Battle Banana Bread

In the past month I decided to make different types of banana bread, particularly some with a lot of fat and some without almost any. My first loaf called for a stick of butter, 3/4 sugar...it was delicious. For the second loaf I made an almost fat free version, the only fat it called for was a bit of canola oil and buttermilk. Believe it or not, the mostly fat free version was delicious. It was less oily but just as moist as the full fat version. I also tried substituting some maple yogurt for the buttermilk in the low version which added a nice flavor. Here is the recipe for the lowfat version:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Low-Fat-Banana-Bread-4331

Halloween!

This post is quite belated, but better late than never. For Halloween we made butternut squash and duck risotto, autumn greens with an apple cider vinaigrette and garlic bread. The risotto and greens recipes were from Martha Stewart online. For dessert I made a pumpkin and chocolate swirl brownies. Some pictures...

Fall Desserts

Last week I made a spice cake with a cream cheese frosting and brown sugar glaze from the Martha Stewart Halloween edition magazine. Just delicious!

Moroccan Meals

I love Mediterranean food and have been inspired to cook some myself. I worked at Le Pichet for a couple weeks at the beginning of September and fell in love with a grilled merguez, bulgar and Mediterranean salad they have on their menu. Impulsively, I decided to try and recreate the meal without a recipe and ended up with a pretty close approximation. Although, the original was much better over all.

I also made a recipe from Food & Wine Magazine under the section "Best One-Pan Dinners," Moroccan-Spiced Lamb Patties with Peppers and Halloumi. It was delicious, but next time I would knead the lamb less. It was very flavorful but the texture was odd. I really enjoyed the halloumi and will definitely experiment cooking with it again. Possibly halloumi and fig kabobs!

Adventures thus far

My first cooking adventure this Summer was a hand picked blackberry and nectarine cobbler.
I used an Epicurious recipe meant for peach and blackberry but substituted the peaches for white nectarines. It turned out perfectly - the only thing I would do differently is follow the recipe correctly and put the dough topping on like biscuits, rather than an even layer. The recipe can be found here:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Momma-Daisys-Peach-and-Blackberry-Cobbler-353291.