Barefoot Bloggers: Banana Sour Cream Pancakes

I never would have thought to put sour cream in pancakes! Bananas are standard pancake/waffle but the combo of that with sour cream was very tasty. I also added a handful of pecans to the batter.
The only thing I had issue with was the fact that you put the bananas in one cluster in the pancake. Next time, I would mix the bananas in with the rest of the batter. My husband liked it the way it was.

Barefoot Contessa's Banana Sour Cream Pancakes

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• (My addition-about 1/2 cup of chopped pecans)
  
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
• 2 extra-large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• Unsalted butter
• 2 ripe bananas, diced, plus extra for serving
• Pure maple syrup

Directions

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream, milk, eggs, vanilla, and lemon zest. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, mixing only until combined.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat until it bubbles. Ladle the pancake batter into the pan to make 3 or 4 pancakes. Distribute a rounded tablespoon of bananas on each pancake.

Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until bubbles appear on top and the underside is nicely browned. Flip the pancakes and then cook for another minute until browned.

Wipe out the pan with a paper towel, add more butter to the pan, and continue cooking pancakes until all the batter is used. Serve with sliced bananas, butter and maple syrup.

Baked Macaroni and Goat Cheese with and Roasted Peppers

I got two new cookbooks for Christmas, and I am very excited about this one, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. I'm not a vegetarian, but I like to cook vegetarian meals sometimes and this book sounded too good to pass up.
The first recipe I made from this was the Hot Curry powder, but I haven't used it yet. I hope to tomorrow in a butternut squash recipe.
I made Baked Macaroni and Goat Cheese with Roasted Red Peppers, which is a variation on the standard Baked Macaroni and Cheese recipe. That is one of the things I like, they give you a lot of basic recipes, but then give you a lot of ways to make it more exciting or different.
I used my Chevre from a recent excursion to Trader Joe's. It is delicious, and much cheaper than any goat cheese I can buy around here. Trader Joe's, please come to Lancaster. PLEASE?
Here is my paraphrased recipe. The ingredients are the same (I used different pasta and added a little salt)
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups milk
1 lb elbow macaroni (I used Trader Joe's Vegetable Radiatore)
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese
(1 tsp salt)
1 cup goat cheese
2 red bell peppers
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (I used basil I threw into a plastic baggie this summer and tossed in the freezer! It was good.)
1/2 cup bread crumbs

First, you need to roast your peppers. I think the best way is to stick them in a toaster oven on broil for about 20-25 minutes. Turn the temperature all the way up (450 for me) and turn the peppers once. (While the peppers are roasting, I would start the pasta water, butter a 9x13 dish, and get your cheese ready.)

Here is the pepper, roasted and ready to be skinned and chopped.

Then take the peppers, and either wrap them in foil or stick then in a plastic baggie. Then, here is a new tip from the book. To remove the skin and seeds, take them out under running water. This helps!! Chop the peppers.
Put your pine nuts in the toaster oven to toast now. Just be careful not to let them go too long. About 8 minutes on 300 works for me.
When the pasta water is ready, cook the pasta-not too long! Drain the pasta earlier than you normally would, since it will soften more in the oven.
Pre-heat your oven to 400.
In a small pot, melt 3 tablespoons of butter. When the butter is foamy, add the flour and whisk. Let it cook for about 5 minutes, until it is light brown. Then add the milk, a little at a time, whisking after each addition until smooth. Add the grated cheddar and stir until melted. Add the salt and pepper.

Throw this sauce over the pasta, then the red peppers, basil, pine nuts and goat cheese.

Mix it all up, then pour into your baking dish.

Throw on the bread crumbs. I also added a few little dots of goat cheese on top.
Bake for about 15 minutes, until browned.

Eat. Then eat some more.

Thanksgiving Leftovers-Post 2 Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins

I love muffins with cranberries. I enjoy the tart flavor breaking through the sweetness of the muffin. One problem, there are never enough cranberries for me when I get a cranberry muffin. Also, if I could, every muffin would have cream cheese in it if I had my way.

So I used some cranberry sauce to make my own. So I actually made cranberry sauce to make these muffins, so technically mine were not made of leftovers. But I wanted to make the cranberry sauce tarter than you would eat plain to put in the muffins.

The cream cheese part actually, may not be necessary next time. The cranberry flavor was nice enough. But take it or leave it depending on your tastes in muffins.
This makes 12 regular muffins, or 6 Jumbo muffins. I made jumbo muffins, because for some reason, I have no regular muffin pans.

Ingredients:
About 1 cup cranberry sauce
3/4 block of cream cheese, softened
1 TBSP maple syrup
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 1/3 cups flour and 3/4 cup oats)
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsps baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 milk
1/4 cup cooking oil (I used Canola)

Put the softened cream cheese in a food processor/mixer with the maple syrup. Whip until smooth.

Here is my cranberry sauce-just finished cooking. I used 100% cranberry juice to make it, so it was pretty tart. It was sweetened with some maple syrup though, I based the recipe on Pioneer Woman's.

Grease your muffin tins or line with paper cups, set aside. Pre-heat the oven to 350.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. (I used raw sugar)

In another bowl combine egg, milk, and oil.

Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened.

I layered the batter with the cranberry and cream cheese.

Then I mixed it up a little to get some good cranberry distribution. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Post 1

November was not a good month for me, blogging wise. I am here to make that up with several posts on how to use Thanksgiving leftovers.
I made a turkey this year, so I had plenty to use up. This first recipe also has the bonus of using leftover mashed potatoes to make a shepherd's pie. I love shepherd's pie, but on a regular weeknight making a dinner that also requires making mashed potatoes doesn't happen. So this is a nice use of leftovers. I even used leftover white wine from Thanksgiving dinner!


Thanksgiving Leftover Shepherd's Pie

1 onion, chopped
1 bulb fennel, cored and chopped into bite sized pieces
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 TBSP butter
1 TBSP olive oil
2 carrots, halved and cut into 1/4" slices
4 celery stalks, chopped
2 tsp chopped fresh sage
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 TBSP butter
3 TBSP all-purpose flour
1 cup chicken broth
salt and pepper
1 1/2-ish cups diced leftover cooked turkey
Leftover mashed potatoes (about 1 1/2 cups)

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

Here is the chopped onion and fennel. I just love fennel, it gives winter food a Je ne sais quoi.

Melt 1 TBSP butter and olive oil in a large skillet. Add onion and fennel. Saute on med-high about 5 minutes or so, until they start to get soft. Then add the gah-lic and cook for another minute or two. Then add the other veggies and the sage.

You could use any other veggies you have lying around that you want also. I think a red bell pepper would be nice.

Turn down and let it cook a little, adding some salt and pepper.
While the veggies finish cooking, add the 3 TBSP of butter to a saucepan. Once it is melted, whisk in the flour to make the base for your sauce. This is what will make it thick. After the flour and butter come together cook it for about a minute.

Here is the butter and flour getting cozy. For this, you can't cut down the amount of butter, or it won't work. You need an equal amount of fat and flour to make this base.

Then slowly add the broth and wine, whisking it in to combine.

I didn't measure exact amounts of wine and broth, to be honest. Just keep adding until you get the consistency you want in your sauce

Add a little salt and pepper. My sauce tasted pretty salty when I tasted it, but once I ate the final product it didn't. Remember, the sauce will be with all those veggies and it will balance.



Add the turkey to the veggies, then stir in the sauce. Pour it all into a small casserole dish.

then top with the mashed potatoes.

Then top with the mashed potatoes.

Sprinkle on the grated parmesan or romano cheese.

Put it in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes look a little browned.