One Bowl Banana Bread

If the only reason we had alcohol in the house was to bake Sherry Nut Bundt Cake, then the only reason my mother owned a Cuisinart was to make banana bread.

Okay, that's not entirely true - occasionally my dad would use it to make really tasty hashbrowns, but for the most part the Cuisinart was a one-hit wonder. But like Don McLean's American Pie, it was a good hit. Whenever I feel like I'm in a breakfast rut I like to make a loaf - it also travels really well, so I'll often make some for road trips.

The recipe below is an adaptation of the banana bread recipe from an old Cuisinart cookbook that always fell open to this page, because again, it was the only thing it was used for.

I don't own a Cuisinart and while you can do the recipe in a blender for the most part, it's easier to make and clean if you do it one-bowl style.

One Bowl Banana Bread

Makes 1 medium-sized loaf

• 3 overripe bananas
• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup wheat flour
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp lemon juice or vinegar
• ½ cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350° F

Break up the bananas and butter into a large mixing bowl. With a sturdy whisk, mash together the butter and bananas until mixed well - the butter will still be a little chunky, but should be about pea-sized.

Add flour, sugar, soda and salt. Whisk around on top of the bowl before using a spoon to combine with butter/banana goop. Add eggs, milk and lemon juice, adding the juice last. Mixture may bubble slightly when the lemon juice is added. Mix in walnuts and pour into a greased loaf pan.

Bake 55-60 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

Serve warm with butter. Makes a great breakfast treat.

Simple Stuffed Animal Knitting Pattern (or One thing leads to another, and another, and another...)

I learned, somewhat begrudgingly, to knit about two years ago. I was interning with a theatre in Maine and by the middle of the Christmas Carol run, all eight of the other interns, including the lone guy, were knitting scarfs and hats like a nuclear winter was on the way.

I was pretty much the lone hold out. My grandmother had taught me to knit a slipper about ten years earlier and I lost interest about halfway through the second one and all my relatives lived in warmer areas of California where they had no need for scarves, so I really didn't have a reason to start knitting, in my opinion at least.

One of my fellow interns, disagreed however, and for our secret santa exchange gave me a learn to knit a teddy bear kit. It started an obsession.

I knitted the kit bear. Then I knitted a large blue bear for Mr. Cleaver. Then I knitted some leg warmers for my dance class and learned to knit in the round. Then I had some grey yarn I had used for the blue bear and my cousin was having a baby, so obviously I knit an elephant.

And then I had leftover pink from the elephant's ears and my best friend was having a baby, so obviously I knit flying pig.

Then I showed by brother (who also knits) this awesome knitted Yoda at boyknitsworld. He wanted to make one, but there's no pattern, so I told him I was pretty good with the stuffed animals and could probably figure it out. I still had a lot of pink yarn left (it was one of those big cheapo polyester skeins - which is why I don't exactly know how much yarn this takes), so I decided to use it to make a prototype, but as a cat for another friend with a baby on the way. Change the colors and the ears, and BAM! - Yoda or Bear or Mouse or Baby or Alien. I was a fool and never wrote down the patterns I made up for the pig or elephant, but I did write down this one.

Stuffed Creature Pattern: Size 7 straight needles Stuffing Tapestry Needle Yarn - 1 skein? A small amount of contrasting yarn for face and accessories.

BODY (Make 2) Right Leg: Cast on 8 stitches. Knit 20 rows. Cut yarn and leave leg on needle.

Left Leg: Cast 8 stitches on the needle with the right leg on it. Knit 20 rows. Both legs should be on the same needle.

Attaching the Legs: Knit across 8 stiches. Make 8 stitches by looping yarn over the needle so the tail is on the inside of the loop.

Knit across 8 stiches. Legs should now be connected by the new loops. There should be a total of 24 stitches. Knit 24 rows.

Shaping the Body:

Bind off 1 stitch and knit across row. Repeat 8 times until 16 stitches remain.

Bind off 4 stitches and knit across row. Repeat 2 times until 8 stitches remain.

Knit 1 row for the neck.

Shaping the Head: Make 4 as before, Knit 8, Make 4. Knit 1 row. Make 1, Knit across, Make 1. Repeat 6 times until there are 28 stitches. Knit 20 rows. Bind off 1, Knit across, Bind off 1. repeat 8 times until 16 stitches remain. Bind off.

Sew two halves of body together, using a whip stitch, leaving an opening for the stuffing. Stuff to desired cuddliness (I like to give them a potbelly!) and sew closed the opening.

ARMS (Make 2) Cast on 20. Knit 20 rows. Bind off.

Fold each arm in half and sew bottom and side together to form a tube. Stuff and sew unto body at appropriate location.

EARS/TAIL/ETC.

Knit ears and tail to reflect whatever creature you desire. Sew on face, whiskers, freckles, whatever. Make accessories as desired. This thingy is infinitely adaptable and adorable.

Please note that all patterns and tutorials are for personal use only and should not be distributed or produced for sale without the written consent of the author.

Booze Cake

Friday afternoon I received a call asking me to provide treats for this Sunday's coffee hour at my local Methodist Church. Now I'm not actually a Methodist, but I never turn down an excuse to bake, so naturally upon acceptance my first thought of what to make for the Methodists was "booze cake," specifically Sherry Nut Bundt Cake, henceforth known as SNBC.

My mother is a complete teetotaler and as a result there the only alcohol that ever made it into my mother's house was an occasional and random light beer that came home with my dad after a night out with some college friends and the cooking sherry for this cake.

The SNBC is a hand me-down from my Grandmother Leota and is a classic 50's recipe. The base of this almost-coffee cake/ rather bread like dessert is yellow cake mix and Jello pudding in a Bundt® Pan. If that doesn't scream post-war packaged food frenzy I don't know what does.

(an ingredient still life inspired by Pioneer Woman Cooks)

Sherry Nut Bundt Cake

1 pkg. yellow cake mix (no pudding in the mix!) 2 small packs of instant vanilla pudding 4 eggs 1 cup cream sherry ¾ cup oil ¼ cup sugar 2 tsp. cinnamon ½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a Bundt® pan. Mix first five ingredients, adding oil last. In a separate bowl - mix sugar, cinnnamon and nuts together.

Pour about ¼ of the batter in the pan and sprinkle half of the nut mixture over the batter (I find this is easier to do uniformly if you use a spoon and not your fingers).

Top with 1/2 of the remaining batter and the remaining nut mixture.

Add the remainder of the batter.

Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a tester (I like to use a piece of spaghetti) comes out clean. Allow to cool before inverting. No need to frost, just give to your favorite Methodist as is and enjoy!

Shifting Seasons

Fall, or perhaps Winter, has finally come to Chicago.

The Windy City, it seems, likes its seasons lengthy and sudden - it has little patience for silly intermediaries like Fall and Spring. In other words, in a week's time I have gone from t-shirts and skirts to wool sweaters and winter coats.

Autumn is my favorite of all the seasons, but Fall in Chicago isn't the crisp cooling of California or the vibrant maple reds of New England. It has a mood entirely of it's own. Splashes of yellow intermix with dull reds and brown on civic trees and Lake Michigan grows dirty and cruel in appearance. Choppy waves sends joggers to higher paths, pleasure boats to shrink-wrapped sleep and I pull my coat a tighter as I pass on the bus.

But I like wool sweaters and crisp breezes and snacking on hot cider and popcorn. The shifting seasons give me excuse to hunker down into the hobbies I ignore in friendlier weather, namely knitting.

I'll turn on an oven to 375° in the dead heat of summer to bake a cake, but I won't touch yarn above 65°. I an not a die hard knitter. I have no stash. I've attempted no afghan. But after finally giving in to the knitting bandwagon that over took all eight of my fellow interns in Portland, I have come to love this rather complicated form of weaving.

The thing that I think is amazing about knitting is that I'm making fabric, in the exact shape (hopefully) that I want it to be - no cutting, maybe a seam here or there, but largely a fully-fashioned thing pops off of the needles like Athena from Zeus' head, whether it be a sock, a sweater, or an elephant.

I am currently working on my first "sweater," a shrug really, and I'm very excited by it because it looks so, well sweater-y. It makes me feel like a real knitter or at least a more practical knitter than when I make rotund stuffed animals.

Though I am knitting an animal too... In any case. I'll post both projects as soon as they're done.

An Evening with William Shatner...

Saturday night was the second annual "Evening with William Shatner" with Ms. Kasey. This was a tradition started after a trip to Kuiper's Family Farm last year, enacted when my apartment had one arm chair to sit in. The William Shatner reference was coined by Kasey due to the extreme girth of our two pies.

After another trip to the apple picking farm, we convened to make some more pies, this year trimming down the size of the pies and using the extra apples to make an apple crisp .

Pie making is something that means a lot to me. Not only do I love a good fruit-filled pie, but I learned how to make a pie from father. I felt very grown up when I finally got the pie tutorial and the knowledge and experience my father shared with me is priceless, especially now that he's gone. And though I have yet to figure out how he got the crust to work with only six tablespoons of water, I try to do his gift justice not only by making pies of my own, but by sharing his lesson with any one willing to learn.

And without further ado....

My Dad's Crust Recipe 2 cups flour 1 tsp salt 2/3 cup shortening

Mix together flour and salt then "cut in" shortening with a pastry cutter or knives.

Add 6-10 Tbsps of cold water, until dough holds together. Flour working surface and roll out crusts, using half the dough for each. Makes 1 top and one bottom crust for a 9" pie tin.

The recipe for the filling comes from Myles, a stage manager and excellent baker in Portland, Maine.

Myles' Spicy Apple Pie

2 Tbsp Sugar 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon 1/4 tsp. Nutmeg 6-7 Cups peeled and sliced apples (6-7 apples per pie) 3/4 to 1 Cup Sugar 1 to 2 Tbsp. Flour 1/8 tsp. Salt 2 Tbsp. Butter

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Prepare the pastry for two 9" pie crusts.

Combine 2 Tbsp sugar and the spices in a small bowl.

Brush the bottom pastry with milk or water and sprinkle with 1/2 of the sugar, spice and everything nice mixture.

Combine 3/4 Cup of sugar with flour and salt and mix lightly through the apples.

Heap up the apples in the pie pan.

Dot the top of the apples with the butter.

Cover with top crust and cut slits for the steam to escape.

Seal the sides of the pie crust with a fork's prongs. Brush with milk or water and sprinkle remaining sugar/ spice mixture over the top of the pie.

Cover the edges of the pie crust with foil wrap.

Bake 50-60 minutes or until crust is lightly brown.

Remove the foil 15 minutes before you take the pie out of the oven.

A word of warning! This pie could potentially make a mess in your oven if you do not take precautions. Because there are soooo many apples in it, that while cooking, it has the tendancy to leak, no matter how hard you try to seal the sides of the pie. So,sit the pie inside a larger pan with a lip for cooking so that if any juices escape you only have the pan to clean and not your oven. Also, you can line the second pie plate with foil so you only have to throw that out, instead of scrubbing your larger pan.

Get your husband to make you some homemade vanilla ice cream and serve warm.

Forget about the dishes until at least two servings of pie.