"Just Amazing Cake" - Banana Sweet Potato Chocolate Chip Cake, original recipe!

Disclaimer: It's only kind of cake. It's sort of bread. It's definitely delicious. I made this recipe by modifying a very basic banana bread recipe. So here we go:

1. Preheat all your ovens to three hunnerd and fitty degrees F. F is for fool.

2. Get yer 'gredients ready:
5 very ripe bananas
3 cooked sweet potatoes
3/4 cups melted butter
2 cups sugar
2 beaten eggz
2 teaspoonz vanilla
1 teaspoon molasses
12oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 teaspoonz baking soda
A pinch of salt
3 cups flour

3. Mash up the bananas and 'tatoes and mix in the butter.

4. Mix in the sugar, eggz, vanilla and molasses

5. Add baking soda & salt & chocolate chips.

6. Add in flour

7. Butter your cake dish (rectangulary) and pour in the batterz.

8. Bakebakebake for 1 hr & 15 minutes, approximately.

9. Share with fwendz.

6a.m. cooking spree

It's 6a.m. and I've already made mango gaucamole. I'm in the middle of making cheese, banana cake and pickled green beans too. I've got sweet potatoes boiling for the banana cake--this will be a new recipe all my own. I guess this is what happens when I don't get my bake on for two months.

Coffee's being drank as we speak.

The cheese will be ricotta, the product of one gallon of milk heated over a very low heat for a couple hours until it starts to boil. This is the point when I will add one cup of cider vinegar to separate the curds from the whey. I will have to find a good use for the whey...
The next step is to strain the curds through cheesecloth - I've done this before but last time I used a turkey bag (thanks 99 cent store!). The turkey bag worked out but I'm hoping the cheese cloth will work better, though it doesn't look a whole lot finer than the turkey bag as I recall. That was several months ago.

The guacamole was simple to make and now it is delicious, but I'm too enthralled in prep to be too hungry. I simply took 3 very ripe avocados and pulled off the skin, added in the flesh of one quite ripe mango, half of one purple onion finely chopped, and a few vigorous twists of ground sea salt; mashed it all together and left the pits in the bowl; they add a great rich nutty flavor! This I learned from a lady who made awesome guac for a friend's birthday celebration at San Diego Bike Polo (in Chula Vista) just a few months back. Thanks lady, sorry I don't remember who you were! Thanks Fraggle for having an awesome polo birthday!

What else, what else? Ah yes, pickles and cake.

These pickles will be very special pickles because I am pickling green beans that were grown in Pennsylvania by my father. They're quite tasty raw, but I couldn't resist the urge to pickle them. I had to go on quite a hunt today to find fresh dill, but now I have everything I need (except only two jars), so pickles are under way. I need to find more jars, though. What is my pickle recipe, pray tell? Sorry, you can't have it! But I'll share the finished product in 3 weeks time.

And cake. Banananananananana cake. The kind that Batman loves. I'm still making decisions about this recipe as we speak, but I'm excited to toss some sweet potatoes and chocolate in it. Oh man, then I gotta find someone to help me eat it...

Maya Pedal, Guatemala

Maya Pedal makes "bicimaquinas," machines powered by pedal, to do mechanized work without electricity. From donated bikes of all shapes and sizes are made grinders, threshers, pumps, blenders, trailers and more. I'd love to spend some time working with this crew.

 

Belgian Tripels and other beer adventures at the Blue Palms

I have developed a deep affinity for Belgian Tripels. With a tendency towards crisp, almost fruity flavors and a typical alcohol content of 8-plus percent, they are, taste-wise, something of a wine among beers. What these brews actually are, though, are strong pale ales, and can be either dark or light. Delicious, varied, and high in alcohol at 8-plus percent, they are hard to resist. Last night I had a Ladyface Trois Filles Tripel at the Blue Palms Brewhouse in Hollywood. It was so good, I had to stop myself from drinking it all at once--so it's great to learn that Ladyface is a local brewery based out in Agoura Hills. Their selection of Belgian-style ales, and barleywine, is quite alluring. A visit to the young brewery, which recently passed its' 1-year anniversary of opening, is in short order.

While my tongue yearns to seek out Tripels and other Belgian-style ales, my heart is called back to the Blue Palms for Sierra Nevada night, an evening with brewer Steve Grossman and 8 Sierra Nevada Beers on tap. I have a special place in my heart for Sierra Nevada; my first SN Pale Ale was the first "real" beer, a 21st birthday gift from a friend of true good taste. Among the brews on tap: Hoptimum Imperial and $3 pints of Pale Ale. You know where to find me tomorrow night!