Chocolate Pudding Banana...loaf?

So I had some bananas in the fridge that were at banana bread making potential (aka brown and squishy) but I wanted chocolate. I thought it would be neat to make the chocolate chip cookie bars that I love and throw in bananas, but there weren't enough chocolate chips left in the bag (don't judge...granola, Greek yogurt and chocolate chips make the perfect study snack!) In my search of the house for something chocolate to mix with these bananas, I found a box of chocolate pudding. This is what ensued:

Use 2 large eggs (at room temp because they mix better with other things if they aren't freezing)
2 sticks of butter at room temp
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
vanilla extract to your liking
2 mushy bananas
a pinch of salt
about a teaspoon of baking soda
one box of (Sugar-Free- check out the sugar content of this thing already...) Instant Chocolate Pudding
2 cups of flour

Mix these all together. If you are a mixing wiz then you can dump it all in at one time and hope that it doesn't get all over the kitchen. Or, if you are a normal human you should mix after the sugar, then after the instant pudding powder and then after each cup of flour. Chop the bananas up before you mix them in...its easier.

That's what I did. What I suggest is that you mush the bananas up and then add them to the liquidy stuff (including the sugar because you want the sugars to evenly distribute the whole time) Then add the pudding mix and the flour. Because I didn't do this, the bananas still broke down, but there were visible spots where the bananas settled that were a different color* than the rest of the loafish like dish.

The loaf turned out beautiful, it wasn't "bar like" at all but more cake like. There aren't pictures because we dug into it right away when it was warm. I used an 8x8 pan and it rose to the top and was super moist and delicious.

*Okay, the spots where the bananas settled had a bit of green-ish tint that Taste Tester #1 (my mom) said were "slightly off-setting." However, if you use the bananas a day or two early in their life than I did, or blend/mush them like I suggested. You shouldn't have a problem.

P.S. Chef Anthony was hard at work this morning making Chili for a work function, so of course I had to taste it. I made two pieces of Pumpernickel Toast, Fried two eggs, and poured some of the chili on top of it. Amazing, it was! And huge...it was more of a brunch than a breakfast.
This is what it looked like:

The picture doesn't do it justice...but I made it scratch and sniff so you could smell the deliciousness yourself.

I took this from a shared link on Facebook:







NorthAmerican WebDesign


Chief Raoni crying when he learned that the President of Brazil approved the Belo Monte dam project on the Xingu indigenous lands. Belo Monte will be bigger than the Panama Canal, flooding nearly a million acres of rainforest & indigenous lands. 40,000 indigenous and local people will be forced off their native lands (as well as millions of unknown species & plants) In the name of "progress"
 
Disgusted for the day.

Butternut Squash Fries

The Bears are losing to the Packers and the only reason I am not more upset is because of BUTTERNUT SQUASH FRIES!

Trust me:

First, cut the top and bottom off of the squash:

THEN peel it. I did this the other way around and  fought with the stem for a little bit.
Cut the squash in half LENGTHWISE, this is important because the seeds and guuck are at the bottom on this voluptuous lady-like vegetable. (Really, I would rather be told I was butternut squash shaped instead of pear shaped. Ladies?)

Scoop the guuck out like you would a pumpkin...make sure you get all the seeds, there were some stubborn ones.

Once you are de-guucked, turn the squash so that the flat side is down on the cutting board and cut it into strips. If you want to, cut it in half first so that the part with the half-sphere like hole doesn't get in the way, it will make nicer looking pieces too if you are going for that sort of thing.

Now this is the fun and creative part! Take a shallow bowl and mix the spices that you want!
Here are some of the combos I tried:
Olive Oil, Sea Salt, Cracked Black Pepper, and Thyme (this one was my favorite!)
Cinnamon (Without oil or anything to help it stick...these got crispier than the other ones)
Maple Syrup. love.

Happy Fall!

Peace

I have a lot to say on the subject of Peace and War and Violence. But I feel my short coffee break wouldn't do my thoughts or the issues justice. So for now, please look at this site.

Pray for Troy Davis.
Pray for Women in the Congo and Afghanistan.
Pray for members of our Military that are celebrating the end of DADT, it may be a rough few months.

Changing Blog Purposes again

So when improving in the kitchen its really hard to remember later what I was thinking when I used certain ingredients. What can I say, my hunger takes over and I'm an improv master. In the kitchen only though, I kind of really suck at improving on stage! But I love watching it!

Now the blog will be used for many a random purposes. Towards the middle of the summer there will also be a link to a craft blog that I will share with my sister. We're pretty cool.

Everyone should read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Game Trilogy. Trust me. You will fall I love.

Speaking of falling in love next up on the reading list is Tina Fey's Bossypants. I can't wait to crack that open on the plane on Friday. And by crack open I mean flip the digital pages on my nook...is that phrase going to die out when we are eventually rid of paper? Don't get me wrong, I love the smell of old books and the clean white margins of a new textbook before I dive in with my strange underlining techniques, but come on people...save the trees (and thus our lives...think about it) or hold a book in your hands. Think about the miniture humans you love that won't have air to breathe...

Most. Random. Post.ever. you can thank the smart phone for that, I'm bored on the train 

Bern's Imrov Kitchen, Round 1

I have a friend that keeps bugging me because apparently I promised I would make him cookies four years ago. So I finally decided to get the promise (and the nagging) out of the way and send him a package (because of course he lives far enough away where I can't just drop by with a plate of cookies...so why the constant nagging about them...you tell me) However, I pulled a classic amateur baker's move and started the recipe without making sure we had all of the ingredients in the house. SO I had to improvise a little bit, which I love doing with baking and cooking and I have to say that I like the way these turned out, here's to sharing!

Sweet Chocolate Walnut Chunks

2 sticks of Margarine (softened, not melted)
2 Large Eggs
3/4 Cup Light Brown Sugar
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Non-bleached, All Purpose Flour
1 1/2 Cups Cake Flour
1 Tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of salt
Almond extract to taste
2 Tbsp Sweetened Condensed Milk
3 blocks of Semi-Sweet baking chocolate, chopped
2 large handfuls of Walnuts, chopped

Beat eggs with softened margarine, add salt, baking powder and almond extract. Stir in sugar and brown sugar, make sure all the lumps from the margarine are smoothed out. Add All Purpose Flour, followed by sweetened condensed milk. Stir in the remaining flour (cake flour is very fine, so stir it in bits at a time to save  your counter top and shirt!) Fold in chocolate Chunks and Walnuts.

Something that I learned from my mom is to preheat the oven right before the batter is done and then stick the batter in the fridge for a little while, it holds together better that way when you go to shape the cookies.

Take the dough out of the fridge and use a spoon to make balls on a clean cookie sheet, don't use non stick spray, it will make the bottom of the cookies funny, use parchment paper if you are worried about the trays.

Cook at 350 degrees for about 7-10 minutes. Cool, eat, enjoy!

Sick of LiveJournal and switched to Blogger!

I have made many pro-google changes this past year, g-mail, google books, google documents, and now blogger. I am satisfied, the other blog formats just didn't cut it.

So much has happened these past two weeks, its really exciting actually. I have gotten a lot further than I thought I would in this amount of time. For starters, I volunteered with the Chicago Fringe Festival, the first-ever Fringe Fest in Chicago (Well, there was an attempt in the early 90s and that group only lasted for two years and then it never happened again) and ended up working with them alot. I was a Venue Manager for most of the run. The position was the equivilent of what would be the House Manager if we had been using theatres to perform in, instead there were eight venues set up throughout Pilsen in gallery spaces, and one bar,(Funny that I never got to work in the two actual theatre spaces that were used) and it worked out perfectly. Each space was very unique, and seemed to be perfect for each show! Props to Rachel our production manager for that!

All of the performances were good, some were very different and interesting, but of all the shows I worked on or watched as an audience member I would reccomend Exhausted Paint: The Death of Van  Gogh and Silken Veils as my two top picks. Exhausted Paint is a one man show produced by Opium, Fireworks, & Lead, a theatre company based out of St. Paul, MN. The show was fantastic, beautifully written based on letters from Van Gogh to his brother and friends. Shawn Patrick Boyd played Vincent and was one of the most entertaining and interesting actors I have ever seen. All of you Minnesotans...GO SEE THIS SHOW! It is highly reccomended!
Silken Veils was another beautiful show and has been touring the US for awhile. It follows the story of Dyra, a young Iranian woman about to get married and her family's history concerning the Iranian war. A lot of the dialouge was taken from Rumi poetry set to original music, both inspiring. Puppets and shadow puppetry were used to tell the story as well and made an incredible stage picture, even in the teeny tiny black box it was produced in.

It was a great theatre weekend to say the least. Also, follow up for information and "journaling" concerning the Rivendell Theatre Ensemble production I will be assistant directing called Precious Little and written by New York playwright Madeleine George. I will also be blogging about other random endeavors with Rivendell, such as a few marketing projects and publicity stints that I seem to have fallen into!

Just read: In the Other Room, or A Vibrator Play by Sarah Ruhl
               Precious Little by Madeleine George
               26 Miles by Quiara Alegria Hudes (who wrote the book for the Tony Award winning musical, In the Heights)

Re-reading: A Mercy by Toni Morrison, because I love it, and her and it is the One Book, One Chicago pick for this fall and there are a ton of free programs dealing with the book, such as a Steppenwolf performance and a talk back with Morrison herself...stay tuned, cause I'm really excited.

Watching: Heroes...addicted, it could become a problem. (I just started Season 2)

Recently Saw: Paper Heart, a documentry on relationships...it was really bad, Michael Cera is funny as usual, but not worth sitting through the whole two hours to wait for his one liners like my sister and I did.
                      How About You, an indie Irish comedy about two sisters running an old folks home is worth the watch. I gave it three stars on my Netflix Instant Queue.

Listening to: I need suggestions, I am very sick of the summer's pop hits!