This recipe for anchovy and herb salad crostini comes from Donna Hay Magazine (issue 59).  It’s super easy to prepare and tastes so delicious.  You can serve it as a snack or appetizer, or even a light lunch I suppose.

I had to make one substitution with the recipe; the anchovies were supposed to be “white anchovies”, but I couldn’t find any so I used the regular anchovies that you buy in a tin.  I’m not sure what the taste difference is, but I can say the regular anchovies tasted just fine!

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On a totally separate note, about the same time I was making this crostini, my daughter and I had a little craft session in which we made treasure maps.  This doesn’t have anything to do with food, although you do need coffee to make the maps; I thought the idea was so neat that I’d share it here as well.

Instructions are simple.  Take a sheet of plain white paper and rip the edges off (don’t use scissors, just rip it with your fingers), then crumple up the paper tightly into a ball.  Unroll the paper to make it flat again.  There are apparently a few different ways to do this, but this is what we did.  Fill a shallow baking tray (one that the paper will lay flat in) with water (do this next to the sink).  Dip the paper into the water to soak it completely.  Tip the tray into the sink to pour out most of the water.  Now pour spoonfuls of instant coffee in an even layer onto the paper.  To make darker spots or darker edges, pile on more coffee.  Leave this for a few minutes, then pour some water into the tray again and use your fingers to completely wash off the coffee.  Pour the water out again and lay the tray with the paper in it in the sun to dry.  Turn the paper over if necessary.  When it’s completely dry (the paper will smell strongly of coffee for a while, but it eventually fades into a light smell), draw your map  The above is our one.  It looks pretty neat, don’t you think?

When I saw this recipe, which comes from an issue of delicious. magazine from April 2010, I first noticed how easy and fresh it is.  The combination of flavors really intrigued me as well.

This simple little Aussie cafe breakfast classic is so quick to make that you could have it for breakfast before work or school.  Or if you don’t work or go to school, then it makes a great brunch.  It’s so fresh and delicious, you’ll love it!

The original recipe serves 4, but I splurged and gave myself 2 slices of toast instead of just 1!  It’s a versatile recipe in that you don’t really need exact amounts – just add the ingredients to suit your tastes.

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While outside, I wandered about and ended up standing outside of our neighbor’s house.  Our neighbor, who was a lovely, generous lady, had passed away some time earlier and her son was then living there on his own.  Every other weekend or so, his 3 sons would come to stay with him.  His sons were there on this particular day, and as I hadn’t seen them in a while (we used to play together all the time as children), I thought I’d just quickly stop in to say hi.

The visit with these guys didn’t end up being so quick… we played some Nintendo (I believe it might have been Nintendo 64) – Super Mario Kart – and chatted a bit about what we were up to these days.  They had planned on going to see the movie In & Out that night and invited me to come with them.  I called my mom from their house and she said it was fine if I wanted to go with them.  I was relieved I wouldn’t have to pretend to be all cheerful and polite with my mom’s friends!

It ended up that night, before the movie, that one of those 3 sons, Jimmy, the oldest who was my age and who had seemingly had a crush on me for years when we were children, asked me if I wanted to go out with him.  He had a bit of help and encouragement from his dad though, because like me, he was dreadfully shy.  We sat next to each other at the movie, but can you believe we didn’t say a word to each other, or hold hands, or anything that might show that we were newly dating?  I’m sure it was on both of our minds, we were just too shy to act on our feelings.

Once back at home, I said goodbye to the rest of the boys and Jimmy walked me home (our house was just next door) like he always to do when we were children.  We just simply said goodbye when we got to my house, then he walked back home.  I was elated though, walking in the door of my house.  My mom’s friends were gone by then, thank goodness, and I had a tiny piece of leftover cake while I was checking my email.  I had so many butterflies in my stomach from that night that I couldn’t even eat all of the cake.

Despite how happy I had ended up that night, it is now one of the biggest regrets of my life…..

Because I had always had a crush on Jimmy too.  The reason I went to my neighbor’s house that night was to ask out Jimmy myself.  But it didn’t work out perfectly, with Jimmy’s dad basically doing all the work!  How embarrassing!  That’s not why I regret that night though.  The reason I regret it is that that night was the last time I was at their house and the last time I spoke to Jimmy.  I saw him and his brothers while driving past their house every once in a while.  Maybe I did talk to him or his brothers again, briefly, but if I did, I don’t remember doing so.  I didn’t know his phone number at his other house where he lived with his mom, so I couldn’t call him; the phone book didn’t help because he has the second most common last name in the US, so I didn’t know which of the listings in the phone book was his mom’s.

I regret it because if I felt so strongly for him, I should have done something about it to let him know that I really was interested in keeping him as a boyfriend.  And I didn’t do anything at all to let him know that.

Who knows if my life would have been different had Jimmy and I dated.  Or maybe it was supposed to have happened that way, if you believe in that sort of thing.  I’ve spent the last 5 years or so searching for Jimmy and his brothers.  On the very day before we left the US in November 2009, I finally found out where their dad was working and I called him at his work.  It was great to speak to him again, and to hear that his two younger sons had married and had children of their own.  But the news he told me about Jimmy was not what I wanted to hear.  He told me that Jimmy had been in a car accident and his back was broken, leaving him “completely disabled”.  I was speechless and in shock.  How horrible.  I couldn’t even ask anything more about Jimmy, about whether he was doing okay, or if he has children; all that I wanted to ask about Jimmy had been forgotten in a single moment.  Minutes later, after the phone conversation with Jimmy’s dad, it began to really sink in.  It’s hard to believe that someone I had so much fun with as children, someone who I had struggled to ask out on a particular night, was now paralyzed.  I can only hope now that he has someone close to him who is looking out for him and helping him.

This is the story that comes to my mind every time I ask someone to come over for morning tea, or lunch, or afternoon tea.  Can you believe that?  I wish the story had ended on a happier note, and not only for your benefit, but for mine and Jimmy’s as well.

I want to put that aside for now though, because I’d like to introduce to you a perfect treat for morning or afternoon tea when you are entertaining guests.  This recipe for banana bread with honeyed ricotta comes from Issue #3 of MasterChef Australia magazine and is a masterpiece from Curtis Stone.  I’m not a huge fan of Curtis Stone’s, but this particular recipe has made me change my mind about him.

The recipe yields a very odd-sized loaf of bread – 8cm x 11cm x 30cm (3-inches x 4-inches x 12-inches).  It was so odd, in fact, that I had to just use an 8-inch x 8-inch square cake tin with high sides because I couldn’t find such an odd-sized loaf pan anywhere.  The preparation method for this banana bread is slightly different that most quick bread recipes, and I encourage you to have a read over the recipe below.  The end result is fantastic.  The bread/cake from my cake tin was moist and baked perfectly (it sunk in the middle slightly, but it was still baked through).  Its appearance was beautiful and rustic, with walnuts scattered on top of the golden brown bread.  It tasted amazing on its own…

But drizzle some warm honey on top of a slice of the bread and spread on a dollop of honeyed ricotta – it is perfect.  Never in my life would I have thought to spread ricotta on a piece of banana bread.  The addition of honey sweetens the ricotta, and a sprinkling of cinnamon warms it up.  It is a perfect pairing of flavors.  I will never eat banana bread any other way again.

Serve this banana bread with warm honey and honeyed ricotta, along with a cup of tea (I enjoyed Earl Gray with mine), and you’ll have guests knocking on your door, begging you to let them in for afternoon tea.  It is just that amazing.

Banana Bread With Honeyed Ricotta
Adapted from Curtis Stone, MasterChef Australia magazine, Issue 3
Makes 1 8cm x 11cm x 30cm loaf
Serves 8, approximately

Ingredients
250g (1 2/3 cups) self-raising flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided
2 large eggs
275g (1 1/4 cups) caster sugar
125ml (1/2 cup) vegetable oil
3 overripe bananas, mashed (1 1/2 cups)
2 tablespoons Greek-style yogurt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
150g (1 1/2 cups) walnuts, roasted, halved
150g ricotta
180g (1/2 cup) honey, divided

Method
Preheat oven to 150C. Grease and line the base and sides of an 8cm x 11cm x 30cm (6-cup) loaf pan with baking paper. Sift flour, bicarbonate of soda, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon salt into a bowl.

Using an electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar on high speed until thick and pale. Reduce speed to low-medium and gradually add oil in a thin, steady stream. Add bananas, yogurt and vanilla, and beat until well combined. Add flour mixture and three-quarters of the walnuts and stir until combined. Pour batter into prepared pan and scatter with remaining walnuts. Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes in pan, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, combine ricotta and 2 tablespoons of the honey in a bowl. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon. Place remaining 4 tablespoons honey in a small pan and warm slightly.

To serve, drizzle banana bread with warm honey. Thickly slice and serve with honeyed ricotta.

I’m not sure how I found this recipe, it may have been FoodGawker or TasteSpotting, but as soon as I found it, I bookmarked it.  The photos from Food o’ del Mundo look fantastic, like the perfect banana bread.

The bread is spotted with chocolate chips, which isn’t much of a surprise, but it also includes the addition of crystallized ginger, which definitely surprised me!  I had never had crystallized ginger before so I made this recipe a high-priority.

And it is definitely delicious, I think.  The ginger keeps this bread interesting.  I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not, actually.  I definitely did not like the crystallized ginger by itself, but it did taste okay in the bread.  I probably would not choose to add crystallized ginger to banana bread again, however.  For a different sort of taste experience though, this bread is definitely a winner.

For our second quick bread, let’s go with coconut bread, from Almost Bourdain.  I probably found this recipe on FoodGawker or TasteSpotting as well, but can’t be for sure.  All I knew about it was that it look fabulous and moist and that I had to make it.

In fact, it was so delicious that this was the only photo I could manage to take of it.  That’s a dessert cookbook in the background, in case you were wondering.  This coconut bread tasted amazing with a cup of coffee.  It is now officially my new favorite quick bread – move over, banana bread!

For this coconut bread, I did not follow the recipe word-for-word.  First, I decided to use 150ml skim milk, and 150ml coconut milk, instead of “300ml milk”.  Next, I used 2 cups of all-purpose flour, but used 1/2 cup of almond meal to make up the “2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour”.  For the shredded coconut, I had to use some desiccated coconut that I had leftover in the pantry, because I didn’t have quite enough shredded coconut.  I also did not use the butter or icing sugar that the original recipe suggested for serving.

My bread baked up beautiful and moist, I absolutely loved it and will definitely be making this one again.

What’s your favorite quick bread?

Sources
Banana bread with chocolate chips and crystallized ginger: Food o’ del Mundo
Jamaican coconut bread: Almost Bourdain

Three weeks ago, I faced my fear of making macarons, so I felt brave enough to take on the yeast challenge.  I couldn’t find the best recipe, so a friend recommended the basic bread recipe from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. She sent me a link to a video of the authors of this book making the basic recipe and I basically made my decision right then to make it.

It was so easy, I was nearly laughing at myself for having never done this before.  Of course I realize that this is a no-knead bread and other types of bread may be a bit more difficult, but this particular recipe is a great introduction to those who may be a little timid around yeast because it is so laughably easy.

To sum up the recipe, you mix 3 cups of lukewarm water, 1 1/2 tablespoons of yeast and 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt.  Then add 6 1/2 cups of all purpose flour and use a wooden spoon to mix until the ingredients are uniformly combined, without over-mixing.  Cover with a lid (with a small gap), let rise for 2 hours, then either use it straight away, or put it in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.  I made baseball-sized rolls with my bread, but you can make one big loaf with it, or even a pizza crust.  I found the actual recipe typed up at Gardens By The Lake, where instructions are listed for making a pizza crust.

My oven is a little strange.  Maybe it’s because it’s fan-forced.  It rarely turns anything golden brown; I once stuck a slice of bread in there to toast it and it never got a single hint of brown, but it did become harder than a brick.  My homemade bread got a little golden brown here and there, but mainly the crust stayed pale.  I wanted it to turn golden brown, but I didn’t want to over-bake the bread.

As it turned out, the bread is slightly more firm than what I like, as I like really soft bread with a crunchy crust, but I was so proud that I baked with yeast for the first time and I did think it was actually quite nice.  My husband really liked it as well.

I have plenty of yeast leftover and I bought an extra bag of flour, and I think I may bake a single large loaf today.  I may even buy the Artisan Bread book!  I completely recommend that if you have not yet baked your own bread, but would like to, use this recipe immediately!  Baking your own bread is so satisfying, and you have to admit, there isn’t any bread that’s quite like fresh-baked bread!

Now, to hunt down a great recipe for real cinnamon rolls!

While in France I did find some, and purchased it to bring home.  The funny thing is, after I tasted it, I didn’t like it!  I also thought it was strange to put chocolate on bread.  So I don’t think I even finished the small jar of it that I had brought home.

Years later, and I do mean years later, after I moved to Australia, I noticed that Nutella was plentiful in all the grocery stores.  I decided to try it again, because it sure did look nice, so maybe my tastes had changed over the years.  Luckily for my tastebuds, I loved it!  Unlucky for my waistline, however!  Nutella has nearly been a staple in our household since then.

I’ve tried plenty of my own Nutella creations in the past, including my popular peanut butter and Nutella swirl cookies, and Nutella-coffee frosting.

This is my second year submitting to World Nutella Day; this year I made a variation of the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.

It’s a fried Nutella and banana sandwich with a cinnamon-sugar crust.  This has already had mixed reactions.  Some love the idea, some hate the idea and think it’s disgusting.  Someone even suggested that instead of frying the bread, to toast it in the toaster.

If I’m going to eat a banana with Nutella, I usually just spread a layer of Nutella on a naked banana, slice it into rounds, then eat it.  I’ve even eaten a plain un-fried Nutella and banana sandwich.  But, as I thought with the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, the extra step of frying it brings a new depth to the taste.

Now, I wouldn’t go and make one of these sandwiches every day, but it does make a nice treat once in a while!

The recipe is below, but please note that I just estimated the amounts of what I used.  This is a recipe where you can use however much (or less) of anything that you like!

Nutella & Banana Sandwich With Cinnamon-Sugar Crust
serves 1

Ingredients
2 slices wholemeal bread, or bread of your choice
Approximately 1/2 teaspoon butter
Cinnamon-sugar, you can buy this at the store or make it yourself
1 ripe banana
Approximately 1 tablespoon Nutella, or similar

Directions
Heat a skillet over low-medium heat.  Meanwhile,  spread a thin layer of butter on one side of each slice of bread.  Sprinkle a good amount of cinnamon-sugar on the buttered side of each slice.

Slice the banana into enough rounds so that you can layer the unbuttered side of one slice of bread with the rounds.  Spread Nutella on the unbuttered side of the other slice of bread.

Carefully place the bread with the bananas, buttered side down, into the skillet.  Immediately place the other slice of bread, Nutella side down, right on top of the bananas.

Fry until golden brown, then flip the sandwich over and fry until golden brown.  Keep your eye on it, it can burn easily!

Let cool, slice diagonally if you like, and enjoy!

So what are you waiting for? Go celebrate World Nutella Day!

See Ms Adventures In Italy, Bleeding Espresso and World Nutella Day for more information.

The original recipe asked for pecans, but I used walnuts instead.  What I really did like about this recipe is that it uses cream cheese.  It is creamed along with the butter and sugar, so it is thoroughly incorporated through the batter.

The texture is absolutely perfect and so moist!  It almost mimics the taste of those yummy Otis Spunkmeyer muffins that I love.

These muffins were fantastic for breakfast and were so filling that I told my mom that this might be my only banana bread recipe!

Special Banana Nut Bread
Adapted from Taste of Home
Makes 1 loaf, 6 jumbo muffins or 12 regular muffins

Ingredients
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts, divided

Method
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add egg, beating well.  Beat in bananas and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture.  Fold in 1/2 cup walnuts.

Transfer to a greased 8x4x2-inch loaf pan or greased muffin tin.  Sprinkle with remaining walnuts.  Bake at 350F for 1 to 1 1/4 hours for a loaf, 30 minutes for jumbo muffins or 20-22 minutes for regular muffins, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

A friend of mine recently baked a loaf of zucchini bread which did not turn out as she had planned, so I decided to try the recipe that I had bookmarked a few weeks ago from Made By Melissa, thinking I could recommend the recipe to my friend.  I chose this recipe because of the use of ginger – I just love the taste of ginger!

Melissa’s recipe makes 2 8×4-inch loaves; I decided to make 1 loaf and use the rest of the batter for muffins (more kid-friendly, I thought).  I had just enough batter to make exactly 12 muffins.

I was totally blown away by this zucchini bread.  As I said, I had never eaten zucchini bread before, and didn’t know what to expect.  It is possibly the moistest bread I’ve ever eaten, and while it might have had a slight taste of zucchini, it tasted mostly of cinnamon and ginger.  It was absolutely delicious.

I will definitely be making this recipe again!  I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to bake zucchini bread.  My next venture with zucchini might include chocolate zucchini cupcakes – the zucchini made the bread so moist, and I would love to see if it has the same effect on chocolate cake.

The recipe I used comes from Simply Recipes (but left out the walnuts).  After tasting the pumpkin bread today and trying to compare it to what I remember from 3 years ago, it doesn’t seem to be quite as tasty as it was back then.  I used a butternut squash instead of pumpkin – I boiled chunks of the squash, peeled off the skin and pureed the squash in a blender.  Today I used a canned pureed pumpkin.  This is the only difference.  Maybe the squash made the difference, and/or the fact that it was fresh.

It is still a nice bread, however, and I would recommend it if you’d like a change from the usual banana bread.  It’s almost like a bread version of pumpkin pie, but not quite, and it is really moist.  Also tastes nice with coffee.  :)

I love all the ingredients in this bread – especially the combination of chocolate and cinnamon.  The sugar blend on the top is fabulous as well – it’s a mix of sugar, cinnamon, cocoa powder, cloves and ginger.

In my opinion, there was too much of the sugar blend for just the top of the bread – if I was doing this again, I would have made the sugar blend first and coated the inside of the loaf pan with it, using leftovers for the top of the bread.

I used a silicone loaf pan for this bread, but I would highly recommended a normal metal or glass loaf pan.  The silicone isn’t strong enough to support the loaf as it’s rising – it ended up with big bulging sides!

And most of the sugar blend fell off when I took it out of the loaf pan.  I sprinkled as much as I could back onto the bread.

Now, I don’t understand why this is called a “bread” – it most certainly does not have the texture of a normal bread, barely even banana bread.  The chocolate cinnamon bread is super moist, and has a crunchy top.

The chocolate taste is super strong, with a hint of spice.  A slice of this loaf goes a long way, so while Starbucks may serve you a slice that is nearly 2-inches thick, I’m recommending to slice it a bit thinner (unless you’re really hungry!).  It tastes amazing with a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

I think this bread, which I personally think is more like cake, would look very nice baked in mini loaf pans, or even muffin pans.  The top of the bread remains flat, so don’t expect to get a nice dome out of this.

Sorry for all the photos, but I thought the bread looked very photogenic!  :)