Posts Tagged ‘Banana’

A Sandwich Fit For The King

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

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It would have been Elvis’ birthday on Monday (8th Jan), so in honour of The King I knocked up this version of his his favourite grubs, the peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwich.

I first heard about his ’snack’ of choice some years ago whilst watching a documentary about his eating habits. He was a man with a legendary appetite, even persuading his cook to smuggle bag loads of hot dogs into the hospital where he was being treated for the kind of things that a bunch of dogs would really not have helped.

Based around the Fools Gold Loaf created by the Colorado Mine Company that Elvis famously traveled cross the country to get his hands on, there seem to be lots of different versions of this sandwich out there, but the one I recall from the doc is this one based around the four Bs. Baguette, Bacon, (peanut) Butter and Banana.

The King was known to wolf down piles of these in one sitting, but for those of us with a more moderate constitution, this recipe serves two. Oh, and I candied the bacon in maple syrup, as I figure he would have liked that.

Ingredients

1/2 a baguette

2 tbs smooth peanut butter

4 rashers of bacon

1 ripe banana, sliced

1 tbs maple syrup

Butter for frying

Method

First up, get your frying pan on the heat and drop in a large nob of butter. Once it’s sizzling, get your bacon in there. Elvis reputedly liked his bacon crisp, so give it plenty of time in the pan.

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Posts From The Road #2 – Put Some South In Your Mouth

Monday, October 10th, 2011

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We’re ‘enjoying’ some the South-East coast’s famous storm season weather, so you’re going to get to read another post.

From LA we flew to New Orleans. After seeing all the news about Katrina and subsequent storms and floods, I really didn’t know what to expect, but I’ve got to say we were really impressed. Aside from Bourbon Street which is a bit of an abomination, it’s really cool and interesting place, that literally sweats music and good times from ever pore. We arrived with a fist full of recommendations of places to go from my mate Graison who I met on the  SFBI course and who used to live there, so we set about munching our way through town.

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We had three really memorable meals in ‘The Big Easy’. The first was at Dante’s Kitchen. It kicked off in style with some stellar ’spoon’ bread, which is a kind of corn bread, and was absolutely delicious. So much so that I had to know what was in it, and the chefs kindly printed me out a recipe. This was followed by fantastic shrimp and grits and then ox tail. Small dishes, really nicely done. I’d go back in a shot.

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Bananas Ray Mears

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

For the un-initiated, Ray Mears is a legend. He’s a quietly authoritative survival and bush-craft expert, who’s brilliant TV shows have been running in the UK for years. He basically gets to live out every schoolboy’s fantasy of surviving in the great outdoors, whittling wood, foraging, and using a few of the hundred or so ways he knows how to start a fire in the wild.

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Anyways, I remember seeing an episode of one of his shows a while ago (I think it was the one where he met up with another survival legend, Les Hiddins aka The Bush Tucker Man) where he cooked foil wrapped bananas with cocoa powder in the dieing embers of his camp fire.

Hardly haute cuisine I think you’ll agree, but they looked tasty, so the next time I had a barbie I thought I’d give it a go, and they’ve been a fixture ever since. So I figured if some guy from New Orleans called Foster can have a banana dish named after him, why can’t our Ray?

These ones are a posher remix of Ray’s iron rations, using dark chocolate and a bit of booze, but I’d like to think the man himself would approve.

Ingredients (per person)

1 ripe banana

2 squares of dark chocolate

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Banana Bread

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

I’m not a big fan of the over ripe banana. I love them when they’ve just changed from green to yellow, but as soon as those dark brown spots appear on the skin, I’m over it. The flesh goes a bit cotton wooly, and I find them hard to eat.

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But thanks to my introduction to banana bread in Australia, those spotty old fruits finally have a use. This recipe uses four of the buggers, and a little kick of rum for background flavour.

Ingredients

4 medium sized ripe bananas (spotty with soft flesh)

250g plain white flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

250g golden caster sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

125g unsalted butter

2 eggs

2 tablespoons dark rum

Method

First up, set your oven set to 175 c and then grease a medium sized (19 x 11 cm) loaf tin with unsalted butter.

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Happy Pancake Day

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Photo by Cafe Darclee

Photo by Cafe Darclee

It’s Shrove Tuesday aka Pancake day. Traditionally a time to get rid of sugar, fat and eggs before fasting for Lent, it’s now a bit of a treat in the culinary calendar.

Pancakes are ridiculously easy and quick to prepare, and once you’ve got them made, you can stick pretty much anything you fancy in them.

This recipe employs the five 1s formula.

Ingredients

1 egg, preferably free-range or organic

1 cup of self-raising flour

1 cup of milk

1 pinch of salt

1 nob of butter (melted, around 20g)

Method

Whisk together the egg, flour and milk in a bowl, melt the butter in a pan and then beat into the mix removing any lumps.

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