Bake Date: Magical (Vegan) Mango Banana Bread

 

Enough with the traveling -- let's just schmooze in the kitchen for a change (though we've still got trips to the USA, Baltic Sea, and Italy on the list, not to mention home sweet Hamburg).

Warm, spicy, fruity, with the perfect degree of mush to make your heart sing and hips start swaying like a palm tree in the breeze. During one of the last theater spurts I played with this recipe every weekend for four weeks straight. Somehow it never lasted more than a day. Pulled it out again lastnight, brought the product to work this morning and it was gone by 10 a.m., slurpiddy slurp.

What you need:

3 medium or 2 large ripe bananas
1/4 cup applesauce
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2  teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 ripe mango, sliced into wee chunks

(Tasty variations: chopped walnuts and chocolate chips; chopped dried apricots, ½ inch grated fresh ginger and finely chopped candied ginger…)

Oventemp: 350°F (175°C) ((450°K))
Makes: 1 heavy 9x5" loaf.
Musik: Anything presented by Putumayo based in the southern hemisphere, such as "Brazilian Groove".

Preheat oven. Lightly fatten and flour your pan.
Now ask yourself: Self? Is your mango already sliced and chopped into spectacular orangeyellow chunks? Answer YES, congrats, you may proceed. Answer NO, do that, then move along.

In a large mixing bowl, moosh the bananas well. Add the Brown sugar, applesauce/oil, and vanilla extract, and forkforkfork that in a spinning forknado of sweet integration. Mix in spices and salt, then baking soda. Now thicken with half the flour, fold in mango chunks, and grand finish with the remaining flour.

Goop the batter to the flowery pan and, if using, sprinkle with extra candied ginger/schoko/nuts/sugar grains. Bake in your preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes. The top should be lightly browned and a knife inserted through the center should come out clean, or with just a few sticky crumblies. Don't underbake this one, as it's already going to be sticky and mooshing with yumness when it's for-real baked.

Remove from the oven without burning yourself and let cool for at least 20 minutes before transferring onto a wire rack to cool completely. Try to depan it too soon and your product will look like a failure. Delicious warm. Delicious cold. Any way you slice it (or spoon it, as will more likely be the case).

Breakfast Date: Banana Nut Muesli Concoction

I can't stop consuming this deliciousness. While eating my fifth (sixth? seventh?) bowl of this beautiful glop, I figured I might as well share it with the breakfast-loving people of the world. Thus commenceth The Recipe Posts. (I figure that even if no one cares to try them out, it at least gives me an excuse to take moodily lit photos of food. And then look at them. Yum.) Listen up!

What you need:

• plain yogurt
• honey
• half of a ripe banana
• your favorite crunchy granola
• pecans, walnuts, nuts of choice
• fresh dates (or a hot date)
• milk
• modify at will

 Musik: something gentle & joyful, preferably with good harmonies

This adventure begins with a mighty dollop of yogurt in your favorite breakfast bowl, mightiness dependent upon size of bowl and appetite. I use about half a cup.  Dazzle your yogurt with a drizzle of honey (make sure to create a cool design) according to your sweetness preference, then stir it all together and give it a quick lick. It's best if you leave it a bit too sour because you're about to surprise it with a whole lot more sweet. Go bananas briefly while quartering your banana half and then slice the chunks into the mix. Make sure: a.) your banana is soft and sweet and not green, and b.) the chunks make a pleasant "plop" sound when they hit the yogurt. No(n/m)chalantly add a layer of granola. (I use about a third of a cup. ...Interesting how "I use about third a cup" doesn't work here. Hm.) Now we go nutty! But not too nutty, mind. Break up a few walnuts and pecans or whatever, no more than three each for my bowl, and scatter them artistically on the breakfast pile. (I shouldn't need to say this, but just in case, don't use salted/otherwise flavored ((ie. wasabi)) nuts!) Carefully chop one or two of your fresh dates into little pieces (do stop if they start to protest) and lay the pieces dotingly on top of Mount Muesli, making sure they don't stick together. Finally, top it off with a tablespoon or two of milk (not too much or you get runny muesli soup!) and mix it all together into a thick, chunky breakfast stew. Do that cool trick with the spoon.

(Dirty little secret: This deliciouses at all times of day and night. Try it as an evening snack!)

Guten Appetit!