We've All Gone Bananas!

Roasted banana with brown sugar walnut glaze

In the spirit of the return of the weekly food challenge, the boyfriend picked the magical ingredient: banana.  I could have done banana bread or banana walnut muffins, but I wanted to go beyond the standard banana fare of taste.  I also wanted to keep the dish light since it was also the night the boyfriend cooked.  He is known for at least one dish: pasta with pasta sauce.  Fortunately for me, and for him, he didn't cook his standard of when I'm out of town or before I moved into his life.

He prepared chicken with shredded carrot and mushroom served over mash potatoes.  Now before the carbohydrate police get onto me about the amount of carbohydrates the standard amount of mash potatoes, he put the remainder of the leftover low sodium vegetable broth from my experiment of broccoli cheddar soup (broccoli and spinach with minimal cheese, gluten free and vegetarian) instead of cream or milk.  See, we can be healthy when it comes to certain foods.  Especially now that I'm gone nearly every other week and my choices of "fresh food" come close to nil.

Anyways, for the banana.  I chose to do a roasted banana and roasted walnut brown sugar glaze dish.  The low amount of brown sugar was quickly masked by the amount of lemon juice and minimal butter coating the roasted walnuts.  The roasted banana also heightened the sweet taste factor, so if you were to do this recipe, make sure the bananas are ripe but not ripe enough to want to make banana bread or banana muffins ripe.  The banana should be firm not overly squishy since it has to hold up to 450 degrees for 5 minutes.

Farm Fresh to You: apples, pears, grapes, oranges, kiwi, pomegranates 

This week was also the first week our "Farm Fresh to You" delivery showed up to our door.  I picked out the smallest box, and since the delivery date doesn't come around until Wednesday, we opted for the fruit box.  I just didn't expect as many apples in the box.  Either way, about a 1/4 of the contents within the box is already gone.

My $9.99 do-it-yourself brew kit

What's also cool about this box is that there's a recipe within the box for one of the contained items in the box.  Maybe upon the next delivery, I'll try out the recipe and it can be part of the challenge of the week.  We shall see, what the boyfriend decides, because he's still the guinea pig in all of this.

On another note, the boyfriend took my parents and I to brunch last weekend.  Which was a nice "welcome home," and it also meant no dishes for either of us to do.  It takes a bit to get my parents to get out of the house during the 49ers football season, or at least my dad anyways.  We also had to meet the mom's friend's daughter later in the day in Oakland so we decided to make a day outing.  Between brunch and the bookstore, the boyfriend and I had to get back to the apartment to take care of the pups.  But before we headed back, we all hopped into Beverages and More.  I picked up a beer brewing kit.  Now before I have the anti-drinking wagon on me, hear me out a little.

I enjoy my beer and wine on occasion and my brother took up the hobby within his one bedroom apartment.  My brother-in-law and sister decided to open a hard cider brewery.  So perhaps it is in the blood.  Though my taste buds on beer isn't that refined compared to the boyfriend or the brother or the brother-in-law, so I refused to invest so into a kit when I'm not so sure if I had the gene or the blood to do it.  The average 6 pack of beer costs $8-9 USD, so I took that into consideration when buying the brewing kit.  The listing price was $42.  Absolutely RIDICULOUS if you ask me!  So I am happy to announce this Do-It-Yourself kit was only $9.99 for Beverages and More Club members!!!!

So, I figure, why not?  It will take 2 weeks to brew, and if I put it to set tomorrow (Friday), by the time I have to leave on Tuesday, it'll be ready to set.  Who knows, maybe by Thanksgiving we'll have our own IPA microbrew to present to the families...to be continued.