Earth Day Was Yesterday

You know when you love bananas so much that you buy like 20 of them and think to yourself, I'm gonna eat all these mofos before they go bad?  You know when you can't keep up with the banana commitment and the bananas start to go brown and get nastypants and you don't have the heart to throw them away, but you also can't eat them because they taste like chewed up baby food?  At this moment you remember how the ripest/brownest bananas are the best for making banana bread, and you just want comfort food, so at 11pm on a Monday night you decide to make said banana bread?  Yes.  Let's go.

Easy Peasy Banana Bread
adapted from common sense

3 medium-sized over ripened bananas
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit   Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt into a bowl, and stir until combined.

2.  Peel bananas and remove the phloem from the peeled banana.  (Fun fact: phloem is the correct term for those stringy things on a banana!  Knowledge!)

3.  In a separate bowl from the dry ingredients, mush the peeled bananas.  Add eggs, vanilla extract, and vegetable oil to banana bowl.  Mush ingredients together with wooden spoon (or giant spoon) until completely combined.

4.  Stir dry ingredients into the wet ingredients little by little until completely combined.

5.  Grease a 4x8 inch loaf pan or (in my case) an 8x8x2 inch cake pan, and pour batter evenly into the pan.

6.  Bake for 60-70 minutes or until top is golden brown.  Remove from oven, and allow to cool (or burn the roof of your mouth eating it before cooled... your choice).  Enjoy!

So my issue with the banana bread was that, as someone who is used to baking 10 minute cookies, it was very difficult to wait the whole 60-70 minutes for the bread to be ready.  If you're looking for less of a bread crust on the outside, and more of a banana bread cake, then do what I did and pull it out 20 minutes early.

OR if you are more patient, then wait the whole 70 minutes and sit on your bed watching Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives while licking the remaining batter from the bowl... hypothetically.

GODSPEED & GOODNIGHT.

April (Taken for a) Fool

Hola.  Alrighty... so I do have a recipe that I'm gonna share with you all.  I'm sharing it a couple weeks later than when I actually made the recipe, but the post is happening now.  It's still good.  And you're gonna love it.  In April Fool's news: Every year I pull the same April Fool's prank on my boyfriend, and every year he falls for it.  It goes like this:

Me: Yo yo boyfriend.  I messed up my birth control pills. I'm pregnant.

Him: WHAT?!? AHHHH!!! What? Oh my go-

Me: Just kidding.

Him: WTF?! You almost gave me a heart attack.

Me: I pull the same shit every year.  Are you really that surprised?

The end.  Now who's ready for some kale?  Or yams?  In actuality I couldn't find sweet potatoes at my local produce store, so I had to improvise with yams.  In addition sweet potatoes, yams, white beans, and kale were all really in season when I made this.

Sweet and Savory Yams Stuffed with White Beans and Kale

adapted from Simple Supper Recipe

Serves 4

4 sweet potatoes (or, in my case, Yams)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 shallot, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 (4-inch) sprig fresh rosemary 
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 can drained and washed white beans

3 cups spinach, chopped
3 cups kale, chopped
Juice of 1/4 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

1.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2.  Scrub the sweet potatoes (or yams), and stab them a few times with a fork.  Wrap the potatoes in tin foil and place on baking sheet.  Bake the potatoes until soft, about 45 minutes to an hour depending on how big the potatoes are.  

3.  Start cooking the greens and beans on the stove top once the potatoes are about 2/3rds of the way done.  

4.  Heat the olive oil over low to medium heat in a wide deep sauce pan.  Add the shallots and cook for 5 minutes.  Add the garlic, white beans, rosemary sprig, and red pepper flakes.  Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5.  Add the kale and spinach to the pan, and cover.  Cook for about 10 minutes or until the kale is soft.  Remove the rosemary sprig, and stir in the lemon juice.

To serve, slice each potato lengthwise and push on both ends to create pocket for greens and beans.  Season with salt and pepper.

So good. So filling. Papa John's.

...But not actually Papa John's.