Z has been describing objects as other objects he knows for a while now. Looking at a half grape, he’ll announce, “turtle.” He calls the triangle ruler in our tool puzzle set  a sailboat.  I like to think he isn’t making a confused guess, that he even enjoys making these surprising connections to abstract shapes, learning about the flexible ways in which language can be used to describe things accurately but not literally. Very much a boy, he has recently been interested in all things fireman-related. Under a dimmed lamp light in a magazine I had opened by my bedside one morning, he saw this image and said “fire.”

Whole Living Magazine, November 2012 (photographer unknown)

The apple does not fall from the tree. Hearing a disconnected phrase or seeing an image is all it takes for me to kickstart new recipe ideas. After seeing an enticing food photo recently, I was very eager to make the recipe in the picture. Only later did I realize that what my brain interpreted from the image, a bread studded with gobs of chocolate chips, had very little to do with the actual recipe (the chips were actually toasted walnuts). Sometimes, confusion is a good thing and produces lovely results. In this case it created a luscious banana bread, one I’m happy to alternate with my other go-to banana bread. The cake is moist, with just enough banana to make you feel slightly less guilty about the chips.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
1 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (about 3 very ripe medium or 2 extra large ones)
1/4 cup whole milk yogurt*
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 tbsp unsalted butter (melted and cooled)
3 tbsp coconut oil (can substitute with grapeseed oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350º. Grease a 9×5″ loaf pan with butter or oil.

Stir flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the banana, eggs, milk, butter, oil, vanilla, and walnuts.

Using a spatula, slowly add the flour mixture into the banana mixture, stirring just until incorporated. Scoop the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the bread for 1 hour, or until the bread is golden brown. The usual toothpick test may not work for you. In my case, the toothpick was still moist when I pulled it out after the alloted time, but the edges of the bread were brown so I took a chance and turned the oven off, covered the bread with foil completely and pulled the bread out after 5 minutes. After making this bread a few times, the toothpick test proved to be useless, although I still did it as a check. I find this bread tends to darken on the edges more quickly than I’d like, so halfway through the baking time, you can pull out the bread and cover the edges with foil. Cool the bread in the pan before inverting the bread and letting it cool further. It keeps well, covered in saran and foil for up to 5 days.

• Whole milk yoghurt can be substituted with buttermilk

Inspired from an image on Leite’s Culinaria. Recipe adapted from Baking Illustrated, America’s Test Kitchen, 2004

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I probably inherited the carrot-loving gene from my Mom. When there was nothing in the house to eat, she would default to a shredded carrot salad featuring a sprinkling of dark raisins and oil and vinegar. Since then, I’ve played with her version, bringing in golden raisins and using a lighter touch on the vinegar. Here’s my take, a quick meal to make during the week. If you require more substance, adding tofu to this dish and some sambal would slant it toward Thai flavors.

This salad’s slightly sweet character works perfectly with the tartness of Granny Smith. A hint of vinegar with a little more crunch from the peanuts finishes it off. If you plan ahead, you can shred this the night before and dress it just before you sit down to eat.

Winter carrots tend to be sweeter than summer ones and at least on this front, the East Coast weather gives us an advantage.

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I have my kitchen back! We were finally able to move Z’s sleep area into another room far from the hubub and commotion of our normal lives. Now that he is he no longer inches away from the kitchen, we can resume banging pots and pans in the evening. Even more exciting, we’ll be having our friends over again for more than daytime playdates. Feel the excitement? Yeah, I can barely contain myself.

These ribs will be on the menu for our first adult dinner party in a year. I’ve made them multiple times in the same way in the last eighteen months and that’s saying something because repeat performances are rare in my household. I generally am excited about moving on to the next new thing, but Olive keeps requesting them and I’ve been more than happy to oblige.  The marinade on the ribs creates a slightly sweet glaze and the ginger, garlic and lime cut through that and give the flavor zing.

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Pregnancy and breastfeeding afforded me the luxury of eating anything I wanted without gaining weight; it was a welcome reprieve from counting calories daily and thinking: “If this enters my mouth, how will it effect my “bottom” line? Now that Z is well on his way to being a tall, sporting toddler, stepping his almost two-year-old feet on his new scooter and climbing everything in sight (yikes!), I can no longer eat with impunity. And my bottom line is saying, “perhaps we should rein it in now, Mama?”

These rugelach are unequivocally worth making taste and time wise. Just be careful, they’re deceptively easy to eat hand over fist. Better to cherish them slowly and wistfully, knowing there are so many more left to stretch through your fall days.

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Nothing gets me back in gear like a little friendly competition. Food52 was having another one of its contests, a London Olympics “pub food” theme, and though the timing didn’t work out, it did get me thinking about dipping my toes back into the blogging pool. What finally brought me back, strangely enough, was a thought inspired by a mash-up of inspirational (to me) coincidences—a recent Food52 ice cream competition and an old-is-new all over again television series reintroducing Sherlock Holmes (Elementary). The preview for the show got me excited about the possibilities of modern twists on good old standbys. And I’m very happy with how this ice cream came out.

By the way, if you’re a coffee ice cream lover, you will probably love this, too. And if you’re tired of the same old flavors? This is definitely an ice cream you will not find in your supermarket freezer, so it’s worth making.

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