A recipe – Banana Bread

I was trying to make the right adjustments to this recipe so it would be kosher for Passover, but then I thought, “What’s the point?” First, Passover is over today. Second, this bread is so tasty that it is a sin to change the perfect balance between the ingredients.

I planed to keep my diet Passover kosher this week, but there are habits that I guess are stronger than we realize. The morning after the Passover dinner (The Seder) I woke up and fixed myself breakfast. While I was finishing cleaning the dishes I realized that I ate the same breakfast 

I eat every day: toasted bread with avocado. Well, kosher Passover is officially over.

Ingredients

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed

1/3 cup melted butter (3 tablespoons)

¾ cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

¾ cups of all-purpose flour

¾ cups of whole-wheat flour

Handful of walnuts, roughly chopped

Directions

1.     Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

2.     In a big bowl, mix the mashed bananas with butter.

3.     Stir while adding the sugar, egg, vanilla, baking soda, salt and flour. Mix all together until completely combined.

4.     Add the walnuts into the mixture.

5.     Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

A recipe – Granola

Did you know that ½ cup granola with cup of yogurt contain about 50% of the daily amount of protein that we need?

My cooking is based on my mother’s recipes, friends’ recipes, cookbooks, websites and mainly – my imagination.

This recipe is based on one from bazekalim.com, with my personal edits.

Ingredients

5 cups rolled oats (not the quick cooking oats)

1 cup chopped almonds

1 cup chopped walnuts

½ cup sunflower seeds

½ cup pumpkin seeds

½ cup flax seeds

½ cup sesame seeds

½ cup raisins

½ cup dried cranberries

½ cup dried figs (8-10 pieces)

½ cup dried dates (8-10 pieces)

½ cup dried apricots (8-10 pieces)

1 cup honey

4 Oz butter

1-2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

(Recipe Yield 3.3 Pounds (1.5 Kg) of granola)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients: oats, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds and sesame seeds. You can make any mix of nuts and seeds, as long the total amount will be 4 cups, like pecan, coconut chips (the big ones), wheat germ and all other kind of nuts
3. Heat for about 5 minutes in a small pot the butter, honey, cinnamon and vanilla extract. Be careful not to boil it, just heat until everything is melted and mixed. Pour mixture over the oats and stir all together until completely combined.
4.  Spread evenly over the prepared baking sheets, pressing down lightly with the back of a spoon.
5. Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven – IMPORTANT – set a timer for 5 minutes, stir and flip the mixture every 5 minutes (total baking 5 minutes X 4 times). Allow to cool completely.
6. In a large bowl (the same one from the beginning…), break the cooled granola into large chunks. Mix in the raisins, dried cranberries, dried figs, dried dates and dried apricots. Here as well, you can add or reduce dried fruits as you like.
7. Store in an airtight container.