End of the week-treat: Banana spice bread with chocolate chips

It came again, the end of the week. This particular sunday might have seemed pretty dismal: the weather was grey as can be and the week-end was almost over. But instead it turned around to be a wonderfully cozy day to stay inside, putter around in thick wool socks and just enjoy being at home. Of course that kind of coziness calls for something good, a nice afternoon "fika" (swedish word for a small snack, often with a cup of tea or coffee). With some old bananas lying around, what could be better than baking some banana spice bread with chocolate chips! Together with a cup of tea, it'll give any day a silver lining! I made it with homemade pumpkin pie spice, you'll find that recipe below too.

Banana spice bread with dark chocolate chips

One yummy loaf
3 (over)ripe bananas
75 g vegetable oil
75 g dark muscovado sugar
225 g plain flour
1 heaped tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice (or cinnamon)
100 g dark chocolate chips

Turn the oven on to 200 degrees C.Mash the bananas with a fork. Whist together with the oil and sugar. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and spices and add to the banana mixture. Stir until smooth, add the chocolate chips and then pour it all into a greased loaf pan. Baka for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. You might have to cover it ut at the end of the baking. Take the bread out of the oven, let it rest a couple of minutes in the pan and then take it out to cool on a rack.

Pumpkin pie spice

4 tsp "regular" cinnamon
1 tsp Ceylon cinnamon (you can omit this if you want to, but it has a wonderful perfumed flavor)
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
¾ tsp ground cloves
¾ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp ground cardamom

Combine all of the spices.

Delicious Dessert!

Now I'm getting pretty tired, but I've got to get up to date with all the recipes I've made. Anyhow, here's the recipe for a great vegan dessert, a pear and cardamon crumble cake served with warm raspberries. I must say I was a bit suspicious when I say you used water in vegan cakes, but apparently it works since this cake really turned out. The non-vegans I served it too took seconds!

1 cake (24 cm)
240 g flour
1 tsp. baking soda (bikarbonat)
1 tbsp. baking powder
115 g sugar
120 g vegan butter, melted
3,25 dl cold water
2 tsp. vanilla sugar
2 tsp. ground cardamon
2 pears
Shredded coconut for the baking mold
Crumble:
1 dl oatmeal
40 g butter
2,5 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. cardamon

Combine all the dry ingredients. Add first the butter then the water, a little at a time. Butter a 24 cm spring form and sprinkle with coconut. Peel and slice the pears in thin slices. Pour the batter in the mold. Push the pear slices into the cake in a nice pattern. Mix together all the ingredients for the crumble. Spread the crumble on top of the cake and bake in a 190 degree oven for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out dry.

Serve with warm raspberries, sweetened with some sugar. Couldn't be better!

Jaaaa Jambalaya!

Now we have been vegans fon a whole week! That is just crazy, I thought this would be soo much more difficult than it has been up untill now. I celebrated it by making dinner for my whole family, and we all enjoyed it alot.
This was definetley one of my favourite meals soo far!

The recipie makes 4 large portions plus lunch for me tomorrow!

1 red onion
2 cloves of garlic
Oil for frying
Pepper & salt, chilli, curry, spiskummin, and lemon
3 dl rice
5 dl water, 1 dice of vegetable boullion
About 0.75 dl green lentils

Fry the garlic, onion and chili peppers in oil for 5 minutes.
Add some curry, lemon, salt, pepper and cumin after taste.
Add rice, water, lentils and the vegetable bullion. Lower the heat and let it cook until rice and lentils are soft.While the rice is cooking, mix ingredients for the sauce...

The recipie for redpepper-sauce makes ALOT! You can probably make half of it, but my father made it and he added a huge amout of spices so he had to add another tomatoe to make it good! We will eat red-pepper sauce for weeks, but it was good so :) (it's the red stuff in the glas top left in the picture)

2 tomatoes
Red Pepper
A little bit basil
Some oregano
Curry, salt, pepper
Some dried chilli
0.5 tsp pepper-powder

Mix red pepper and tomatoes, and then spices according to taste and inspiration, the above is what we used but it can be varied in eternity! Do not miss out on the curry though, it adds an very interesting dimention to the flavour!

75g sugar snaps
0.75 dl mushrooms

Add mushrooms, since mine were dryed I allowed them to swell in some hot water for a while before added to the rice. In the end, chop up the sugar snaps and stir into the rice. Voila!

To finnish of a nice dinner, we all took another snice of the spicy applecake I mentioned yesterday!

We got the recipie from the vegan society, and it goes like this:

1lb (450g) cooking apples, peeled and sliced
4oz (115g) vegan margarine
4oz (115g) raw cane sugar
6oz (170g) sultanas
2 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp boiling water
8oz (225g) wholemeal flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground allspice

Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas 4.
Cook the apples in the minimum of water. When they are soft, mash to a puree and drain very well.
Cream together the margarine and sugar, then add the apple purée to make a thick mixture. Stir in the sultanas. Mix the bicarbonate of soda with the water and add this to the mix.
Sift together the flour and spices and blend with apple mixture. Pour it into a very well greased cake tin, smooth the top and bake in the pre-heated oven for 45 minutes-1 hour. Makes 8 servings

It's very, very good!

- agnes