Banana Bread with Crunchy Walnut Streusel

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We brought these beautiful loaves of banana bread to a staff potluck, supplying cream cheese for a spread. They were an instant hit.

I have a tried and true banana bread recipe. It’s actually a fruit bread recipe in which I swap out the fruit and the spices. The recipe results in bread that is moist and flavorful. With an impending potluck, I wanted to amp up the recipe and my thoughts turned to coffee shop offerings where muffins and slices of sweet bread covered with streusel topping are always among the favorites. We love to slather a thick slice of this bread with cream cheese and then press the cream cheese into whatever crunchy walnuts may have fallen off. This makes for one decadent slice of bread!

Banana Bread with Crunchy Walnut Streusel

Makes two loaves

Ingredients

  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup applesauce
  • 1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 cups mashed bananas – the older the better

Topping

  • 1 cup walnuts
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 4 tbsp butter, room temperature

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda. Set aside.
  2. In a mixing bowl, beat granulated sugar, applesauce and 1/2 cup of melted butter together. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
  3. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just moistened. Stir in bananas.
  4. Prepare streusel topping. Mix 1/2 cup flour, nuts, brown sugar and 4 tbsp butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.
  5. Pour banana bread batter into two greased 8 in. x 4 in. x 2 in. loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.
  6. Pull loaf pans out of oven and pack streusel nut mixture on top of loaves. Bake for an additional 30 – 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire cooling racks.

Pour yourself a big cup of coffee. Cut a thick slice of this bread and smear a generous amount of cream cheese onto it. Sprinkle any crumbs that have fallen off your slice back onto the cream cheese. Put on some coffee shop music. Close your eyes, take a bite, and imagine yourself in coffee shop in one of the world’s great cities… or in a hometown bakery.

Salmon Calzone

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Number four in the Salmon Recipe Challenge. Savory salmon in a creamy cheese mixture enhanced with red bell peppers and spinach; all neatly wrapped in a warm Parmesan crust.

The salmon challenge was intended for Jack. After all, he is the master chef. But after a night of studying (I’m going for a master’s in education technology), I relaxed by surfing cooking and baking blogs where I came across a photo of a delicious-looking calzone. “Wouldn’t a salmon stuffed calzone be divine?” I thought.

I would start this recipe by saying that we dusted off our favorite mechanical kitchen device, our Zojirushi bread machine, but the truth is this machine never has time to collect dust. We use it once a week on slow weeks and more frequently than that on most weeks. We love our Zojirushi bread machine so much that we wrote a review on it for the company from which we bought it. Among the advantages a good bread machine offers is that it solves the often vexing problem of having the right environment for dough to rise.

The calzone dough is a standard pizza dough recipe adapted from the book 300 Best Bread Machine Recipes by Donna Washburn and Heather Butt.

Dough Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 1/4 nonfat dry milk
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 3 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 4 cups bread flour
  • 1 tsp yeast
  1. Measure ingredients into baking pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select dough cycle.
  2. Remove dough to a lightly floured board. Cover with a large inverted bowl and let rest for 10 – 15 minutes. Divide dough into 10 portions. Roll out each into a 6-inch circle and let rest.
  3. Prepare filling.
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Filling Ingredients
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
  • 1 red bell pepper, chopped
  • 2 generous handfuls of fresh spinach, cleaned and stemmed
  • 1 fillet salmon, approximately a pound
  • 8-oz. brick of cream cheese, softened (simply leave out at room temperature)
  • 3/4 cup ricotta cheese
  • 1 1/2 cups grated Swiss cheese
  • 2 tsp dry tarragon
  • 2 tsp dry oregano
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

4. In medium skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and sauté for 4 – 5 minutes. Add bell pepper; sauté for 3 – 4 minutes until crisp-tender. Add garlic and spinach and cook until spinach is wilted. Set aside.

5. Season salmon with salt and pepper. I also added a garlic herb mix. Broil salmon, skin side down. After salmon cools, flake salmon and set aside.
6. In large bowl, beat cream cheese until soft and fluffy. Gradually add ricotta cheese, beating until combined. Stir in onion mixture, tarragon, oregano, salt and pepper, then add Swiss cheese and flaked salmon.

7.  Place filling on one half of each circle. Fold calzone over, sealing the edges tightly with your fingertips making a scalloped edge. Cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in volume, 30 – 45 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

8. When calzones are formed, brush with 2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil and sprinkle with 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese.

9. Bake in preheated oven for 20 – 25 minutes, or until the calzones sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

These calzones were terrific out of the oven. They make great lunches, too.

Perfect Pork Cutlet with Cowboy Rub & Roasted Raspberry Chipotle

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When it comes to preparing pork loin cutlets, time on the grill – or under the broiler – is everything. We prefer cutlets cut thick – generally one-and-a-half to two inches. That translates to 16 to 18 minutes cooking time under a broiler or over fairly hot charcoal. The rub and attention to cooking time prevents these tender, lean cuts of meat from drying out. We purchase our cutlets in bulk from Costco and repackage them in pairs for freezing. In our experience, the quality of Costco meats is on par with that of specialty butcher shops.

The Perfect Pork Cutlet

  1. Pick a rub with some heat and thoroughly apply it to the cutlets. (I used The Spice Hunter’s Cowboy BBQ Rub this time.)
  2. Preheat a broiling pan under the broiler on high heat.
  3. When the pan is hot, spray or brush it with olive oil. (Refillable pump spray bottles are perfect for this.) Continue preheating another minute or two to get the oil good and hot.
  4. Place the pork cutlets on the broiler pan. They should sizzle.
  5. Set a timer for 16 – 18 minutes.
  6. After 8 minutes, use tongs to turn the cutlets over and continue broiling for remainder of time.
  7. Remove cutlets from broiler and let them rest for a few minutes to lock in the juices.
  8. Place a generous dollop of your favorite chipotle sauce (or apple sauce) – warmed – on a warm plate, place the cutlet on the sauce, and serve. (If you haven’t tried Fischer & Wieser Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce… It’s delicious and has inspired me to create a cloudberry chipotle from berries we pick this coming summer. Look for that recipe on this blog in late summer, 2012.)

In winter, roasted vegetables go well with this dish. Add a Pinot Noir with lots of dark cherries or berries.

Manhattan-Style Razor Clam Chowder

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Growing up, soup usually meant opening a can of Campell’s. Their Manhattan clam chowder was my favorite. When I got out of the navy and began cooking for myself, Craig Claiborne’s Manhattan Clam Chowder was probably the second recipe I attempted – right after his chili recipe. The results were a revelation, and I never went back to Manhattan from a can.
Generous amounts of thyme, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, clams, carrots, celery, and a hint of heat from red pepper flakes keep this recipe close to the spirit of Claiborne’s, but with the addition of corn, green beans, and chard it strays from tradition, although I doubt the Portuguese immigrants who introduced this style of chowder would object. The smoked sea salt gives this soup a hearty warmth.

This recipe makes about 3 1/2 gallons.

  •  4 lbs razor clams chopped coarse
  • 1 cup clam juice (Razor clam juice is milky and will detract from the soup’s color if more is used.)
  • 6 pounds potatoes cut in 1/2 inch cubes
  • 3 1/2 pounds sweet onions, chopped fine
  • approx. 3 cups collard greens or chard, leaves cut away from the main stems and chopped into approx. 2″ squares
  • 1 lb. carrots, sliced
  • 1/2 lb. celery, chopped
  • 1/4 pound fresh green beans, chopped into 1/2″ pieces
  • 3 cups sweet corn
  • 1/3 pound bacon, broiled, drained and cut into small pieces
  • 2 tbsp dried thyme
  • 3 bay leaves
  • several cloves garlic, chopped fine
  • 72 ounces (4.5 lbs) diced tomatoes with liquid (fresh or canned)
  • 12 ounces tomato paste
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • olive oil
  • smoked sea salt to taste
  • 1 tbsp pepper flakes
  • olive oil
  • water

Chopping up all these ingredients is a bit of work. After that the cooking is pretty standard. This chowder freezes well and allows for many substitutions – including substituting a white-meated fish for the clams, or adding mussels, shrimp, squid, octopus, etc.

1. Mix tomato paste and thyme with approx. three cups of water and two tablespoons of olive oil and set aside

2. Cover the bottom of a large pot with olive oil and heat over medium-high. Add the carrots and cook for a minute stirring occasionally. Add the onions and cook for two minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium and add the celery, green beans and garlic, stirring occasionally for about three minutes.

3. Add the diced tomatoes, the tomato sauce mixture, the potatoes and remaining seasonings. Add enough water to cover the potatoes and simmer until soft. If the soup seems watery, add more tomato paste. Stir occasionally. Depending on the type of potato and size of cubes, this takes 20 to 50 minutes.

4. When the potatoes are of desired softness, stir in the chard or collard greens. Continue simmering for about 2 minutes.

5. Stir in the sweet corn, the clams and the clam juice. The corn will add considerable sweetness, as will razor clams. Give it a taste to see if it needs more salt, pepper, chili flakes or thyme.

Don’t overcook. As soon as the clams and corn are heated, the chowder is ready to serve. Garnish individual servings with a very thin slice of lemon, a few strips of nori, or grated parmesan cheese and serve with a hunk of crusty, fresh-baked bread.

(For more posts on razor clams, click on the tag “razor clams” in the upper left below the photo. Or click here for New England Razor Clam Chowder.)

Bavarian Apple Torte

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A big box of aging Granny Smith apples showed up at school. They were bumped and bruised but still firm and perfect for baking. With no one else showing interest in them, I took half-a-dozen home.

The grocery store reduces the price of overstocked items and expired items. We are always on the lookout for deals at the store because prices are through the roof up here. Remember the $8 red bell pepper?

A few Granny Smith apples and a package of just-expired but still perfectly good cream cheese were the inspiration for last weekend’s baking wonder. I searched allrecipes.com, which has a cool feature where the user can enter ingredients and matching recipes will be generated. A Bavarian Apple Torte recipe sounded great. The torte is built on a layer of shortbread cookie followed by vanilla cheesecake. This in turn is topped with baked apple slices tossed with cinnamon and sprinkled with sliced almonds.

Jack and I had a slice with our dinner that evening. It was incredible! The next morning, I took the rest of the torte to the school office where it disappeared in minutes (or seconds). The verdict was unanimous: this dessert is phenomenal. Hands down the best dessert I’ve ever made — and I’ve made lots! The other point in its favor? It’s incredibly easy to make. You will impress anyone you serve this to.

So, what are you waiting for?

Bavarian Apple Torte

12 servings

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar, divided into thirds
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 (250 g/8 oz.) brick of cream cheese, softened
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 4 Granny Smith apples, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds

Directions

  1. Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Beat butter and 1/3 cup of the sugar in small bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add flour; mix well. Spread onto bottom and 1 inch up side of 9-inch springform pan.
  2. Beat cream cheese and 1/3 cup of the remaining sugar in same bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add egg and vanilla; mix well. Spread evenly over crust. In a large bowl, combine remaining 1/3 cup sugar and the cinnamon. Add apples; toss to coat. Spoon over cream cheese layer; sprinkle with almonds.
  3. Bake 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 375 degrees F; continue baking 25 minutes or until center is set. Cool on wire rack. Loosen torte from rim of pan. Cover and refrigerate 3 hours before serving. Store leftovers in refrigerator.

Recipe from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/philly-bavarian-apple-torte/detail.aspx.

Thai-Spiced Scallops

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Large Alaskan scallops (from Kodiak) rolled in Thai Seasoning, pan-seared, and arranged on freshly made linguini topped with wilted spinach, sweet onion, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes. We brought five pounds of frozen scallops with us to the bush this year–and are happy to have done so!

I don’t use many pre-blended spices, but a good Thai seasoning blend has long been an exception. These days I’ve been using The Spice Hunter’s Thai Seasoning, but Spice Islands Thai Seasoning is (was?) very good as well. (I’ve been unable to find it in any Anchorage grocery store.) My guess is Penzeys Bangkok Blend is at least as tasty.

A little heat, a hint of sweet, Thai blends are great for spicing up squash or pumpkin soup, stir fry, or as a rub on chicken, pork, shellfish and fish.

The above scallops are a cinch. Roll the scallops (or shrimp, or pieces of fresh fish) in Thai seasoning and set aside. After that, you need bit of olive oil heated to medium high in a frying pan, a pair of tongs to move the scallops around to sear all sides, and about about one minute total cooking time for the scallops. (Don’t overcook them–even after removed from the pan, they’ll continue to cook, and they do not need to be hot when served.)

This dish is as good an excuse as I can think of to pop the cork on one of Oregon’s exquisite Pinot Gris.

A Lance Camper, a C-Dory and Two Mighty Trucks

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A mighty little truck. The first year we came up to Alaska, 2009, we used our C-Dory as our camper and towed it up and back – more than 8,000 miles over 43 days with our 2004 Toyota Tacoma. We had a sunroof, which proved to be just the thing for wildlife photography. Here the rig is parked in front of Muncho Lake in Northern British Columbia. Right after we took this photo, three Rocky Mountain Sheep ewes and their several lambs crossed the road right in front of us. (See C-Dory 22 Angler: A Boat for Alaska)

I have long admired the line from Robert Frost’s poem The Road not Taken, “…Yet knowing how way leads on to way…” for the simple, universal truth it holds. When we purchased this boat, we had no idea we’d be towing it to Alaska, using it as our camper both on land (it was a great conversation starter in campgrounds) and on the water. Nor did we have any idea that we would fall so hard for this great state. I don’t recall who spoke first, but on our way back to California that summer at some point one of us turned to the other and said what we’d both been thinking: “We need to figure out how to move up here.”

A few months later, we had job offers in the Alaskan bush, a new Lance camper and a Chevy Silverado 2500 pickup truck. We were ready!

The camper is equipped with air conditioning, heat, a shower and toilet, three-burner stove, a surprisingly large and very adequate refrigerator-freezer, TV, stereo, queen-sized bed, small dining table and comfortable seating, skylights and lots of cupboards and cabinets. Good headroom, too. We’re comfortable living small, so for the two of us it’s a plush set-up. We keep reminding ourselves that we’re preparing for a future chapter in our lives when, hopefully, we will live aboard a sailboat. An item we installed that has proved indispensable is the solar panel which, even on cloudy days, supplies enough of an extra trickle of electricity to make life easier.

It was a red-letter day when we got our Alaska license plates! That morning we walked into the DMV in Haines where a friendly clerk gave us a couple of driver’s license booklets to study. We walked to a nearby coffee shop, had our soy lattes, returned to the DMV, took the test, got our photos taken, and were issued licenses.
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Although we are in the heart of a near-record cold spell, we’re over the hump in the school year and our thoughts are beginning to turn toward another summer in Seward, exploring the Kenai Peninsula and boating and fishing the beautiful waters of Resurrection Bay.
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Gool ol’ Stanley, our reliable Chevy Silverado 3/4 ton, loaded up on her maiden trip to Alaska.
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84 Below

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The afternoon winter sun, low on the horizon, backlights an ice-frosted double-paned window on the south side of Tikigaq School.

A few lights from the school and the town peel back the pre-dawn blackness as we begin our short morning walk to school. Steam oozes from nearby buildings–not just from furnace vents, but from every crack and seam, and every molecule of water freezes or vaporizes almost instantly. Brutally cold gusts of wind lift sheets of snow from the ground, at times creating blizzard-like conditions. Our faces begin hurting mere steps from our house. The cold gets in our lungs and makes us cough. Frostbite will nip any exposed skin within five minutes in these conditions.

This is a new cold, a cold we haven’t experienced before. Later in the day, Barbra and I take a cup of near-boiling water outside and slowly pour it out. Most of it turns to steam, vaporizing before it ever hits the ground.

We check NOAA on the computer: 84 below with the windchill.

Wild Alaska Sesame Seed Salmon

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This is Recipe #3 of 9 in Barbra’s Salmon Challenge series. The spotted seal ohashi-oki (chopstick rest) was made by an artist in Shishmaref of walrus ivory and baleen.

I’m not sure why I mailed as many containers of sesame seeds to the bush as I did this year, but we have them in abundance. And we have lots of salmon. So…

This dish is easy to whip up, invites seasoning substitutions and additions, is visually attractive and really tasty. The other nice thing about this dish is that the crunch and flavor combinations lend themselves to accompaniment by a wide variety of condiments, from Japanese and Chinese dipping sauces to tartar sauce to a simple squeeze of lemon. Whatever you serve them with, they’re bound to disappear quickly.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 pound salmon filet cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes – skin on or skin off, cook’s preference (I left the skin on)
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1/2 cup Saltine crackers, crushed fine
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons powdered ginger
  • 5 tablespoons sesame seeds (light or dark or for an attractive presentation, both)
  • sea salt
  • black pepper
  • approx. 1 1/2 quarts oil for deep frying (I used light olive oil)

1. Season the salmon cubes with sea salt and pepper and set aside.

2. In a glass bowl, mix together the sesame seeds and the crushed crackers.

3. In a Ziplock bag, mix together the flour and the ginger.

4. In a pan on the stovetop or in a deep fat fryer, heat oil to about 350 – 375 degrees. (I heat oil on a stovetop and check for readiness by dropping in a pinch of damp cracker crumbs. The crumbs will bubble fairly vigorously when the oil is ready. Don’t let the oil overheat or smoke).

5. Set oven on low “warm” heat.

6. Place 2 – 3 salmon cubes in the Ziplock bag and shake till thoroughly dredged with flour. Using tongs or chopsticks, coat the dredged cubes in egg, then roll them in the sesame seed & cracker mixture. Set aside. Repeat till all salmon cubes are coated with sesame seed & cracker mixture.

7. Place salmon cubes in hot oil, a few at a time. Oil should roil fairly vigorously around the cubes. Fry for about 2 minutes. If cubes begin to rise to the surface, you may be cooking them too long. Place cooked cubes on a plate covered with a paper towel to drain oil and keep warm in oven set on low heat.

8. Serve with fresh lemon wedges, tarter sauce, or other dipping sauce.

Serves 2 – 3. I found myself craving a hefeweizen with these.

Pesto Bread

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Another delicious bread machine recipe from 300 best Bread Machine recipes! Imagine your kitchen filling with the aromas of basil and parmesan cheese mixing with fresh baking bread. We were poised by the machine armed with butter knives and butter waiting eagerly for the machine to complete its cycle. We were not disappointed!

Pesto Bread

Makes a 1.5 loaf

  • 1 1/4 cups water
  • 1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 2 tbsp pesto sauce
  • 4 cups bread flour
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 1/2 tsp bread machine or instant yeast
  1. Measure ingredients into baking pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Insert pan into the oven chamber.
  2. Select basic cycle.