mother wasn't feeding him because he was ill.  We bottle fed him, and named him Spike to build his self-esteem (which he has an abundance of today).  When the kittens were old enough to be taken from their mother, Wayne's sister, Gerry, took one of the kittens, and we took the other 4 to the animal shelter.  The woman at the counter of the shelter told us they would be put to sleep because they were feral.  Wayne and I looked at one another, and without saying a word we put them back in the carrier and brought them home.  The plan was to socialize them, and then put them up for adoption.  We did not need or want 4 more cats, after all we had three cats at that time- Puddie, Nym, and Spike.  Unfortunately or fortunately, we became very attached to them, and that is how we ended up with 7 cats at one point.  Oh- Burgers!  There is an adolescent novel titled My Darling, My Hamburger, well for some reason when I was socializing them I started calling them my little darling burgers.  I don't know why, I've never read that book.  From there they became the Burgers - Mac, Jack, Patti, and Wendy.  That's why Wayne did not want to have a "Burger" for lunch.  Today we have 6 cats.  My baby Puddie-Tat died of old age several years ago.  She lived a long, spoiled life.  Almost 2 years ago Mac died.  He was our 26 pound baby.  He was the smartest cat we ever had.  He used to turn lights on and off.  He would open cabinets, wait for one of the other Burgers to go in, then close the door.  When Wayne's older sister died, we promised her we would take Meco.   That is how we ended up taking in an entire litter of kittens.  Below is a picture of  "the Burgers."