I have quite a few recipes to disclose post-company. Boy we had a great time and all the food turned out spectactular.

First, though... I made a Tyler Florence recipe yesterday. (Tyler doesn't have his own website yet: get with it Tyler!) We had quite a few bananas left that didn't get eaten and they were going to get overripe quickly. There were five bananas and I knew we'd never eat five bananas before half of them went bad. So I thought I'd make a quick banana bread. I immediately went to the Food Network site and searched and the recipe from Tyler looked like it would be pretty easy. I think it would've been easy, too, if I weren't completely cursed when it comes to baking. Because I got right in the middle of making the banana bread and discovered we didn't have enough flour. Actually, I knew there wouldn't be enough flour in the plastic container, but I was pretty sure we had an unopened bag of flour in the pantry. And we did. It was just full of bugs. Michael said, "We don't want bug banana bread!" So... I had to stop in the middle of making banana bread and go to WalMart and get more flour. But it turned out VERY tasty.

Banana Bread with Pecans
Recipe by Tyler Florence

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 over-ripe bananas
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped
Confectioner's sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

Mash 2 of the bananas with a fork in a small bowl so they still have a bit of texture. With an electric mixture fitted with a wire whisk, whip the remaining bananas and sugar together for a good 3 minutes; you want a light and fluffy banana cream. Add the melted butter, eggs, and vanilla; beat well and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated; no need to overly blend. Fold in the nuts and the mashed bananas with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Give the pan a good rap on the counter to get any air bubbles out.

Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Don't get nervous banana bread develops a crack down the center of the loaf, that's no mistake, it's typical. Rotate the pan periodically to ensure even browning.

Cool the bread in the pan for 10 minutes or so, and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing. Toast the slices of banana bread, dust with confectioner's sugar and serve.

Depending on your oven, check the bread after an hour because my oven must run a little hot... the very edges of the bread were a tiny bit overdone at 1 hour 15 minutes. I probably could've done without the last 15 minutes. In my opinion, pecans are WAY better than the usual walnuts you get in banana bread. And I thought this recipe was going to be way too sweet, but it's perfect and when you toast the banana bread, the outside edges get kinda sugary-crispy... oh, yum!

The other thing I baked, that mercifully always comes out perfectly, is applesauce cake. I mentioned in an earlier post, the applesauce cake is the best cake ever and the secret to it's wonderfulness is making homemade apple sauce. The reason why I think it makes such a difference is because homemade applesauce has less water than storebought. Plus, the mixture of apples used makes a very rich apple flavor. This recipe comes from my Everyday Food magazine.

Applesauce Cake
Recipe from Everyday Food magazine

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cardamom
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs
2 cups Basic Applesauce (recipe follows)
non-stick cooking spray
confectioner's sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and cardamom. Set aside.

In another bowl, with an electric mixer (KitchenAide with paddle attachment), beat butter, brown sugar and honey until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined. With mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture; beat just until combined. Beat in applesauce.

Generously coat a non-stick 9-inch tube pan with cooking spray. Spoon batter into pan; smooth top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (but damp). 50 to 60 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack 10 minutes. Turn out of pan onto a cutting board or baking sheet; invert cake onto rack, top side up. Cool completely. Dust with confectioner's sugar before serving if desired.

If your non-stick tube pan is dark metal, the cooking time will be less than 60 minutes. Set timer for 50 minutes then check the cake. The bottom burns if you cook too long in a dark metal pan. Also, I don't recommend the confectioner's sugar, it just ends up soaking into the cake.

Best way to serve this cake is with a cup of coffee. It's also nice to toast it slightly and then spread on some orange-vanilla-honey butter.

I also thought of making a glaze from a mixture of confectioner's sugar and some Calvados. That would be best put on individual servings if the cake is served as dessert. But as I mentioned, we tend to eat this cake for breakfast most of the time.

Basic Applesauce
Recipe from Everyday Food magazine

3 each Gala apples, Golden Delicious apples and McIntosh apples (to equal 3 pounds)
1 stick cinnamon
2 to 4 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup of water
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Peel, core and slice apples into 1/2-inch thick slices. Combine apples, cinnamon, sugar and water in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until apples are tender; 30 to 35 minutes. (If sauce sticks to the bottom of the pan, add 2 to 4 more tablespoons of water.)

Remove from heat; discard cinnamon stick. Stir in 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice.

The recipe calls for the apple sauce to be very chunky, but I don't make mine that way. After the apples are cooked and have cooled for about 10 minutes, I use a hand blender to puree it. That's simply a matter of preference.

The recipe makes about 4 cups, which is twice as much as needed for the cake and I've ended up letting the excess go bad because we forgot to eat it. I recommend measuring out two cups into one container and two cups into another then use one to make a cake now and freeze the other two cups for a cake another time (and then it will be even faster to make since you won't need to make applesauce first).

We served Lemon-Horseradish Fish Cakes as an appetizer on Wednesday night. It was a recipe I tried for the first time out of my Everyday Food magazine and they were very tasty!

Lemon-Horseradish Fish Cakes
Recipe from Everyday Food magazine

3 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds tilapia filets (about 6)
coarse salt and ground pepper
2 large eggs
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley, plus sprigs for garnish
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
3 tablespoons bottled white horseradish
1 1/2 cups coarse saltine cracker crumbs, storebought or homemade
tartar sauce for serving

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush each of two rimmed baking sheets with 1/2 tablespoon oil. Place filets on sheets; season with salt and pepper. Roast until cooked through, 10 to 15 minutes. Let cool completely; pat dry with paper towels. With a fork, flake fish into small pieces.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, mayonnaise, parsley, lemon juice and horseradish. Fold in fish and 1/2 cup cracker crumbs, season with salt and pepper. Place remaining 1 cup crumbs on plate. For 16 cakes, using about 1/4 cup fish mixture for each. Gently dredge fish cakes in crumbs.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat 1 tablespoon oil. Place 8 cakes in skillet; cook until golden brown, 4 to 6 minutes per side. Repeat with remaining tablespoon oil and cakes. Serve with tartar sauce, if desired.

I made my fish cakes a little bit smaller than 1/4 cup. I have a little disher I use to make spicy Asian style meatballs and I used it to scoop out balls of the fish mixture and then just patted it together into a little cake. They cook a bit more quickly and are a perfect two bite size. I also used Panko breadcrumbs instead of cracker crumbs. I think the cracker crumbs would be fine, even preferable, for mixing in with the fish cake mixture because that would add salt as well. Definitely use Panko to coat the outside, though, because nothing fries up as light and crisp as Panko.

Another suggestion, I thought the fish was a tiny bit tough having been basically cooked twice. It might be a good idea to undercook the fish ever so slightly and make sure the fish cake mixture is at room temperature when you fry it so that it doesn't take too long for the middle to get hot. One could also use a mix of fish and crab for these cakes; that would also be very tasty!

We served our fish cakes with remoulade sauce instead of tartar. That recipe to come in another post.

One of the big stars of our dinner was the salad, which was a very simple wedge of iceburg lettuce topped with Mexican Village Blue Cheese dressing, a scattering of crisp bacon bits, a couple of rings of onion and some homemade croutons. The lettuce is just an excuse to eat the dressing, though, which is so spectacularly good, you'll want to just eat it with a spoon!

Mexican Village Blue Cheese Dressing

1 egg, well beaten
1 cup oil
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
coarse salt and fresh ground pepper
2 - 3 cloves garlic, crushed through a press
3 - 6 ounces good, creamy blue cheese (we use Rosenborg)

Start by beating the egg with a wire whisk. Beat until it becomes a paler yellow then as you continue to whisk, slowly drizzle in the oil. You should have a thick aioli after you finish with the oil. Then beat in Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, salt, pepper and crushed garlic. Stir in crumbled blue cheese. (If you're really worried about eating raw egg... just don't make this dressing. But I can assure you, the odds of getting sick from a raw egg are low. Ceasar dressing (along with many others) was made with raw egg for many, many years and the incidents of people getting sick from the egg were statistically insignificant.)

The last recipe I'm going to include in this post is for Southwest Chicken salad wraps. This is a recipe completely of my own manufacture. It's one of the very, very few I can take complete ownership of since I didn't even see a similar recipe anywhere, I literally just made it up as a way to use up leftover fajita chicken.

Southwest Chicken Salad

2 cooked chicken breasts, chopped (use grilled fajita marinated chicken breasts or thighs)
1 c. onion, chopped
1 c. celery, chopped
1 c. red bell pepper, chopped
½ c. jalapeno, chopped (recommended: Trappey's sliced jalapenos)
½ c. black olives or 1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed

Combine chicken, onion, celery, pepper, jalapeno and beans or olives. Fresh or pickled jalapenos are fine, but the Trappey's are recommended because they are actually hot, whereas fresh jalapenos are not. If you want the crunch of a fresh pepper and you want it hot, use serranos or a mixture of fresh jalapenos and serranos. Season with salt and pepper. Pour dressing over salad and mix well.

Dressing:
Mayonnaise (@ 1/2 cup)
Sour cream (@ 1/4 cup)
Vinegar from pickled jalapenos (@ 4 to 5 tablespoons)
Garlic powder (@ 1 teaspoon)
Cayenne pepper (@ 2 teaspoons)
Lime zest (from two limes)

There are a couple of good serving suggestions for this salad. We served it in a jalapeno-flavored fresh tortillas with a little bit of lettuce, a sprinkle of grated pepper jack cheese and a little bit of homemade guacamole. It would also be good to serve a scoop or two of salad on a few broken tortilla chips topped with cheese and guacamole. If served this way, to make it extra pretty, you could garnish with a couple of whole black olives, a couple of cherry tomatoes and sprig of parsley or cilantro.

Homemade Guacamole

3 medium Haas avocados
1/2 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
cayenne pepper
Frank's Original hot sauce (or any pepper sauce you have - Tabasco is fine)
fresh lemon juice
plenty of coarse salt

Use a Cuisinart mini-prep to whiz up the onion and garlic. Pile that in on top of chunked up avocado flesh removed from skin and pitted. Using a pastry cutter, coarsely mash avocado and onion/garlic mixture. Stir in seasonings and lemon juice. Salt to taste. If your guacamole needs to sit for a while or you make it ahead and refrigerate, nestle one of the pits down into the guac and cover it tightly... in addition to the lemon juice, that'll keep it from turning brown.