A break for banana bread

There are several posts I've not gotten around to writing for some reason or another. Around Christmas, I'd meant to post my recipe for banana bread but never did; I suppose I was too busy making the banana nut breads.

Regardless, Claudia's post about her banana bread reminded me that I needed to get it written, though I typically associate banana bread with Christmas...because I usually bake them to give away as gifts (I'm a big fan of the consumable gift). In fact, the bread pictured was one I baked for Jag (note the festive green Saran Wrap).

Generally speaking, I bow in deference to Claudia's culinary expertise, but I have to disagree with her with regard to one element of her recipe--the sour cream. Claudia, your Yankee is showing. Also, though I personally love putting chocolate chips in my banana bread, my mother and most of her family would frown upon the addition. Nuts, yes. Chocolate, no. Banana bread isn't dessert, after all. It's breakfast!

So, my recipe:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
3 large overripe bananas (easier to mash)
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour (I use whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)--optional
1/2 cup chocolate chips--optional
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or nutmeg--optional

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add salt. Place peeled bananas in a medium bowl, add soda and mash. Combine the mashed bananas into the first mixture. Add vanilla, flour and optional ingredients and mix well. Bake in a greased and floured loaf pan (a large one or two-three small ones) at 350 degrees for one hour. Check for doneness with a toothpick (should come out clean from the center of the bread).

I think the sour cream probably makes Claudia's bread a little moister and likely not as sweet than my bread (I'd think the sour cream would add a tang that cuts the sweetness), though the extra butter in mine makes it a little richer, most likely and the extra egg and all wheat flour a little denser. When I get a wild hair, I add the cinnamon or nutmeg. It just depends on my mood. The nutmeg makes it that much more Christmas-y to me. I've also made the bread with Smart Balance and egg whites and it was just as good, so if you're watching your cholesterol, that's something to think about.

So, I'm not saying my bread is better than Claudia's (I dare not go head-to-head in competition...unless it's an all Southern panel of judges who have heads full of filled cavities), but I like it. Hmm...I need to swing by Harris Teeter and see if they've got any overripe bananas on sale, now that I think about it.

Side note: a certain local establishment has been making banana muffins with raisins. I like bananas. I like raisins. But bananas and raisins don't go together. Stop the madness--no banana raisin muffins!

Day 3 Las Vegas--Addendum

I forgot to mention this poor little guy. As we were walking along the Strip, headed back toward the south end, I saw him laying in the street. It was right between Bellagio and Caesar's Palace.

Along with excellent gelato, the Bellagio has several little shops that serve a variety of sweet treats. One of them sells something like twenty different kinds of candy/caramel apples. They ain't cheap. But they are good. I figure that some hapless tourist bought their apple and mistakenly thought it would be a good idea to snack on it while walking along the strip. In this area of the strip, there are a lot of tourists and many of them are looking upward toward the sky, not directly in front of them where they are walking. Said tourist got in about two or three bites before he/she apparently bumped into another tourist thereby sending the expensive, delicious apple straight toward the street. I call this photo "despair" because I can only imagine the response this accident elicited from the snacker.

If it were me, though, I would have picked that sucker back up and eaten the part that hadn't hit the street. It's just a shame when folks be throwin' away a perfectly good caramel apple.

Las Vegas - Day 3 with world-famous chefs

By now you may have figured out that I put a lot of work into planning this vacation. Eating is one of my favorite things to do and I am not one to take chances of missing out on something great. So our Saturday plans were to hit the Las Vegas Strip, home to an extensive collection of restaurants by a dizzying number of world-renowned chefs.

We hit the strip early, parking at New York New York toward the southern end of the strip. After a ride on the coaster (for the SO), we hit the street and went toward the Bellagio for a little snack--gelato. I had authentic gelato at Grom in NYC, but to be honest, it didn't really live up to the gelato I remembered having at the Bellagio. It's Americanized a bit--a little sweeter and a little creamier and the flavors are more catered to American tastes (pistachio, cookies and cream, etc). So while not authentic, I will say that it's is the best American gelato there is. It beats the pants off any standard ice cream and even Luv-It's frozen custard. We got a combo of dulce de leche and tiramisu. It is so unbelievably think and creamy. And did I get a picture? No, of course not. Eyes on the prize and all that, I guess. Bellagio gelato: thumbs up.

We finished up our gelato while walking through the lobby and gardens at Bellagio (the SO had never seen those beautiful Chihuly flowers) and then headed over to Caesar's Palace for lunch. There are a lot of restaurants in the Forum Shops, but I steered us toward Spago. We initially thought we'd split a pizza, but the server suggested it might be too small, so we got two (we could have easily split the pizza, but he didn't know we'd just had gelato of course). I ordered a margherita pizza and the SO ordered a portobella and carmelized onion pizza. The pizzas are authentic Neapolitan style and are so fantastically delicious. Though I generally prefer New York style pizza, I will say that the pizza at Spago is really how pizza was really meant to be. A sturdy, but not too thick crust, fresh mozzarella and other fresh and vibrant ingredients make these pies well worth the fifteen or so dollars each that they cost. And, hey we were on vacation so we opted to get some beer with our pizza. That was the only disappointment at Spago. I suppose that due to some distribution issues or back-kitchen dealing, the only Italian beer they had was Moretti (owned by Heineken). I much prefer Peroni and though they should be similar, I found that Moretti pretty much just tasted like Heineken. Which is not the taste I wanted with my amazing authentic Italian pizza. Regardless, Spago: thumbs up (Moretti: thumbs down).

After walking off a few of the calories we consumed and working up an appetite for dinner, we left the strip to get cleaned up for the night's big event: dinner at B&B Ristorante in the Venetian (better link here). B&B is Mario Batali's small restaurant with partner Joseph Bastianich. I say small because by Las Vegas standards, it really is. It has a very intimate and boutique feel about it. Though it's rather open, so it's not very quiet. And by "intimate," I don't mean romantic--I mean the tables are crammed in so that servers and staff have to turn sideways to walk between them. But that only detracted from the experience a tiny bit. My hosts in Las Vegas were actually surprised by my choice considering that the B&B menu features quite a few odd (by American standards) critter bits, such as oxtail, lamb's brain, and sweetbreads. But I didn't feel a bit limited in my choices at all.

The recommended way to eat at B&B is via a tasting menu or to start with an appetizer (antipasti), then have a pasta dish (primi), then an entree (secondi) and then a cheese or dessert. Frankly, I don't know how anyone could eat that much food and I knew better than to try. Our dinner was started with a bruschetta (compliments of the chef) with a chickpea topping. Next, we split the appetizer of goat cheese truffles. There were three truffles--one rolled in poppy seeds, one rolled in (I think) paprika or curry powder and one rolled in the wild fennel pollen. The flavor combinations were excellent, but I would say that the appetizer was actually a bit larger than it really needed to be. I rarely leave cheese on a plate, but I'd pretty much had my fill of it just eating less than half of what was available. This appetizer could have easily been split by four people.

Instead of going for an entree, we decided to have pasta and save room for dessert. I chose the sweet potato lune (a moon-shaped ravioli) with sage an amaretti. The ravioli was very delicate in taste and served with an equally delicate and light sauce over which and amaretto cookie had been shaved (in the style of grated Parmigiano Reggiano) which gave it a hint of sweetness. It was divine. The flavors stood out yet blended perfectly. And the sommeliere recommended a fine Pinot Grigio to complement my dinner (side note: The by-the-glass serving is quite generous and they bring it to your table in a small carafe so as not to overfill your glass--a very nice touch).

And now, for dessert...after reading Claudia's recollection of her dessert at Otto, I have to say that I was overly excited and giddy and probably too eager to get through my meal and on to the big show. The SO ordered the cannoli, so I had to go for something different. I considered the panna cotta but it had a shot of espresso in it and that combined with the sugar would have had me up all night long. I also considered the bomboloni, but on the server's recommendation, I chose the ciccolato. First off, I will say that the cannoli was (of course) the best I'd ever had and not even playing in the same league or even game as the stuff you get here locally. I'm certain that it was the quality of the ricotta that really set it apart. Next I will say that if you like bread pudding, you will most certainly like the ciccolato. I don't like bread pudding. I don't like bourbon. So I made a huge mistake in ordering this dessert. The SO enjoyed it immensely, but I felt that the "bourbon caramel" was too heavy paired with such a heavy dessert--so much so that it overpowered bites of the vanilla bean gelato as well (and I felt that there was just too much of it served with the dessert). It was too bourbon-y and sweet at the same time. In retrospect, I should have just ordered the bomboloni and let the SO enjoy two desserts, but I was in a luné haze, I suppose. B&B Ristorante: thumbs up (though avoid the ciccolato unless you really like bourbon).

Next up: Laguna Beach, California.

Day 2 Las Vegas

I promise that my gastronomical excursions became more exciting as the week wore on, so bear with me.

We woke up Friday morning to a typical bright, sunny, and soon-to-be warm day in the late winter desert. I had plans for us to visit Hoover Dam, so lunch had to be quick and not too heavy, so we headed for the food bar at the local Whole Foods. The food bar is $7.99 per pound so you have to be smart about what you load up on. Also, it's hard to shove bite-size portions of foods you want to try in the recyclable containers they provide, but I managed. I got about a $5.00 salad--a little heavy thanks to some chunks of feta, but everything I got was tasty. The SO? He's not a frequenter of food bars and got (what I thought) was far more than he could eat. It weighed in at a whopping $12.00. He finished it off, though (with a little help from me). Whole Foods bar: thumbs up.

After the visit to Hoover Dam, we came back to Las Vegas via I-15 along the north side. I remembered seeing a thread on chowhound.com about a frozen custard stand in that area (that was difficult to find), so I entered the info into the SO's GPS and it took us right to Luv-It (I wonder how often this establishment is confused for some other type of business considering its location). I can't recall the name of the sundae we got, but it included caramel, bananas and "jimmies." I had to ask what jimmies were and was told they're chocolate sprinkles (apparently this was a topic over at Slashfood). Now I know. You crazy Yankees and your weird words. Anyhoo, this stuff was just as good as I'd heard. Smooth, creamy, and ridiculoulsly rick like a good frozen custard should be. Luv-It: thumbs up.

Later on, for dinner we headed over to Chinatown (Spring Mountain & Valley View) because we have a lack of good Chinese food here in Nashville that's vegetarian friendly. There were several dim sum places but I couldn't get any good information on how much there would be for me to eat, so I went with a recommendation I read on the Happy Cow directory for Las Vegas, KungFu Plaza. Though I found a lot of things that looked good on the menu, I wanted to go with Chinese instead of Thai, so I chose the stir-fried black fungus and tofu in ginger sauce. Sounds appetizing, no? Silly me, I just thought "black fungus" was just an odd translation of some type of mushroom. But what arrived on my plate was indeed a fungus. It looked like something scraped off the top of month-old soup sitting in the back of the refrigerator and had the consistency of pudding skin. Knowing that anything and everything is fair game for the dinner table in China--including many things I would never, ever eat--I tried it anyway. And it was delicious! Black fungus--I now know--is like tofu in that it typically has no taste of its own. Both the fungus and the tofu were then perfect centerpieces for the very delicious ginger sauce. The portion was quite large, which was a good thing as the SO happily finished it off after being somewhat disappointed in a bland chicken dish. Slowly but surely he's learning that vegetarian food is not boring and can sometimes be a lot better than non-vegetarian food! If only I'd convinced him to order the Tom Ka soup with tofu instead of chicken...though I would have left miserably full. The soup comes in a huge metal vessel resembling a bundt pan that has a sterno heater to keep it warm. It's a large amount--easily enough soup for four people. The SO hated to leave it behind, but we were headed downtown to Fremont Street. KungFu Plaza: thumbs up.

Fremont Street is where the older casinos are located. It's a little more old-school and not quite as family-friendly as the Strip. Our trip coincided with a race, so Fremont Street was packed with NASCAR fans who were quite rowdy. We walked around a bit and did some peoplewatching as well as seeing a couple of the light shows going on overhead every half hour but as the night wore on, I found myself getting a small case of the munchies. Hey, luckily enough the Mermaids Casino had a snack bar. Fried Twinkies! Fried Oreos! Frozen chocolate banana on a stick! All for 99¢ each! Yes, please! Sadly, we were informed there would be at least a 15-minute wait for the deep-fried goodies and we were dead tired, so we settled for just one frozen chocolate banana on a stick (also rolled in walnuts--yum!). For whatever reason, I did not get a picture of my late-night treat, but it wasn't terribly photogenic anyway. But it was tasty. Mermaids Casino: thumbs up.

So that was what we ate during our first full day of vacation. Next up: Spago and Mario Batali's B&B Ristorante.

First night in Las Vegas

Taking a hint from Claudia, I'm going to go day-by-day in recounting my culinary adventures in Las Vegas. Though exciting as that may sound, my first experience was with Del Taco. I'd just spent four hours on a plane, it was late, and I was hungry. I rarely have fast food, but I thought, "what the heck?" And now I have a new favorite fast food joint.

My eyes immediately went to the "Veggie Works Burrito." I figured it would be loaded with stuff I don't like but no--beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato, guacamole, sour cream, and red sauce. Not really "veggies" but all stuff I like (it tasted much better than it looks in my photo). Second, I spied crinkle cut fries. Yes, please. And when they say "macho" size, they mean it. My fries came in a cup larger than one I'd normally order a drink in. But I ate them. According to the website, I consumed about 1200 calories in fifteen minutes. But it was worth it. I love Del Taco. And I just discovered that a local company bought Del Taco in 2006, which is why they're slowly popping up around Nashville (including a location near my home). This is not good news for my waistline.

I only hope that the local employees are as nice and gracious as the ones I encountered out west. Like I said, I don't get fast food often, but when I do, I generally expect lackluster service and a surly attitude at best. I visited the Del Taco on Sahara in Las Vegas and one on the western edge of Twenty Nine Palms, California (not knowing there would be another one just up the road and closer to the entrance of Joshua Tree National Park) and got stellar service at each. And the employees all seemed to actually enjoy being at work. The kitchen area is really open to the front so you can see what's going on. And it's not scary at all. In California, the lady making our burritoes talked to us while she was preparing them--even offering up the advice of taking a fork with us. For the sake of research (of course), I'll visit my local Del Taco soon. I love that there's an item on a menu at a fast food restaurant that I can just quickly order and go without having to qualify with a hundred requests. Veggie Works, despite your copious calories and sodium, I dearly love you. I hate that my physique can only afford to have one of you at a time. Though I guess I could hold the sour cream...

Next up: Whole Foods (the big salad) and Kung Fu.