Whole Wheat and Millet Banana Bread

Im the girl that will stone-cold stare a banana into ripeness just so I can make banana bread.

Banana bread is just one of those things this girl has a crush on. along with boys who open doors for me, handwritten letters, and kitten figurines.

This is how banana bread always starts after a bowl of stale popcorn for breakfast and hot hot coffee. Im living right. Obvi.

Two bowls. A whisk. Overripe bananas. Two loaf pans

You have all this stuff, right?

Banana bread is so simple, so delicious, and it makes my house smell like life success. It makes me feel like Im living right. It makes me hope I get to be 80 years old making this bread for the people I love. Ill have wrinkled Grandma hands. Im into it.

Lets talk about millet. Millet is a gluten free seed. Yea a seed.

Millet is used a lot in bird food but its a totally healthy ingredient to throw into non bird related food. Theres calcium, fiber, B vitamins, and its easy to digest! Its a good time food. On the re! al.

< p>I added raw millet to thebanana bread batter. Ps. I should have rinsed it. You should rinse yours. Does it cook completely when baked? Nope!.. and thats the beauty of it! The millet stays slightly crunchy. Its like having lots of walnut bits in your bread without the walnut bits. Its a really lovely and crunchy addition to this moist and flavorful bread.

Whole Wheat and Millet Banana Bread

makes 2 84-inch loaves

Print this Recipe!

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil

1 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup buttermilk

4 medium bananas, mashed

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 cup raw millet, rinsed

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 84 inch loaf pans and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together butter, oil, sugars, and eggs. Beat until thoroughly incorporated. Whisk in the vanilla, buttermilk, and mashed bananas. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flours, salt, and baking soda. Stir in millet. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Carefully pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients. Use a spatula to fold the batter together.

Divide the batter between the two prepared baking pans. Bake for about 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before inverting onto a w! ire rack to cool completely. Banana bread will last, well wrapped at room temperature, for up to five days.

Lillet Buttermilk Shakes

A lot of things were banished to the basement in our recent move. The basement is expansive, and the general rule of thumb was this: if we weren't going to need it in the following three weeks, use a big, fat, Sharpie to indicate basement/sotano on the cardboard box. Straight to the basement. One perplexing item that ended up in the kitchen was a milkshake maker. After living in the garage for years, it seemed like the sort of thing that would go to the basement without much of a discussion, but apparently not. Wayne wanted to put it to use, so it has been hanging out, in my line of sight, for weeks. Correspondingly, the idea for this shake popped into my head. Tiny, thick vanilla buttermilk shakes spiked with Lillet.

Buttermilk shakes are my favorite. But I like them small - more of a big shot than anything else. These turned out nicely in part because the Lillet brings a subtle booziness and fragrant citrus flavors to the creamy slush. I suspect a lot of you have herb gardens with basil plants that are sprouting pretty flowers right now - I picked a few from my planter, and sprinkled them on top of each shake.

Let me know if you have other things you like to do with Lillet. I mention a few basic ideas down below in the head notes, but I'd love to know if any of you do anything super interesting with it. It's a favorite around here for sure. But typically just on the rocks or with a splash of sparkling water.

Continue reading Lillet Buttermilk Shakes...

Triple Chip Cookies

I was in the mood for some cookies this weekend. Feel good cookies. Comfort cookies. Something simple and delicious and quick to fix.

I used three kinds of chips in the batter.

And a lot of them.

Like 4.5 cups of them.

White Chips.

Milk Chocolate Chips.

Butterscotch Chips.

Chips. Chips. Chips. Or morsels. Whatever you want to call them Im using chips today.

Youll need to grab a few basics to make these cookies.

I used more brown sugar than regular sugar for extra yumminess.

After mixing all of the ingredients and adding the chips you can use a small scoop to place your dough on the cookie sheet.

Like so.

It helps to get more uniform-sized cookies

By using a 1.5 inch scoop, I managed to get a ton of cookies out of this recipe.

5 dozen cookies to be exact.

Minus the handful from this photo that are already in my tummy.

I really liked the taste of all the extra chips.

It guarantees some in each and every bite.

Triple Chip Cookies

2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips
1 1/2 cups white chips

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• In a large bowl, mix flour, soda and salt with a wire whisk and set aside.
• Using a mixer, mix butter and both sugars for about 2 minutes until light and fluffy.
• Add eggs and vani! lla and mix until thoroughly combined.
• Add flour in two additions, scraping down the sides in between. Mix until thoroughly combined.
• Mix chips together in large bowl and stir into the cookie batter.
• Cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Then use a 1.5 inch scoop to place cookie batter 2 inches apart on baking sheet.
• Bake for about 10-12 minutes.

Makes 5 dozen cookies.

Note: For 1 1/2 cups of chips youll need a 10.5 12 oz. bag. This will give you a few left over. I didnt use the entire amount of chips from each bag because I was going to sprinkle the remaining chips on top right before baking, but I forgot. But you can also get away with using the entire bag in the batter if you like.

Enjoy!

Delicious Dinner 46.

A series of home cooked dinner by my wife.

Oven cooked Chicken-marinated with chopped garlic, shallot and honey.

Deep fried Sea Eel - chunky and lightly batter-sweet and flaky.

Bitter gourd stuffed with homemade fish paste/shrimp-braised in a fish sock soup.

hazelnut plum crumb tart

There are few paths that led to this recipe but the main one is that it instantly reminded me of the kind of crumb pies I remember from bakeries growing up, not the kind with a crumble topping but ones with a crust also composed of pressed crumbs. And guys, I love a buttery, flaky, ethereal pie crust woven over cherries and bronzed in the oven as much as the next person, but the idea of choosing it over a crumbly composite of butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and sometimes nuts is pure madness. But the filling gave me pause a custard? a custard that suspends fruit? How odd, right? Or delicious? I went back and forth over the odd-versus-delicious line for the better part of a decade before deciding to finally make it this week. A decade. This recipe was actually published in a 1999 Martha Stewart Living. I was living in Washington D.C., dating a terrible idea and trying to figure out how I could find a place in New York that didnt charge more than $600/month rent. This recipe is ancient history, people.

So why this week? Like most things in my life right now, it relates to a still (yes, still) unfinished but imminently due manuscript, and my inability to think about much else, which has turned into a perfect time to outsource a bit, by dusting off recipes Ive had on my To Cook list for eons especially those that involve plums. Im seeing plums everywhere these days, and I love them, but theyre always a little bittersweet to me, as theyre one of the last fruits to appear before apples, and everyone knows that while you munch through buckets of apples, late summer turns to fall and fall turns to winter and suddenly, theyre the last fresh fruit you see until rhubarb which isnt even a real fruit, but one that likes to pretend it is appears in the late spring. Hm, arent I just a bundle of cheer today?

... Read the rest of hazelnut plum crumb tart on smittenkitchen.com

smitten kitchen 2006-2011. |permalink to hazelnut plum crumb tart | 4 comments to date | see more: Photo, Plum, Summer, Tarts/Pies

D'Ceilo

Hoping that Bangsar can sustain another spaghetti-serving sanctum, D'Ceilo has taken over from Tea For Two on Jalan Bangkung.

Smoked salmon bruschetta. This satisfactory starter fairly symbolizes D'Ceilo's philosophy of providing hearty, fuss-free Italian fare.

Spaghetti Gran D'Ceilo, a remarkably flavorful mountain of noodles with (deep breath) mussels, scallops, clams, prawns, broccoli, mushrooms, asparagus, capers & black olives, cooked in aluminum foil & topped with smoked duck breast & mesclun. On paper, this sounds pricey at RM123++, but three or four people can merrily share in its wealth of ingredients.

A kilogram of mirepoix-poached Red Sea prawns _ 24 air-flown crustaceans, all in all. Plump and juicy, but probably too much of a good thing. Suitable for, say, six to eight diners.

Keeping up the seafood streak: pan-seared salmon trout with vanilla pod tahitensis cream, butter basil, balsamic tomato & herbs. Moist and flaky; a relatively healthy reminder that Italian cooking isn't always a guilty affair.

One misstep: scallop, prawn & broccoli risotto. Closer to mushy than al dente.

Canadian cod, oven-baked with paprika & wild honey to enrich the fish's delicate flavors & garnished with tomato salsa to ensure a zesty zip.

Complimentary dessert: a twist on the traditional molten chocolate cake, set like pudding at the base of a bowl & topped with vanilla ice cream. This photo depicts the delicious hot mess that remained after we pierced through the gooey chocolate lava.

Double trouble: Lychee Mojito & Apple Mojito. Rejoice! A full bar serves cocktails here.

Richland Estate Chardonnay (2010, Australia). To quote a dwarf, everything's better with some wine in the belly.

D'Ceilo (or D'Ciello, perhaps; the manager's card spells it one way, the menu another),

Jalan Bangkung, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-2095-3729

Comfort Food @ Dave's Cafe, One Utama

I've eaten at every major Restaurant in One Utama and frequent restaurants like Sushi Zanmai, Kura, Delicious, Grand Imperial and Canton-I whenever I'm back in KL. But Dave's Cafe is one place that I have never eaten in despite being opened for more than 5 years in One Utama. I've always avoided Dave's because of it's Dark Decor which in my opinion doesn't really suit its open concept dining area, but at my brother's insistence we went there for dinner.

The menu features a number of typical Comfort Food Dishes such as Creamy Pastas, Soups, Salads and Pizzas with an emphasis on using Pork as an ingredient in many of its dishes.


Seafood Bisque

Kristina had this as her Appetizer. The Soup's portion was generous with chunks of Mussels, Squid, Prawns and Scallops.


Ox-Tail Soup

This was delicious! The soup was rich, creamy and flavorful with the Ox-Tail Meat falling off the bone. I loved the use of Fried Shallots which added an extra depth in flavor to the soup.


Seafood Carbonara

The Seafood Carbonara was really creamy and the pasta was cooked Al Dente. The generous servings of Seafood was also done just right


Bacon and Mushroom Carbonara

Like the Seafood Carbonara this was also really creamy and the pasta was done Al Dente. Once could definitely taste the smokiness of the Bacon and earthy flavors of the Button Mushrooms.


The Whole Love: Dave's Signature Honey Cured Ham with Mayo, Aussie and 4 Cheeses Pizza

The Whole Lot allowed us to customize 3 different toppings of our choice. The crust of the Pizza reminded me of Flammkuchen. It was light and very crispy and went really well with Dave's Signature Honey Cured Ham with Mayo.


Everything I had at Dave's was good! I can't believe I've always avoided it since it opened in One Utama. It'll definitely be a place I'll dine in more often whenever I'm in One Utama.

Food: 4.5/5
Service: 4/5
Ambiance: 3/5
Price: $$ (Approximately USD $20 per person)


Contact Information
Address: 1 Utama Shopping Centre 1 Lebuh Bandar Utama, 47800 Petaling Jaya, Bandar Utama
Tel: 6-03-7726-9490
Web: www.davesdeli.com.my
Map:

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