[food] quick notes--

[kaberett]

1. Tesco pointed out to me that it's possible to freeze avocadoes. Subsequently A and I found a tray of avocadoes reduced by a ridiculous amount in a supermarket, bought the lot, and peeled/halved/deseeded/froze them. Having made some progress on using them up I can report that they're a little texturally perplexing (and you want to dump lime juice or something on them while defrosting if you don't want them turning brown) but absolutely fine to mash up and put on toast/in guacamole/etc.

2. Thyme pastry and cardamom frangipane as suggested by you lot worked brilliantly, though next time I probably will include a little bit of cinnamon in one or the other of the pastry or the frangipane (and also probably won't have fresh thyme to hand, so). Slightly more detailed notes.

3. Banana bread! You can toast it! And having toasted it you can spread peanut butter and chocolate spread on it and it's exactly like eating a fancy peanut-butter-and-banana toasty, if you're using fancy peanut butter (A makes mixed nut butter from equal quantities of roasted salted peanuts/cashew paste/hazelnut paste/macademia paste bought in bulk; I have started making chocolate spread by combining melted dark chocolate, hazelnut paste, enough hazelnut oil to make it adequately runny at storage temperature, and sugar to taste, because baby brother is lactose intolerant). I contemplated posting a ~recipe~ here and calling it, like, deconstructed mixed-nut banana biscotti and seeing how long it took you collectively to point out that it was, in fact, a glorified chocolate chip peanut-butter-and-banana toasty.

Comments

[ironed_orchid]

Sudden desire for toasted banana bread with chocolate spread... I have toasted it before, but only put butter or margarine on it.

[kaberett]

VICTORY IS MINE, or something. :-)

[redsixwing]

Toasted banana bread is wonderful stuff. (I admit, I haven't gone beyond a bit of butter for a topping on my toasted banana bread!)

[kaberett]

this is actually the first time I'd got around to trying it! with the exploded cake, and all. I am contemplating making another loaf tomorrow (in the spirit of Using Up The Stuff That's In The Freezer Before Moving Out).

[dadcastellanos]

hooohhh my gosh, hazelnut cocoa spread on banana bread sounds like a revelation. I like putting peanut butter & normal butter on bb sometimes, though.

[kaberett]

it is so good I am a total convert.

[naath]

Hum, nutella (I'm too lazy/incompetent to make my own nutella substitute) on toasted banananananana bread. Yes, this sounds like a thing I should try. Now I need only find banana bread making tuits.

[kaberett]

eh, you have other priorities, maybe :-p like, I'd not've bothered to acquire ingredients/learn if Nutella was an acceptable approach (though now I have I might be going to e.g. make A chocolate-orange spread, if he asks nicely and buys the orange oil).

this is the bananananana bread I consider canonical!

[wild_irises]

If you drink coffee, the amazing trick for banana bread is to soak the bananas in coffee (even instant) for an hour or so before mashing them into the dough. It doesn't make the bread taste like coffee, but it does bring out the flavors awesomely. I got it from Mollie Katzen.

[kaberett]

I'm caffeine-hypersensitive so can't do this straightforwardly but I do own a bag of good (and thorough!) decaf for the purposes of tiramisu that I've yet to breach, so perhaps this is something to do In The Future...