Mendolonium

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 large very ripe soft darkly speckled bananas
• 1/4 cup plain yogurt
• 2 large eggs
• 6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Line a muffin pan with paper muffin cups or grease lightly.
3. Combine first five ingredients together in large bowl; set aside.
4. Mix  bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter, and vanilla with a mixer until relatively well combined.
5. Mix the dry ingredients from step 3 into the wet ingredients until combined.  Note that batter should look thick and chunky.
6. Fill muffin cups approximately 2/3 full with batter.
7. Bake until tops of muffins are golden brown and center of the muffin springs back when pressed lightly.

Do you have a list of things you want to do in life?  A couple of years ago I actually wrote a list.  Having a third baby was on the list; mission accomplished!  Becoming more politically active was on the list; working on it.  A weekend away with my mom and my sister is on the list too; that one will have to wait awhile yet  The list has Paris on it (literally) as well as small things.  One of the small things is to eat Thanksgiving dinner outside one year.  I’ve lived in Southern California for sixteen years now and hosted Thanksgiving at least ten times.  I know we’ve had many a Thanksgiving day with lovely weather, yet somehow I’ve never made the effort to move our celebration outdoors.  A few days ago I checked our weather forecast and saw that 75 degrees and sunny was predicted so I decided to hold our feast outdoors, moved our celebration earlier to avoid eating in the dark, and told Jeff yard to make the backyard pretty.

I’ve spent the past two weeks making my way through a carefully planned and timed list of Thanksgiving preparations.  The list began with pie dough (frozen for a couple of weeks and then dethawed two days ago) and ended with warming up gravy just before we sat down.  In case you were wondering our menu was:

What’s on the menu:

• Oven roasted Tofurky and Carrots (I know the tofurky is terribly processed, but I have a soft spot for it).
• Cream Cheese and Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• Maple Syrup Sweet Potatoes with a Sour Cream Chive Sauce (my fabulous sister Sara Ann’s sweet and savory creation)
• Mushroom Gravy
• Katherine Rolls
• Leek and Celery Stuffing (Using homegrown and homemade vegetable stock!)
• Butternut Squash Macaroni and Cheese (Using homegrown squash!)
• Roasted Broccoli with Garlic
• Roasted Cauliflower with Gouda (made by Sara Ann)
• Cranberry Sauce
• Applesauce
• Cheesecake
• Apple Pie
• Pumpkin Pie (made by Sara Ann)

This afternoon we sat down in the late afternoon sun and feasted.  The weather was phenomenal.  Ten people outside seemed peaceful and calm as opposed to loud and chaotic in our small house.  My mom commented that she thought the food even tasted better outside.  It was a perfect meal.  Today I not only crossed one the items off of my list, but I think we’ve cemented a new tradition.  From now on, weather permitting of course, the Mendolo family will be spending Thanksgiving in the great outdoors.

How did you spend your Thanksgiving day?

I have a love-hate relationship with Trader Joe’s.  I go to TJs for good prices on some of the staples that our family uses.  While I am there, I am always tempted by the frozen convenience food.  We all know why we choose convenience food; we’re tired, we don’t want to generate a pile of dirty dishes, we want something fast.  Sometimes I pick up a bag of frozen pasta or a frozen pizza, but I am always disappointed.  The pasta is inevitably overcooked and mushy, the pizza is relatively flavorless.  And although Trader Joe’s is relatively inexpensive it will always be more costly to purchase a pre-made meal over making the same dish from scratch.

None of that changes the fact that there are many lunchtimes or dinners that arrive with a hungry, cranky Gina and the need to get food into myself fast before I throw a three-year old style tantrum.  I need a meal that is fast, healthy, and delicious.  My favorite convenience food that fits the bill is homemade soup, made in huge batches and frozen in single servings.  There’s minestrone, bean with barley, lentil soup, and my current favorite, broccoli-cheddar.  My friend Kristen, pastry-chef extraordinaire, introduced me to this soup last November.  Just before Anna was born Kristen and my fellow pastry student Jess arrived at my doorstep with two quarts of the soup – along with lasagna, cheese bread, and mushroom ravioli (all with homemade pasta – because Kristen does not do things half-assed).  All that wonderful food sustained me for weeks after Anna was born and I have since made the soup several more times.  The recipe is from the awesomely named blog “All Day I Dream of Food“.  Because I am incapable of following a recipe exactly I modified the ingredients slightly; substituting vegetable stock for the chicken broth and doubling the amount of both cheeses.  I am planning on going to the farmers market this weekend and buying up 8 pounds of broccoli to make up another giant batch to enjoy over the next couple of months.  Besides the fact that it is delicious, every time I eat the soup I am reminded of when I ate it last year, while holding tiny baby Anna in my arms;  sustenance and sentimentality, now that’s a great meal.

A couple of years ago Jeff and I were in the elevator at Whole Foods (yes, we a have two story Whole Foods – it’s like the Disneyland of natural food stores) when he noticed a sign listing the top ten healthiest fruits and vegetables.  Kale was at the top of the list.  Jeff observed, “I don’t know what kale is, but we’ve got to try it.”  So we picked up a bunch, Jeff looked up recipes online, and he put together a fantastic kale salad that he now makes us every other week or so. There’s kale growing out in the garden now; started at different times so that it ranges from wee little sprouts to almost ready to eat size.  I am not generally a big fan of eating leaves (probably a side effect of growing up in the Midwest exposed to nothing leafy but iceberg lettuce), but I love kale.  It is perfect cold in salads; unlike lettuce it stays firm overnight after being doused with dressing.  I love it chopped into ribbons and sauteed into a pasta sauce.  One of the more odd sounding but delicious dishes we like to use it in is kale pie.

One my all-time favorite things Jeff has ever said to me is, “You use a recipe like most people use a compass – it just points you in the right direction.”  I pretty much never make a recipe exactly as it is printed.  I found the original recipe for kale pie in one of my favorite cookbooks:  Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian”.  The recipe I give you below doesn’t look much like Mark’s but Mark’s recipe didn’t include any cheese.  I had to add cheese…and once I did that the changes just kept coming.

Gina’s Kale Pie

Ingredients:

• olive oil for sauteing
• one large bunch kale, chopped into strips with the hard center stalk removed (you may also use Swiss Chard)
• 2 large leeks, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 8 ounces good cheese (feta, Gouda, drunken goat cheese), grated or crumbled
• 6 eggs
• 1 cup plain full-fat yogurt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Lightly butter a 9 inch square casserole dish.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet.
4. Saute the kale, leeks, and garlic until soft.  Let cool to room temperature.
5. Mix kale, leeks, garlic, salt, pepper, cheese, and 3 eggs in a large bowl.
6. Mix remaining 3 eggs, yogurt, baking powder, and flour in a second large bowl.
7. Spread one half of the flour mixture in the bottom of the casserole dish.
8. Top the flour mixture with the kale mixture.
9. Then top with dollops of the remaining flour mixture.
10. Bake for approximately 45 minutes.  The top crust will be shiny and golden brown.
11. Let cool for 15 minutes and then serve.

I was singing the praises of kale last week to my friend and colleague, Karen.  She appeared at my office door today and said, “I bought a bunch of kale.  Now you need to tell me how to use it!”  Now go forth and try kale – you’ll like it.