I believe the unseasonably warm Seattle weather earlier this month caused my bananas to ripen faster than I would have liked. (I made this recipe in early June) What’s to be done with ripe bananas other than make banana bread? However, I didn’t have nuts on hand, and most recipes I saw were for banana nut bread.

But then I found this recipe from my alma mater, The State News. I was interested to see the recipe was attached to an article about banana bread being a healthier snacking alternative. Really? Healthier than what? With butterbutterbutter? It wasn’t like this was a Cooking Light banana bread recipe… Healthier than Twinkies and Sour Patch Kids, perhaps. You can read the comments below the story if you want a more biting, condescending version of my critique.

I figured I’d give the recipe a whirl, even if the health information wasn’t exactly correct and even if the recipe was snagged from the Food Network.

Banana Bread

1 cup of sugar
8 tablespoons unsalted, room-temperature butter
2 large eggs
3 ripe bananas
1 tablespoon of milk
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

The oven should be preheated at 325 degrees and a 9×5×3-inch loaf pan needs to be buttered.

The sugar and butter need to be creamed together in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Each egg then needs to be added one at a time and beaten into the mix as they are added.

1. In a separate bowl, the bananas need to be mashed with a fork. Then, mix in the milk and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

2. Stir and combined the banana mix to the creamed mixture, then add the dry ingredients, mixing until the flour disappears.

3. Once everything is mixed together, pour the batter into the pan and bake for one hour. Use a toothpick to determine if it’s cooked entirely. Poke the bread in the center with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, then it is finished. Allow the bread to cool for 15 minutes before removing bread from the pan and slicing.

Notes:

• I’m still interested in if you think it “counts” as a newspaper recipe when the newspaper snags the recipe from another source. For more of my musings on this topic, read this earlier post.
• I didn’t get any pictures of the bread. Whoops. But it looked like pretty much every other loaf of banana bread that has ever been baked in the history of humankind, so you’re not really missing out.
• I thought the bread was rather bland when I ate it the morning after I made it, but Toby really loved it and was sad that I took half the bread as a thank-you gift to a school that let us observe their reading classes.

Teacher Resource Room at Adelaide Elementary -- we hope you enjoyed the bread!

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We love newspapers and food, but that’s not all we love. Here are the other places you can find us online:

In Olympia

Read more about my class adventures here: http://mshoughtonsclass.wordpress.com

And read more about Toby’s lifehacking here: http://www.tmckes.com/blog

Toby at the DXARTS show

We are also Twitter-ers, if you’re into that sort of thing:

Shannon is at http://twitter.com/beforetoday

And Toby is at http://twitter.com/Trademark

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Hello, fair readers. We’re back. A lot has changed.

We moved (to a place with windows! And a larger kitchen! And windows!).

Toby graduated from the UW with his BFA in digital arts and experimental media.

I’m getting ready for a trip to China and for my third year of teaching.

Although summer is often seen as a time to recharge, it’s frequently been a time for us to reflect on the previous school year, and to ponder what’s ahead.

It’s a hard job market, and it’s particularly hard if you’re a nerdy computer programming audiophile trying to find some inspiring work. I’d been thinking a lot about my friends who are similar to Toby, and what they have in their lives that makes them feel fulfilled.

I thought of Jana, who is living her life and raising her daughter in a way I hold in highest regard as a stay-at-home-mom. I thought of Jamie G., who is about as up-to-date on news and “new media” as they come, yet she has become a total DIY home-fixer-upper bike rider. I thought of Anne and Kate, who live on Anne’s teacher salary while Kate holds down the fort as a badass at home. They manage to go on all sorts of adventures, afford all local and organic food, and have a freaking blast on and off the grid.

Toby seems happiest when he comes up with a dynamite recipe, when our finances are organized, when we find a killer new natural cleaner, or when he discovers some other new way to hack our lives. So we’ve decided he’s going to become our resident Life Hacker.

The deal is this. I’ll carry on with the whole teaching thing. Toby will get a retail job 3 days a week or so (we’re thinking he’ll take over the shifts I’ve been working at Display and Costume when I head off to China) to help pay for rent. The rest of the time he’ll spend working on art, shouldering the bulk of the household tasks, and hacking our lives so we can be frugal and more self-sufficient. He’ll continue looking for work in his field, but there will be no more moping about and refreshing the Craigslist page 2873466527 times.

There are so many neat projects we’ve been dying to undertake, but there never seems to be enough time. Now, there will be.

Does this sound like a cop-out? Like Toby’s staying at home to be my man-bitch? Like we’re making excuses for him not getting a job? I’m sure it could seem like any of those things, but this feels absolutely right. Toby is already much happier than he was when he was thinking of the prospect of just clocking in at a 9 to 5, I will feel less stressed out about money and meals and cleaning because they will be more under control, and we’ll be enjoying each others’ company more completely because we’re embarking on an adventure we’re both thrilled about.

And, of course, we’ll be cooking more meals from newspaper recipes.

Won’t you join us?

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No food talk today; I just thought you might want to check out today’s front pages.

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Lifehacker opened a discussion on the future demise of print newspapers, prompted by news that the Christian Science Monitor will now appear online only.

I’m still interested in the impact this will have on food reporting. Have the genres of recipe books, food memoir, and food history grown large enough to supplant anything newspapers could report on?

Have there been any discussions of newspapers shutting down their test kitchens as a result of shrinking budgets? I think this would be an interesting story.

ETA: Gannett blog reports that the features sections may be completely ELIMINATED from some papers. Via: a Gannett reporter friend who might not want to be linked.

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This week’s recipe is forthcoming.

I have my students for an extra half-hour this week. With Tuesday’s election predicted to draw record numbers of voters, schools are modifying classes Nov. 4 to accommodate for the influx of people on school grounds.

I grumbled a bit that I hadn’t read any election stories taking this angle, but never fear, The New York Times has got it covered. There have been several discussions by papers large and small about the safety aspect of holding elections at a school with hundreds of wee ones, but I haven’t heard many discussions about the logistics. It could be a nightmare.

Our school gym serves as the cafeteria. With the gym shut down all day, all P.E. classes must meet outside in the rain. Additionally, to the horror of our union, students must eat lunch in the classroom, violating the duty-free lunch provision of our contracts. We have no idea how long the lines will be, or whether our parking lot will be able to accommodate the number of voters.

Please don’t get me wrong, it’s exciting that we need to grapple with these concerns, as they mean people are finally interested in fulfilling their civic obligations. I just find it interesting that the schools have to handle all the election modifications on their own.

Finally, of course we also cannot have any sort of material supporting one candidate or another, seeing as how we’re much much less than 300 feet away from a polling place.

I wanted to close with a picture of Allison Janney giving her speech at a Rock the Vote event in West Wing Season 4, but I couldn’t track one down. Can you?

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I find it interesting that a large amount of traffic to this site is generated by people searching for the phrase “busiest bar night of the year.” If you Google that phrase, our very own Clipped and Diced comes out as the top link.

It’s surprising to me that more “real” articles haven’t been written on this, other that ones that mention the myth/commonly held notion in passing. When I went to my new favorite site, Google news archives, there wasn’t much available.

You would think the “busy bar night” story would be one of those recurring articles that are written every single year, although the information doesn’t change much. (Another interesting piece, uncovered in my search for cliched newspaper articles, can be found here)

Is it just too obvious to discuss?  If so, then why are so many people searching for it?

Back in 1960, the New York Times alleged that New Year’s Eve was the biggest bar night. Don’t you love that language — “the annual brouhaha associated with seeing in the New Year will be no more than a blurred memory in the convalescent reveler’s dulled brain.”

This 1996 article from the Hartford Courant seems to provide a more modern view. I also enjoyed this article, although I could only view a snippet of it without paying.

Finally, I appreciated Access Winnipeg’s May 2008 article claiming that Good Friday is the busiest bar night, “Good Friday being the only holiday that lands on a Friday every year.”

And there’s always good old Spartan Tailgate, keeping it real with the best bar night of the year for single guys.

What’s your experience as the busiest bar night of the year?

P.S. Speaking of bar nights, meet your fearless Clipped & Diced authors at The Elysian in Seattle’s Capitol Hill next Friday evening!

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I was checking out Google’s new, expanded newspaper archives this weekend, because Toby’s been feeling under the weather and I’ve renewed my pledge to attempt to cook more. First of all, let me say that I’ve believed this site will revolutionize Clipped & Diced since the moment I heard about it on Lifehacker.

First of all, as a big visual person, I was floored to see the timeline breakdown of when articles were published. Here’s what I saw when I searched for recipes.

One of the first pieces I found was an LA Times article discussing the increase in recipes designed for two diners. Toby and I receive subscriptions to several magazines targeted for two-person households, and we have a few cookbooks along those same lines. The interesting part of the article to me was the fact that it was printed in 1986. It could have very well been written today.

Look at the increase in articles that match the term “Cooking for Two” over time.

Twenty years after the L.A. Times article was written, the Pillsbury Bake-Off caught onto the trend and added a Cooking for Two category, as I discovered from The (Doylestown, PA) Intelligencer. However, it appears as though by 2008, the category was eliminated. Never fear, I contacted the folks at Pillsbury as to the history of this category, and perhaps they will get back in touch with me.

I needed more facts and figures. So I went to the US Census Web site and trolled through a few reports.

The image is tiny (I took a screen capture from the PDF I opened at school), but you can see two-person households increased from 25.2 million in 1980 to 34.4 million in 2000. That’s a lot more potential subscribers to Cooking for 2 magazine.

The previous image may have seemed dramatic, but this graph indicates that the average household size actually only decreased from 2.75 people to 2.59 people between 1980 and 2000. According to the Cansus Bureau, “The steepest decline in average household size occurred in the 1970s, a period coinciding with the baby-bust period, relatively low levels of immigration, and increasing proportions of people living alone.” Additionally, the relatively small chance between 1990 and 2000 may be because of “higher immigration levels and the tendency for immigrants to live in larger households.”

Have I mentioned the Census Bureau is a delightful source of random interesting information?

For our attempt at a two-person meal, Toby and I settled on a 2004 recipe from our very own Seattle Times.

Red Curry Chicken Saute with Coconut and Lime

- 1 baby bok choy
- 2 green onions
- ¾ teaspoon cornstarch
- ½ cup light coconut milk
- 1/3 cup reduced-sodium and fat chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
- 2 boneless and skinless chicken breast halves
- 3 teaspoons vegetable oil, divided
- ½ to ¾ teaspoon red curry paste
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- Hot, cooked rice

1. Separate the bok choy leaves, then cut both stems and leaves on the diagonal into ¼-inch-thick slices. Discard all but 2 inches of the onion greens. Slice thinly on the diagonal and set aside.

2. Put the cornstarch into a measuring cup and whisk in a couple tablespoons of coconut milk. When smooth, whisk in the remaining milk. Combine broth and fish sauce. Slice each chicken breast in half crosswise, then lengthwise into thin strips.

3. In a heavy skillet, heat 1 teaspoon oil over medium heat. When hot, put the bok choy stems into the pan and stir-fry 2 minutes. Add the leaves and cook another minute. Remove from the pan.

4. Pour the remaining 2 teaspoons oil into the pan. When hot, add chicken and cook, stirring, about 3 minutes, or until just cooked through. Remove from pan. Put the curry paste into the pan, mashing briefly with the back of a spoon. Add green onions, saving a few for garnish, and stir briefly. Remove pan from heat and slowly add coconut milk, stirring until well-blended with the curry. Put back on heat and stir in broth. Simmer a couple minutes, until thickened. Pour juices that have accumulated around chicken into the pan and simmer 30 seconds. Stir in lime juice, chicken and bok choy. Simmer a few minutes to blend, then spoon over rice. Sprinkle reserved green onions on top.

Notes

• I was able to do this! Me! So it’s really not that difficult.
• Toby thinks you should add more curry if you attempt this. Not a lot, but some.

The funny part about this was that we actually had a hard time finding just two chicken breasts, so we increased the recipe by half to add another breast in. Cooking for two fans claim that too many leftovers just won’t do, but I’m floored by the fact that both Toby and I will have lunch ready to go tomorrow!

This begs the question, if you live in a one- or two- person household, do you cook for two? Or do you reap the benefits of leftovers? And how much is too much when it comes to leftovers?

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I am fascinated by the work of Michael Pollen, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Listen to his great interview with Terry Gross of Fresh Air, which aired tonight.

(Note: Look at the above link I sent you to for The Omnivore’s Dilemma — they came out with a mass market edition of the book! They never come out with mass market editions of nonfiction books, other than like, Silent Spring!)

Among all the interesting tidbits I learned, I was particularly excited about Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden. I longed to find a picture of her down in the dirt of her garden, but the Library of Congress archives failed to turn up any gems.

I regret that Toby and I have neglected this blog, which still takes up a significant portion of my creative brain space. Alas, I am teaching an after-school program, coaching track, co-chairing the Math Team, did I mention our classroom library is up to 1,304 books, and I’m working at Display and Costume until Halloween, so perhaps after that I will be cooking more frequently…

I’ve been getting more daring in my cooking attempts. While visiting friends in Boulder, Colo. (food pictures and stories forthcoming), I made guacamole and even helped prepare a slow cooker chili recipe. They sound simple enough, but they were a real stretch for me.

Now that I’m home, I’m attempting to get back on the healthy, home-cooked band wagon. This morning I decided I wanted hard-boiled eggs, yet… I had no clue how to make them.

Searching recent newspaper articles, prompted by the recent Easter holiday, I’m sure, I discovered there are a lot of people who stress out about eggs.

Luckily, Moyra Fraser answered my call. This Telegraph reporter explained how to create hard-boiled eggs that will offer sunny yellow centres. I’ll post later with my results.

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