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Chocolate Banana Pancakes

August 31, 2011 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 8 comments

While many of our East Coast counterparts were preparing for Hurricane Irene, we were packing to get out of town on a weekend getaway to Quebec. We bought some water in case we needed it when we got back, but as far as groceries went, well we figured we would arrive home after the storm and get them then.

Turns out we were wrong, and we found ourselves stuck inside this Sunday with just a few groceries, big appetites, and no desire to brave the elements to see if anything was opened.

Enter pantry staples: super ripe bananas, a bar of 80% Taza chocolate, flour, milk, and eggs

bananas

Taza Chocolate

Banana and chocolate are definitely one of my favorite combinations, and the pancake recipe was extremely easy. I simple chopped and mushed the bananas, which did not need much help.

bananas

King Arthur Flour

I mixed up the bananas, flour, egg, and milk, then roughly chopped lots and lots of chocolate.

chocolate banana pancakes

chocolate banana pancakes

Truth: When you have a chocolate craving, you really can’t have too much chocolate. No need to measure.

chocolate banana pancakes

I made giant pancakes, and we topped them with VT maple syrup, given to us at Christmas by my aunt, who is now stranded in her VT town, bridges washed out, no power, no gas, no phones, and running out of food. Word is that FEMA will be dropping food into her town. Please send her and everyone in VT good thoughts so that the water recedes and they can start rebuilding.

VT Maple Syrup

We were lucky and got to enjoy these delicious pancakes, cozy and dry and with power on a stormy day.

Did you make anything delicious over the hurricane weekend? Did it remind you of being shut in during a blizzard?

 

 

For my base, I used this recipe from Allrecipes.com and simply added shaved chocolate.

 

Ingredients
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon white sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 2 ripe bananas, mashed
Directions
  1. Combine flour, white sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together egg, milk, vegetable oil and bananas.
  2. Stir flour mixture into banana mixture; batter will be slightly lumpy.
  3. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Cook until pancakes are golden brown on both sides; serve hot.

Tags: banana, chocolate, Food, pancakes, recipe

Semi Homemade

August 5, 2011 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 9 comments

I have a confession. I really like Sandra Lee. Don’t stop reading, please! I know she is the love-to-hate of the Food Network, and I once thought I found her annoying. That is until I learned about how much charity work she does after growing up in pretty intense poverty. And then one day a couple of months ago, I was on JetBlue watching Food Network when I watched her show and found inspiration for a few great recipes that were fairly healthy, involved fresh ingredients, but that were not perfectly, completely, spend your whole evening in the kitchen homemade. Feeling pressure sometimes to do it all, I appreciate her 70/30 store bought/fresh combo every once in awhile

And when I found out her influence on her boyfriend, NY Governor Cuomo, helped to seal Marriage Equality deal for the state, I loved her even more. I am now officially a fan.

In that particular episode I was inspired by a recipe for sugar snap peas with red pepper, and Thursday night I used that inspiration to make a quick, healthy, and completely flavorful dinner.

sugarsnap peas

I started by cutting the little end pieces off of the peas and pulling off those pesky strings.

vegetables

Then I chopped up a small jar of roasted red peppers and got the ingredients for my sauce together. It was a spicy, salty, sweet mix of tamari soy, habanero hot sauce from Trader Joe’s (according to them 11 on scale of 1-10 in hot), honey, and sesame oil.

stir fry sauce

I quickly chopped two chicken breasts left over from the tortellini salad, and I tossed everything in a pan to get cooking.

stir fry

Once the chicken was fully cooked, I tossed all of the ingredients and let them simmer in the shallow sauce for a few minutes. It thickened nicely and smelled of the nutty sesame oil in the pan.

Holy spicy! I can take the heat, but I may have overdone it with the habanero sauce. . . nah not really. I may have made the hubby sweat, but I love a dish that can make my mouth burn. It was perfect, the honey being a great balance to the hot.

I’ll be looking for more easy dishes like this as life keeps getting crazier, and a lot of my inspiration just might come from Sandra Lee.

Do you have a food tv show, book, or magazine that’s been inspiring your cooking style lately?

Tags: easy recipe, healthy, recipe, stir fry, vegetables

Lemony Arugula Pesto Tortellini Salad

August 2, 2011 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 8 comments

The title is a mouthful, isn’t it? And this easy pasta salad was too, a mouthful of lemony, garlicky, summery flavors, perfect for a late Sunday dinner at sea.

Making food for boating is tricky. It needs to be something that will keep fairly well and that will fit in the small fridge or in our cooler bag. And it has to be enough for a five or six hour trip, usually for four people.  One of the things I learned early on as a little boater was that eating is imperative. It’s actually when you don’t eat that you get more sick. So packing substantial food is key, and being creative is always important to me.

So important that Saturday night I could not sleep because I didn’t know what to make for a dinner outing with friends. We had cheese and crackers, pretzel thins, cookies, and salami, but we needed more. At around 4 am, I finally figured out all of the ingredients for this Lemony Arugula Pesto Tortellini Salad.

Lemony Arugula Pesto Tortellini Salad

While a container of Trader Joe’s spinach tortellini and a half a bag of orrechiette boiled, I whipped up a simple pesto made with several cups of arugula, a cup of baby spinach, garlic, juice of a well-juiced lemon, olive oil, sea salt, and parmesan cheese.

arugula

arugula pesto

The pesto was just so bright, due to the lemon, and slightly creamy from the parmesan and olive oil. It was bursting with flavor, and my warm pasta drank it in.

arugula pesto pasta salad

To the pasta I added a can of artichoke hearts, rinsed and chopped.

artichokes

And two cups of sweet grape tomatoes, chopped in half.

grape tomatoes

Three chicken breasts were chopped, tossed in the pesto, and baked until done. Them using my vegetable scissors, I shredded the meat to top the pasta salad.

arugula pesto chicken

lemony arugula pesto tortellini salad

Once chilled, the salad was the perfect light summer dinner, packed with protein and flavor, keeping us full as we bobbed along the waves and watched the sun go down over Boston. I am definitely going to be brainstorming more creative pasta salad ideas for the summer, just hopefully not at 4 am.

Do you have any pasta salad combos you love? Like me, do you do some of your best thinking in the middle of the night?

Tags: arugula, chicken, Food, pesto, recipe, salad, summer

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