I love the fall.  The weather here has been beautiful. Cool and windy and not a lot of rain. The colors are incredible! Here are a couple things coming out of the kitchen right now. I accidentally put the oven on broil  instead of bake! Grrrr……But the bread flipped over looked and tasted great.

Baked kurbis (pumpkin) and banana bread

Here’s the inspiration for the pumpkin soup (lactose free)

Pumpkin soup with coconut milk

• one small baked pumpkin (salt,pepper & a little olive oil)
• carmelized onions
• 1 can coconut milk
• approx 2 cups chicken stock/broth
• green thai curry
• fish sauce
• fresh lime
• roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds with a dash of tamari.

Just go for it and make it taste good to you!

As for the banana bread. The recipe is from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a Domestic Goddess. But no raisins. Bleck. Read below for recipe.  I like this banana bread even more the next day. It’s so moist, but I still love to slather it with butter or cream cheese. Hmmm…. how many weight watcher points would that be?

• • 175g plain flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 125g unsalted butter, melted
  • 150g sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 4 small, very ripe bananas (about 300g weighed without skin), mashed
  • 60g chopped walnuts
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 23 x 13 x 7cm loaf tin, buttered and floured or with a paper insert

  METHOD

  Serves: Makes 8-10 slices

  1. Put the sultanas and rum or bourbon in a smallish saucepan and bring to the boil.
  2. Remove from the heat, cover and leave for an hour if you can, or until the sultanas have absorbed most of the liquid, then drain.
  3. Preheat the oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3 and get started on the rest. Put the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a medium-sized bowl and, using your hands or a wooden spoon, combine well.
  4. In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. Then, with your wooden spoon, stir in the walnuts, drained sultanas and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each bit. Scrape into the loaf tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 1-11/4 hours. When it’s ready, an inserted toothpick or fine skewer should come out cleanish. Leave in the tin on a rack to cool, and eat thickly or thinly sliced, as you prefer.

And last but not least is our Henry also loving fall……before it turned to winter last night! We just had our first hard frost.

• 

  Sir Henry rolls