Mom's Banana Bread

It's humble. It's a modest housewife's sweet response to the ethos of Mom's Depression Era generation - 'waste not, want not'. It's one of the first baked quick breads that Mom showed me how to make. Granted, Mom came from the generation of bottled lemon juice and walnuts only at Thanksgiving time or for very special baking holidays. She came around in later years ... and now, her legacy lives on and continues to grow in her kids and grands, and great-grands.

Lemon Zucchini Tea Bread

One of the things I love about social media is the sharing of recipes and foodie websites. My cousins and I pass our share of yummy food porn photos back and forth. Jenny and Gretchen love their baked goods and last week a photo of a lemon zucchini bread was smeared ALL over our FB walls. It was more than I could take, so I have grabbed the recipe they shared with gusto, whizzed up some of the copious zucchini that is coming from our backyard plot, and put together the bread for today's tea time treat.

Zucchini Blueberry Bread

The dog days of summer are upon us here in New Hampshire. Pete the Smart Corgi flops in the sun most mornings while I get the baking done before the heat builds. This morning I dealt with the first big onslaught of zucchini and the huge amount of blueberries that SB picked up on Gap Mountain. The local paper printed a recipe for a zucchini blueberry quick bread that is lightened up a bit. The batter has plain yogurt, one egg and egg whites, and less oil than my other recipe. The bread is treated with a lemon glaze while it's still warm, which creates a densely sweet slice.

Maple Walnut Quick Bread -

... Oh! What a maple glaze ... sticky crunch atop a maple and orange quick bread ...be still, my heart!

Pumpkin Pie Spice Bread with Pecan and Brown Sugar Streusel - Twelve Loaves Share

Last year, I always looked forward to posting bread recipes to Heather's monthly BYOB - Bake Your Own Bread recipe share. It was such an awesome place to visit when you wanted to find good breads all in one spot, but then things changed. Heather handed the baton of BYOB to someone new and I lost contact with the bread baking ladies ... sigh.

The other day, however, I happened onto Heather's blog, Girlichef and found another of her stellar bread posts. Lo and behold! She was sharing the post with a recipe share called Twelve Loaves! Hurray! So, I have found another group of bread baking enthusiasts! Sharing and inspiration up ahead! I'm soo happy to have found this group!

The Silver Palate's Apricot and Raisin Bread

Last week, I was a baking maniac! Our little church was having its annual summertime flea market - a huge event for the little community in which I live. The ladies of the church always have a long bake table and sell all manner of sweet treats, pies, cakes, quiches, breads, muffins, scones, and preserves. My contribution this year was a double batch of scones (cranberry/almond and mango/ginger) and this quick bread ... there were cookies made too, for the grill station lunch specials that the men's group heads up. I was beat by the end of the weekend, but it was great fun working on the event and seeing everyone enjoy each other's company!

A New Quick Bread ... and Discovery

Pistachio and Prune Bread

I spend a lot of time cruising the food sites and blogs, poking here and there on links that others share in their articles and blog posts. You come across some incredibly interesting sites that way ... you're on someone else's tour of interests, food passions, and discoveries. Follow a few links, research a few references that someone has written of, check out a few names that someone has dropped, and soon you have wound up on a website or in a blog that is an unexpected surprise! It can be so enlightening.

Gluten Free Pita Breads - Lenten Communion Host

Our little church holds a special evening service during Lent at which members of the congregation do special readings during the service and then share a candle light communion - it is a very beautiful and emotional take on the Last Supper. This year, I was asked to make small flatbreads to use as the communion host. I found a yeast free quickbread dough on a fantastic foodblog called Gluten Free On A Shoestring and I set out to make pita breads.

Tea ... As An Ingredient

I have heard and read so much about using various teas as ingredients in everything from baked goods to sauces for braising, but I have never tried the technique ... until today. I must admit that I chose a safe recipe to attempt this first time out of the gate. I had some dried dates that needed to soak before going into a date nut bread recipe. I'd been thinking that I wanted to add some orange peel and star anise to the boiling water that the dates would soak in and then I had a brilliant idea ... why not use a Celestial Seasonings Mandarin Orange Spice tea bag to provide the hint of orange and added spice to the beginnings of the date nut bread batter?

Random Recipe - Stohrer's Cake aux Olives et Jambon

I recently ordered a few used cook books through alibris.com and thinking about Dom's 'do it your way' option for this month's Random Recipe, I decided that I would make the first recipe in whichever book arrived first. Well, today's morning mail offered up Linda Dannenberg's Paris Boulangerie et Pâtisserie .

Ugh ... The February Funk ...

Bring on the chocolate, folks. It's February and in the little grey cottage, I am settling into the traditional February Funk. This always seems the cruelest time of the year. The sun begins to increase in intensity a bit, but the weather is so changeable. One day it's balmy and gives hope of Spring and the next a bitterly cold wind sweeps in from The North and dashes that hope AND the crust of ice on the driveway puddle. Wind chill makes everything seem even worse. So ... I retreat. I ignore my usual 'about town errands' and computer routines, don't go to church on Sunday morning, rattle the soup pots, put a sweater on over the turtle neck and big shirt, shirk as many responsibilities as possible, re-prioritize my Netflix queue, grab a good book or two, and let the library due dates expire.

Deni's Cranberry Coffee Cake

An easy and delicious use of leftover cranberry relish .... that's where this recipe started its run at the grey cottage (and before that, at the Hopkinton Homestead). My dear friend, Deni always made this for staff brunches and also as holiday coffee break treats for our little classroom staff kaffeeklatsches. She graciously shared her recipe all those years ago and I have been making it at least two times a year ever since!

King's Crown Coffee Bread

One of my little Christmas traditions is to rise early the morning after we have put up the Christmas tree, put the tree lights on, but no others, make an early pot of coffee and sit with a cup and just ... be ... still...

I love to sit and look at the beauty of the tree and the colors. Every year the tree is just a bit different from all the others of years gone by. Maybe it's a different tree variety or a different shape from the previous trees. Maybe I've chosen different sets of ornaments to place on its branches, or used more or less tinsel. Maybe the lights are all colored or all white or a combination of the two. Whatever the changes, I always feel my heart swell up a bit and any Grinchy feelings about the hustle-bustle of the season disappear in that quiet time.

Cornmeal, Scallion, and Smoked Gouda Drop Biscuits

It's soup and stew season and that means there are never enough inventive ways to make a biscuit, roll, loaf of bread, or dumpling that will put the topper on whatever soup or stew is making it to your dinner table!

The other evening, I made Susan's Black Bean and Pumpkin Soup ... and oh my, it was good! See the link above and explore her site at Beyond My Kitchen Window for a treat. Read on to see the incredible biscuits that went with that gorgeous soup!

BYOB - Cider Doughnut Muffins

What could be easier than a simple apple flavoured muffin, dipped in butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar? It's a dead ringer for the seasonal apple cider doughnuts that will be popping up at the coming Fall festivals!

Got Me a Hambone ... !

Got me a hambone ... gonna make soup and cornbread!

Yessirree! I got me a hambone ... leftovers from this past weekend's Yankee Swap and birthday celebration at the Lindquist family farmstead. Normally, I would make a split pea and ham soup because this cook loves that kind of soup, but alas ... it is the one soup that I can't get my family to eat. Sprout Kate and I are the only takers, so I've given up the fight. Since I have to please Silent Bob's palate, I am making, instead, Bean Soup with Ham and Bacon.

I have fond memories of big bowls of Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup ... processed heaven right from the can with heaps of crackers for breaking into the broth. It was always a favorite for winter afternoons when the Miller kids would crowd into the kitchen after skiing or sledding. Mom used to get these over-sized 'family-size' cans and have a big pan simmering on the stove ... steamy and thick. My homemade version is much better, but the memory of the old style remains a happy one! All we need is some real snow ... someone say a prayer, huh ?

Cranberry Nut Bread

When the winter holidays roll around, I always dig into the pile of family recipes that have been 'tried and true' over the years. One of the usual suspects is this cranberry nut bread. My mother made it every year with big old chunks of walnuts and fresh cranberries washed and cut in half. This quick bread is not an overly sweet affair ... it has fresh squeezed orange juice and orange zest that add to the tang of the cranberries and a mere three-quarters cup sugar. It is a bulky bread that slices and toasts beautifully and holds up to a slather of soft melting butter ... yum! We always have it with a cup of coffee first thing in the morning.