Easy Banana Bread Pudding

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here are very few people who don’t like some kind of dessert and there are some who would happily have dessert for lunch or dinner if it’s something they really like. However too much of a good thing can be bad a lot of the time, especially when it comes to dessert!

So I’ve tried to create some sort of balance between the good and bad of desserts whereby we do have dessert often enough not to miss it and that’s a good thing, but not so often that that it becomes a bad thing, if you get where I’m going. The way I do this is by making dessert for our Sundays because it’s the one day that everyone is at home and has the time to enjoy not only breakfast, lunch and dinner but also dessert.
 

That doesn’t mean that we don’t have the occasional dessert on weekdays or that we have dessert every Sunday, and there are always exceptions to the rule. I also tend to make easy and simple desserts that focus on low fat and low added sugar while trying to incorporate as much seasonal fruit into them as I can.

Most weeks I plan what I’m making so I have the whole business well in hand. But every once in a while, it just happens that it is Saturday evening or Sunday morning and I’m still wondering what to make. Last Sunday morning found me in such a situation, and this time I had to plan a dessert around a couple of ingredients because I had a large loaf of sandwich bread and 4 very ripe bananas, that needed to be used up.

 

The most obvious thing to make was bread pudding which I’m not very fond of unless it is this one, and my daughter will do her best to avoid. However, we generally of the opinion that bananas can generally make quite a few desserts better, so bread and banana pudding it was to be.

This bread pudding requires no butter or oil (except 1 tsp to panfry the raisins and cashewnuts). Also the use of bananas means that one can cut down the sugar a bit, especially if you can find really sweet bananas.  It’s a recipe that’s so easy to put together, and you can make it early in the day and just warm it up before serving.
 

I used sandwich bread because that’s what I had, but if you have any leftover challah or brioche you should use that instead for a much better tasting bread pudding.
I used the sweet green variety of bananas that we get here called “Robusta”, which I believe is a cultivar of the Cavendish. So if you’re using smaller bananas, go with your intuition and use 4, 5 or 6 bananas instead.
You could also try flavouring your bread pudding with cardamom instead of vanilla for really nice bread pudding. Adding some chocolate chips would also be an interesting thing to do.

 

Serve this pudding warm with some unsweetened cream, vanilla custard or ice-cream.

Easy Banana Bread Pudding

 

Ingredients:

1 tsp butter + a little more for the baking dish

1/4 cup chopped cashewnuts

1/4 cup raisins

1 egg

1/2 cup sugar

 1 tsp vanilla extract

 1/4 tsp salt

2 1/4 cups milk

10 slices medium sized day old sandwich bread cut into 1 1/2" pieces

3 ripe bananas, sliced into 1” thick rounds

 

Method:

Heat the butter in a small pan and add the raisin. Over low to medium heat, pan-fry the raisins till they plump up. Remove them to a plate and add the cashewnuts. Pan-fry them till they turn a light golden and add them to the raisins with any butter that’s in the pan. Keep aside.

Whisk together the egg, vanilla, salt, the sugar and the milk, in a big bowl, until combined.  Add the bread cubes, bananas, raisins and cashewnuts and toss them gently so they’re well coated with the liquid. Do not let the bread break up or you will have a mushy pudding. 

Transfer the mixture to a buttered 11” by 7” baking dish and set aside for about 10 minutes so the bread absorbs the liquid. Gently stir the mixture once after about 5 minutes.

Bake at 170C (325F) for 30 to 45 minutes until the bread pudding is golden brown on top and a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean. Take the bread pudding out and let it cool for about 15 minutes before serving. Serve it warm as it is or with cream, vanilla custard or ice-cream.. This recipe serves 6.

 

This Banana Bread Pudding is being YeastSpotted!

 

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Leek, Potato and Carrot Soup / Potage Bonne Femme (The Good Woman’s Soup)!

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oups and I, we’re just not very good friends. At the worst, we tend to give each other a very wide berth, and the best we try to tolerate each other as best as we can. I like to think of myself as a reasonably good cook but when it comes to soups, I’m cannot say so with any confidence.

I’m really not a lover of soup and for some reason my experiences with soup making haven’t always been the best. In fact, my daughter will get a worried look on her face if I mention I’m making soup and will ask if there’s anything else she could have for dinner! That’s just in case my soup for the day does not turn out right.

 

However there are days when the stars are aligned just right and the “Soup Gods” up there smile favourably at me and there’s no way my soup could be anything but good and the hero of this post, my “Leek, Potato and Carrot Soup”, otherwise known as the “Potage Bonne Femme” is definitely one of them.

I made this sometime back when leeks were in season, and they were everywhere at my local market, pale and almost white with a growth of white beard/ moustache-like roots and one end, and almost fish tail-like arrangement of deep green leaves at the other. A sort of almost overgrown, spring onions-on-hormones sort of vegetable, I thought when they first made an appearance at the market a couple of years back.

 

Not being able to resist the green freshness of this vegetable, and then finding out that they weren’t expensive at all, unlike a lot of the more “exotic” variety if vegetable and fruit which keep tempting me on my market trips, I triumphantly took home a bunch of these leeks. Only to sit down and wonder what I was supposed to cook with them, since leeks are not a vegetable I grew up with.

I did remember seeing recipes for Leek and Potato Soup somewhere on the net, so I went hunting for it. After a little searching, I came across a version which included carrots. A little more digging and I found this was apparently a classic and traditional French country soup called the “Potage Bonne Femme” or “The Good Woman’s Soup” though some refer to it as the “Housewife’s Soup”!
Leave out the carrots and make a soup with just leeks and potatoes and you have a Potage Parmentier. Make a leek and potato soup enriched with cream and serve it chilled and you have a Vichyssoise.
 

I couldn’t find any information on why this soup was called a “Good Woman’s Soup”. Was it meant only for good women, or was it cooked only by good women or perhaps a good soup for women? If anyone knows I’d be glad to hear how this soup came about its name. I will however tell you that it is a soup that’s good not just for women, but also for men and children.

The beauty of this soup is in its simplicity and all it needs in terms of seasoning is salt and crushed black pepper, but I couldn’t resist adding a little powdered cumin which I felt was just perfect. Creamy, thick and filling yet light, a Potage Bonne Femme is typically served with a simple parsley garnish.

 And just one more thing; I’ve never grown leeks but I understand that leeks can be very dirty and require a bit of meticulous cleaning. I say I “understand” because for some reason, the leeks I get my local market are always extremely clean.

Apparently, leeks are grown such that a large part of the lower part is under the soil so that the part of it under the soil is paler in colour and very tender. This means that the soil tends to get into every bit of the leek that it can. Check this article for tips on how to clean leeks without too much of an effort.

Leek, Potato and Carrot Soup / Potage Bonne Femme

 

Ingredients:

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp olive oil

2 leeks

1 onion, chopped

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp salt

3 cups water

1 cup milk (or water if you prefer)

4 medium to large sized potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 medium sized carrots, peeled and sliced

Freshly crushed black pepper, to taste

More salt, if needed, to taste

 

 Method:

Trim the roots and the top part of the leaves of the leeks.  Make sure the leeks are washed well, as they can have dirt inside. Chop them up.

In a largish pan, heat the butter and oil together. This gives you the flavour of butter without it burning. Add the onions and sauté them till they turn soft and translucent. Add the leeks and sauté till they turn soft.

Add the potatoes and carrots and sauté for a couple of minutes and then add the chilli and cumin powders. Stir in for about a minute and then add the water and 1 tsp of salt. Bring to a boil, and then turn down the heat. Cover the pan and let it simmer until the potatoes and carrots are cooked well. This should take about 15 to 20 minutes.

Turn off the heat and let it cool a bit. The transfer in two batches to your blender and purée it till smooth. If you are not serving the soup right away, you can refrigerate the soup. This soup will keep refrigerated for a couple of days, but do not add the milk to it if you’re planning to refrigerate it.

Otherwise, return the soup back to the pan and put it back on the stove top. Re-heat gently (do not boil) and add the milk or water (as much of the 1 cup you need, or all of it) to thin the soup to desired consistency and season with a little more salt and crushed pepper according to taste. This is a thick and creamy soup.

Serve hot garnished with cream (or grated cheese), parsley or chives, and bread on the side. This recipe serves 3 to 4.

Custard Apple (Ramphal) Fool With Ginger-Lemongrass Syrup and Mangoes & The Winners Of The Basilur Tea Giveaway……

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or a very long time, I knew the “Sitaphal” was Custard Apple because that’s what we call the fruit in India. That was until I discovered that the rest of the world it Sugar Apple (Annona squamosa) and not Custard Apple!

So then what is the real Custard Apple? It turns out that we have that in India too, and it’s known as “Ramphal”! This one also belongs to the Annona family of fruits (Annona reticulata) and also known in various other parts of the world as wild-sweetsop, bull's heart, etc. There’s also yet another variety of the Annona family that’s native to Latin America (Annona cherimola) which is known as the Cherimola or Cherimoya.

As a child, I had only seen the “usurper” Custard Apple (Sitaphal), but the last couple of years I have been seeing the “real” Custard Apple (Ramphal) at muy local market.

For those of you who are still confused between the two like I was, Sitaphal is green in colour and has a bumpy exterior while the Ramphal is brown or yellowish, sometimes with red highlights and comparatively smoother on the outside.
Sitaphal tends to be rounder/ squatter, apple-like in shape while Ramphal tends to be more“heart” shaped which probably gives it the “bull’s heart” moniker.
 

There are slight differences on the inside too. Sitaphal tends to have individual small lobules of seed enclosed flesh clumped together in the fruit while Ramphal is just a fleshy mass and fewer seeds. While both are soft and custardy in texture and taste, I personally find the Sitaphal tastier but the Ramphal is easier to convert to pulp as it has less seeds.

Of course, both fruits tend to appear at the market around the same time of the year, and are best eaten scooped out as they are, fresh and chilled. However, there are always ways to turn them into desserts where they still shine through. The Custard Apple (the real one and the usurper) is excellent to use as fruit mousse or in similar preparations given their naturally custard like property.
 

I decided to make mine into “Fool” and serve that with a lemongrass-ginger syrup and fresh mangoes for a light summertime dessert. Add some crushed cookies and you have a perfect dessert.

Custard Apple (Ramphal) Fool With Ginger-Lemongrass Syrup and Mangoes

 

Ingredients: 

For the fool:

2 large Custard Apples

200ml chilled cream (25% fat) 

For the syrup:

1 1/2" piece of fresh ginger

1 stick of fresh lemongrass

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup water

1 tbsp fresh lime juice

zest from 1 lime

2 mangoes (cubed) and some crushed gingernut cookies, to serve

 

Method:

First make the syrup.

Peel and slice the ginger into thin pieces. Crush the lemongrass with the handle of your knife and then cut into pieces. Put the sugar and the water in a pan and over medium heat, stir it till the sugar dissolves. Then bring it to a boil, turn down the heat and add the ginger, lemongrass and lemon zest.

Let this simmer for about 8 to 10 minutes, till it reduces a little and thickens slightly into a syrup. Stir in the lemon juice, bring to a boil and take the pan off the heat.

Let the syrup cool completely. Strain out the solids and refrigerate till required.

To make the Fool, cut the Custard Apples and scoop out the flesh. Press through a sieve to remove the seeds. In a bowl, whip the chilled cream till stiff. I didn’t add any sugar because my Custard Apple pulp was sweet enough and the ginger-lemongrass syrup would add more sweetness later. But you can add fine sugar to the cream while whipping it, if you desire. Gently, fold in the Custard Apple pulp till blended.

To serve, divide the chopped mangoes between four glasses, keeping aside a little for garnishing. Pour in a couple of tablespoons of the ginger-lemongrass syrup into each glass, over the mangoes.

Now divide the Custard Apple Fool between the four glasses. Crumble gingernut cookies over this and top with the reserved mango pieces. Serve with more syrup on the side.

This recipe serves 4.

And its time to announce the winners of the Basilur Tea Giveaway. My sincere apologies for taking so long to do this, so I won’t take any longer to do this. The three lucky winners of a pack of Basilur Tea each are Shailaja, Divya Shivaraman and Prerna Sinha. Congratulations, and hope you enjoy your little gift of exotic tea.

Please e-mail me your mailing addresses within this week. If I don’t hear from you in this time, I will have to pick a new set of winners for the tea.

Update (15th May, 2013) : Since Ms. Prerna Sinha did not respond with her address, I have now randomly chosen another winner for the Basilur Tea giveaway. Congratulations Archana Gunjikar Potdar.
Do let me know where I can send you your gift.