Saturday, June 6, 2020

Variations on a theme of banana bread

I needed a quick bread type thing for breakfast tomorrow and for son's visit later with groceries.



This is an experiment using newly ground steelcut oat flour, no other flour. It came out pretty well. As you see, good crumb.

And it's really breakfast food, oats, bananas, raisins, few bits of chocolate to adapt to afternoon tea purposes. Anyway, that's my story.

Steelcut oats are the whole grain, better whole food than the processed oatmeal. 

I made a smoothie earlier: plain yogurt, one banana, handful of frozen strawberries. It was definitely worth repeating. 

And a bowl of rigatoni, with that lemon balm pesto, good, worth repeating.

Finding good things in a desperate time.

15 comments:

  1. I'm impressed that it holds together so well. We live on smoothies like yours on hot days, though we usually use a frozen banana as well as frozen berries.

    There is still joy in this world, despite all. Chop wood, carry water, as a wise person has told us more than once.

    Chris from Boise

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    1. Yes, the surprise to me was that it worked. I wonder if it's the steel cut that makes the difference. I'm not sure regular oatmeal would hold up.

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  2. We've made the switch to steelcut oats for making breakfast. Resident Chef makes it in our rice cooker and then refrigerates it and dips enough out each morning and re-heats it. Adds raisins and dried cranberries and some cinnamon to the concoction too. Haven't tried it as flour as yet.

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    1. If he starts grinding his own flours, let us know. You can make flour from a range of pulse foods as well as grains. It's interesting to try them out.

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  3. I have felt my culinary skills increase with need. I love that.

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    1. The pressure of need can unleash all kinds of ideas!

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  4. It can be hard to find good these days. Such a rapidly changing world we are living in...

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    1. One of the hard parts to face is how much better some of us have routinely had it than others. And how we have unknowingly profited from other people's misery.

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  5. that looks like elegant bread, for sure. That looks like it might even take a bit of ginger, too, a kind of faux gingerbread...

    Now that warmer weather is here I no longer have the use of the woodstove for baking, but during the last cold snap I decided it was time to try out the sourdough I've been nursemaiding for a month or so. One disastrous first batch, but the second one I just used about a half cup of starter along with one T of store yeast and that made all the difference.
    Nuttier flavored, and a bit coarser, which is perfect for toast if tricky for sandwiches.

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  6. I just made oat flour the other day for crackers from organic steel cut oats that I got at Walmart of all places. They are getting really good about carrying organic. That bread looks delicious! Lemon balm pesto sounds really good also! Now I'm hungry!

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  7. I'd bake more but the husband is 20 - 30 pounds overweight and has no self control when desserts are around.

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    1. But if there's bananas and oats it's breakfast!

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