Banana-Coconut Cream Pi

Happy belated Pi Day! We celebrated March 14 with a banana-coconut (banananut? cocoban?) pie. The pie combines two great flavors, with slices of bananas covered in a coconut custard, and then topped with whipped cream and toasted flaked coconut.  The recipe is here.

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Banana Cake with Pecans and Coffee Buttercream

This recipe, from Saveur, is delicious though a little different. The cake isn't super sweet, but the bananas and pecans take on a kind of caramelly flavor. The buttercream is, of course, rich; however, the coffee flavor really comes through, too.



Just a slice

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Spicy Banana Curry with Lobster and Shrimp

It's a rough world when you're looking to make a quick and tasty meal after a long week and you just happen to have lobster and shrimp waiting to be eaten. This dish is a further variation on a recipe from Fine Cooking: I used shrimp and lobster instead of halibut, twice as much curry paste plus a healthy dose of sriracha, and peanut butter in place of half the peanuts. Curry is super flexible, and there are endless variations. This one was delicious, and it was done by the time the rice was cooked.


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Shrimp with Banana Curry

This recipe is based on one in Fine Cooking. We didn't have the halibut called for, but shrimp worked perfectly. This is deceptively easy to make--and very impressive, too.

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Thanksgiving 2010

Happy Thanksgiving! Our table was very full and happy this year, with lots of family, friends and food. The main meal is pretty traditional, including roast turkey, Mom's famous stuffing, mountains of mashed potatoes, roasted butternut squash, and homemade cranberry-orange sauce. However, my focus was on making the desserts. We had four desserts this year--and sadly, now only slivers of these remain.

Cheddar-apple pie, with lots of cheddar cheese mixed into the crust

 

Salted caramel banana pudding tart

 

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

 

Pumpkin chiffon pie

Banana boat!

I made a banana boat the other day--a combination, in this case, of white chocolate chips, semisweet chips, and mini marshmallows in a partially sliced banana. I'd never even heard of one til that evening, but was intrigued. I removed every other slice of banana and then filled the spaces with the chips and marshmallows. The filled banana was then placed under the broiler for a few seconds--possibly one second too many in this case, though the banana turned black right off anyhow. Once it had cooled slightly, I passed the broiled black banana boat to one 12-year-old, who inhaled it once it happily.

I've had the Banana Boat song going through my head ever since.