I haven’t really had much time to cook lately, since I changed jobs (and countries!) about a week and a half ago, and now that I’m in Thun, Switzerland, a small ancient city at the foot of the Bernese Alps, and working in a materials science research facility, I’m really busy all of a sudden. I’ve had to drastically cut back my hours in the kitchen, and so have been surviving on the delicious mountain bread that’s ubiquitous here and can be bought fresh, along with local cheese, chocolate, and birchermüesli. The range of fresh foods available here that I’m used to cooking with is much wider than that in Russia (herbs!), so I’m happy about that, but it’s a bitter irony that I don’t have the time to make the most it. And although I love my work, that aforementioned ironical situation, combined with a few other things, have left me positively bummed lately.
So I decided today, after having screwed up in the laundry room of my new building and locking my soapy clothes in a washing machine for three hours while my flatmate was asleep this morning and I was supposed to be at work, that what I needed was a good, homemade banana bread, just like my mom used to make. Mom worked full-time in addition to holding a position in local government the entire time we were growing up–and she could whip up this banana bread batter in about five minutes, then pop it in the oven and get back to whatever she was doing for an hour while it was baking. It’s excellent for very busy people, or very bummed-out people, and especially for people who are both.
This bread has never, ever failed me, even when I go into mathematician mode and become so inept at regular household things that I shouldn’t be allowed out of my bedroom. . . like this morning. Or like about three years ago, when I was living in an apartment with a nice little oven whose controls I didn’t understand in the slightest. In particular, for the first two months I was there I, for some reason, couldn’t distinguish between ‘broil’ and ‘bake’–and so it was a mystery why my banana bread would cook so fast on the top, and still be uncooked on the pan-side. Having had two bread pans, though, I had a solution: I’d tip the bread-in-progress upside-down into the other pan about halfway through baking, or when I sensed that the bread would burn if I didn’t. In retrospect, I’m surprised that this worked as well as it did (and it really did work well; the bread cooked in about 2/3 the time, and the top (well, either top, I guess) didn’t burn), but I’m also glad that I found my oven’s bake setting after a while–and I think that the whole thing is a testament to how flexible and wonderful this banana bread is.
The photo’s 100% awful, since I didn’t have time to take photos in daylight and so used the overhead lighting in our dining room. . . but the bread–believe me–is wonderful.
Banana Bread
The recipe is actually my grandmother’s, and it’s something I came to not directly, but by way of my mother. It’s also delicious with chopped walnuts added to it, and if you want to experiment with spices like nutmeg and cloves, that’d probably also taste good, but I prefer to make it simple and plain, and have a slice of it with vanilla ice cream or vanilla sauce. Cures all the household woes you’ll ever have, and travels to work very easily, serving the purpose of making your labmates very jealous.
To make it vegan, replace the sugar if you’re concerned about bone char, use margarine instead of butter, and use an extra banana and an extra teaspoon of baking powder to replace the egg.
3 bananas, can be overripe
1 cup butter or margarine, left on the counter to soften for a few minutes
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose baking flour
Peel and mash the bananas using a potato masher, and mash well with the butter and egg. Add the powder, soda, and salt, and mix thoroughly (my grandmother would probably sift all three of these in with the flour, but I’m too lazy). Add the sugar and mix thoroughly, then add the flour and mix thoroughly. Put the batter in a greased and floured bread pan, and bake in a 350F (175C) oven for about an hour, or until a knife stuck through the top comes out clean.
With all of that creme anglaise left over from last time, and with three boxes of merlot left over from Sunday’s epic birthday party, I decided that it was the time to poach some pears. They came out lovely-ly.
Poached Pears
These poached pears were great with the leftover creme anglaise, but they’re also great with almost anything else–ice cream, chocolate sauce, custards, puddings–and especially with the sauce that results when you reduce the wine mixture in which you’ve poached the pears. Just reduce that mixture over low heat for a few hours, and you’re in business. I think that no matter what you’re serving them with, poached pears are always prettier garnished with mint, but I had none on hand. . . so I picked a couple of leaves off of the nearest houseplant for this photo, hoping that would lead its viewers to ignore the lumps in the vanilla sauce that resulted from microwaving it. Don’t try that at home, please.
To make sure these are vegan, choose your wine carefully. Some have trace amounts of animals left in them, believe it or not, and it depends on the filtering process used. And definitely don’t serve the pears with creme anglaise, your vegan friends will probably hate you for that.
750 mL bottle of red wine
1 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise -or- 1 tsp vanilla extract
4 whole dried cloves
zest from one orange
juice from one orange
4 firm ripe pears, peeled and with the stems left on
Combine the wine, sugar, vanilla, and cloves in a saucepan that will hold all of the pears, put on low heat, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. While the mixture is heating, zest and juice the orange, and add the zest and juice to the saucepan. Heat until mixture simmers. Add all four pears, and simmer uncovered for 30-40 minutes. Remove pears from sauce. Serve warm.
And, my favorite new mixer stand:
