Recipe: Sweet Potato Bread

One of the Thanksgiving sides seems to traditionally be a sweet potato dish. This year we boiled and mashed sweet potatoes instead of baking them and were left with quite some leftovers.

Since I made the mashed potatoes into gnocchi, I figured I'd change the sweet potatoes into something as well. The same evening after I made the gnocchi, I made sweet potato bread for the next day's breakfast.


There was apple sauce in the refrigerator which is a perfect replacement for oil in these mix and pour recipes to make it low fat. Try to use unsweetened apple sauce when replacing the oil in recipes otherwise your end result will be too sweet.


Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 4 tablespoons milk
• 1 cup cooked and mashed sweet potatoes

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F
   
2. Use a spray oil to grease a 9"x5"x3" loaf pan.
3. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices.
   
4. Stir in the sugar, pecans, and raisins.
5. In another bowl, combine the eggs, applesauce, milk, and mashed sweet potatoes. Mix well.
6. Add the sweet potato mixture to the flour mixture and mix with a large spoon until combined.
7. Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Allow to cool for 15 minutes and then remove from pan.

Recipe: Banana Nut Bread

Bought a bunch of bananas and they ripened too fast? Don't throw them out! A banana that is turning black is actually very ripe and perfect for making banana bread.
Banana bread became a standard of American cooking books in the 1930s and gained popularity in the 1950s.

This recipe is adapted from one by Milliken & Feniger.

Ingredients

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 large eggs
• 4 ripe bananas
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 cups all purpose flour
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
  

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.

Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Mix in the milk and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined. Add dry ingredients, mixing just until flour disappears.

Fold in the chopped walnuts.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan, invert onto rack and cool completely before slicing.

Recipe: Easy Mango Kulfi (Indian style ice cream)

Here in NYC mangoes are in the markets and the fragrant fruit is quite often on sale now that it is Summer. In the supermarkets here, the Indian green mango is often sold. Sometimes it has a reddish pink blush to it. You can also find smaller yellow mangoes at fruit stands and in Asian markets. These tend to be sweeter.

I decided to pull out the ice cream machine to celebrate the first weekend of Summer and make mango kulfi, an Indian style ice cream that is rather simple to make. I was inspired by watching an Indian cooking show and wanted to try making the dessert. I've seen kulfi sold in Little India here in NYC and it can be pretty pricey for a small container so really, you save money making a batch yourself. Scouring the internet came of with quite a few recipes but I spied one that used frozen yogurt.

Yogurt tends to go on sale at 32 oz. (907 g) for about $2 or so and I always stock up on a couple containers to make smoothies (you can find a recipe for that here too). I decided to use the yogurt in place of the frozen yogurt (it's going to be frozen anyway) and add honey to sweeten and further enhance the mango taste. The base mixture can be considered mango lassi and you can enjoy it as a refreshing drink as well.

You'll need a food processor and an ice cream machine to make this.

Here is my version on the classic Indian dessert. Recipe makes about 1 1/2 quarts.

Ingredients

• 3 ripe yellow mangoes
• 2 cups mango nectar (you can find this in the Latin aisle of your supermarket)
• 2 cups low fat vanilla yogurt
• 1 tablespoon honey (or more to taste depending on the sweetness of the mango)

Directions

1. Follow the instructions on pre chilling your ice cream maker's tub.
2. Stand the mango up on it's stem end. There is a large pit that run down the middle of the fruit. Carefully cut the mango down both sides of the pit with a Chef's Knife. The meat that surrounds the pit you can nibble on and see how sweet it is.
3. With the knife, score the mango meat and using a spoon, scoop out the meat from the skin and put into a food processor fitted with the blade.
4. Add the mango nectar and process until smooth.
5. Add the yogurt and honey. Process again until fully mixed.
6. Pour the ice cream mixture into your ice cream machine and follow manufacturer's instruction.
7. About 20-25 minutes it should be ready. With a rubber spatula, transfer the kulfi into a plastic container (it will be soft serve at this point) and allow to set up in the freezer for a few hours.

Kulfi is pretty dense since it has low fat content and this recipe is no exception. You may want to allow the container to thaw a bit to make serving the kulfi easier or pour the mixture into disposable paper cups and then freeze to make individual servings. To unmold from the cups, dip them in warm water then slide out onto a serving plate.

Recipe: Banana Bread

I always buy a large bunch of bananas for my smoothies but when they start to ripen faster than I can use them, I make banana bread. Here is a simple and fast recipe. If you have a stand mixer, it makes it all the faster to prepare.





Ingredients

* 2 cups flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup sugar
* 4 very ripe bananas (the blacker they are the sweeter)
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl cream together eggs and sugar then stir in mashed bananas, vanilla, oil and cinnamon.

Carefully add and stir in the flour mixture, a third at a time, until just combined.

Pour batter into a 9x5 loaf pan.

Bake for about 1 hour.


Use can serve this as a nice dessert. A toasted slice of banana bread with a scoop of vanilla or butter pecan ice cream on top. Add a drizzle of maple syrup for decadence!

Recipe: Crepe Suzette

Here is a video that I found to show you how to make the French dessert, Crepe Suzette with the crepes that you made from my earlier blog.
BE VERY CAREFUL when pouring in any liquor into a skillet on a hot stove as the flames will cause the alcohol fumes to ignite! Best to remove the skillet from the open flame and then add the liquor then place back onto the stove.