Sunday, August 26, 2007

Banana 'Bread', curried salad, and freshest produce . . .



Some time ago I made this wonderfully innovative Banana 'Bread' from my cyberfriend Erin's _Vegan Done Light_ e-cookbook (see his blog HERE). It's not made from flour of any kind and is not baked. Strange? Yeah - and goooooood!!! The secret lies in the main ingredient which IS cooked - yellow split peas! Now wait a minute - yellow split peas? For Banana Bread? Yup. Works miraculously, if you just follow the instructions and then chill, as
described, in the refrigerator. Here it is again below:



It's absolutely great for a quick lift at any time of day - really serious protein and fruit (the 'banana' part, right?) - and can, if you want to lightly toast the top of a slice under the grill or in a toaster oven, be spread with your favourite indulgence. Me, I love it just the way it comes and wolf it down with the aid of a fork - well, when I'm being polite, that is.

And now what I've been messing with in my kitchen when not indulging my sweet tooth -



Ever have one of those days when there's nothing much of anything but lots of little things that you want to eat but you don't know how to make it tasty? Lunch of that nature occurred recently. I wanted salad, but was out of fresh greens (shopping trip in the afternoon was called for). So I chopped a variety of vegetables, combined them with some leftover brown rice and some leftover couscous and flavoured the lot with some Indian spices, tossed in a chopped apple and a handful of raisins and had a nice lunch after all.


These days at the Farmers' Market (downtown Thursday and Saturday mornings only - and one has to get there early) there have been some wonderful heritage brandywine tomatoes. They look really like nothing you'd want to buy, ugly little suckers they are, but they are wonderful!



They don't ever turn completely red, but the green part is really red on the inside, as you can see. Sweet and juicy, they are fabulous for anything that calls for fresh tomatoes. We can't get enough of them. We especially like them in a raw tomato salsa that we use to dress our newly found brown rice spiral pasta. The recipe, using other tomatoes and a wholewheat penne, can be found HERE. I put lots and lots of these tomatoes in along with absolutely bushels of the basil which is so plentiful right now!



These are probably the last of the season's edamame. We love them just lightly steamed and then sprinkled with a few grains of salt at most, nibbled straight from the pod, as a first course for our main luncheon meal. Wonderful. Where have I been and what have I been doing most of my life not to have discovered these years and years ago! Sighhhhhhhh.

3 comments:

Sheree' said...

Some of the best lunches are when you clean out the fridge right before a shopping trip. I have learned never to go to the store hungry, unless you want to come home with more than you ever inteneded to buy. Thanks for stopping by my blog. That banana bread is intriging. Thanks for sharing.

Susan Voisin said...

I think you just convinced me to finally get around to ordering Erin's book. That banana bread idea is so creative!

River said...

Thanks, both of you, for not forgetting me - after my unconscienably long absence from this blog :( Yes, the banana bread IS intriguing - Erin really thinks outside the box! Hugs!!