Going Bananas!

We started and ended our day of cooking with bananas, which were a big part of both the breakfast and the dessert that we made! Jeanette made this banana bread for breakfast and Bethany drove down to Olympia that morning.

It has shredded coconut in it, as well as walnuts and dark chocolate chunks--we could still taste the banana, but those additions made it a little different than your typical banana bread. Wesley kept calling it chocolate bread, and was so excited to choose a piece!

We decided not to make too much for dinner since our time was limited, so we chose a salad and a roasted vegetable tart

We made a variation of Wilted Greens Salad with Squash, Apples, and Country Ham from the February 2012 Bon Appetit magazine. The changes we made were to use prosciutto made by Farmstead Meatsmith instead of the ham, and to use mixed salad greens rather than wilted greens. The buttermilk was, of course, raw buttermilk from Cornerstone Dairy

This salad was so good! The combination of sweet, salty, and tangy flavors, and the different textures really made it great

The Roasted Vegetable Tart recipe was from the January 2012 Bon Appetit magazine

Neither of us like fennel very much, so we just used more onions instead--there were a lot!

On top of the onions was a layer of roasted eggplant and sweet potatoes

Then came roasted red peppers, thyme from Cornerstone, and cream cheese that Bethany made in place of the goat cheese

Instead of roasting fresh tomatoes, we decided to use sun-dried tomatoes that we soaked in some hot water, and then added the balsamic vinegar

After all the vegetables you pour on a custard made of eggs and cream

Unfortunately there was a little crack in the crust that allowed most of the custard to leak out, so once it was partially baked, we made some more custard and added it!

For dessert we made Banana Cream Pie with Salty Bourbon Caramel from the February 2012 Bon Appetit magazine. We didn't put any bourbon in the caramel, and it wasn't noticeably salty, so it was really just regular caramel, which is delicious just as it is!

Our pastry cream was pretty loose for some reason, so it got a little messy! After layering pastry cream and bananas, it is topped with whipped cream and ground peanuts

We didn't get any pictures of the pie once it was cut, because it was so messy that we just had to sort of scoop it out! But the flavors were great, with the peanuts in the crust, the rich vanilla pastry cream, the sweet bananas, and the caramel to top it off!