Panaderia Canadiense

You could also check out the Puerto Rican route to BF - Amarillos A La Moda. 1 tbsp butter 2 very ripe yellow plantains, peeled 1 tsp cinnamon (ground) 1/3 C panela or at least demerrera sugar 1/2 C sweet white wine 1/2 C brandy nutmeg to sprinkle. Begin by rolling the plantains in sugar and cinnamon, then cook in a saucepan in the butter until they begin to caramelize. Remove from heat and place in a baking dish, then deglaze the pan with the wine and pour the result over the plantains. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes (uncovered). Remove from oven, plate, and pour brandy over; flame, allow to self-extinguish. Sprinkle with nutmeg and serve with ice cream - vanilla's my fave for this one. If you get very good at it, the brandy can be lit while it's still pouring from the snifter, resulting in a stream of liquid flame onto the dessert.

Focaccia alla salvia torn and dipped in real olive oil and balsamic vinegar Ravioli di formaggio alla fungi Spaghetti carbonara Lasagne (using the recipe taught to my mother by her old Sicilian landlady - there must be tiny peperrones in it, or it's just not right) Zabalione, and Tiramisu! I'm also fond of ingredients that aren't technically recipes in and of themselves: Salami genovese Parmagiano Reggiano Provolone Amalattea ooh, the list goes on. I'm drooling!

Nothing positive here either - I now use mine for shaped ice-cubes, for which they are eminently more suited.

Linda, there's no added fat, but plantains on their own have trace amounts as part of the fruit (0.37 g per 100g, according to the USDA). However, you're quite right about the texture - it's light and flaky and just generally wonderful. The brand of plantain flour I used is, according to the pack, imported by a company in Brooklyn, so it should be somewhere in the US! Try the Latin American groceries, but it should also be in Caribbean and Asian stores. Pretty much everywhere that uses plantains also uses the flour.

I learned to do this when I had enamel sinks - dumping really scalding hot water on them when they're chilled can crack the enamel. It makes sense to do it to avoid being scalded, too - I never thought about it that way.

My absolute fave is banana blossom salad with prawns and lemon-peanut dressing...

Darienne, maybe consider 3-5 oz plastic cups as molds - they work fabulously as long as you've got popsicle sticks. They're also easy to transport, easy to stack in the freezer, the list goes on. You can actually keep them in the cups right up until you're ready to distribute the pops - easy hygienic wrappers!

Try alternative cooking methods. I have a kitchen with a door that opens into my yard but no other exhaust system - I gave up on deep-frying almost immediately (the whole house smelled like yucca fries for a week - ick!) and switched to shallow-fat frying. For all but a few recipes, that's more than adequate and I'm using waaaay less oil. For hard searing, I have to admit I use the backyard and my little charcoal grill, so I'm no help there. If I absolutely must sear meats in the house, I set up my oscillating stand fan in the kitchen and direct it out the door. FG, if you're in an apartment, do you have roof access? If you do, a little Hibachi grill is super-portable and easy to use up on the roof.... That's how I handled it when I lived in a 10th floor apartment in Quito.

If I have molds, I always store them in the mold until I want one, then I just pop it out. If I'm making ridiculous quantities, I wrap them in little plastic baggies and stack them in the freezer.

I probably forgot to say! I use Girasol (Sunflower) oil for all of my frying. It has a ridiculously high smokepoint, almost no flavour, and it's less expensive than other things I might want to fry in (like butter).

Empanadas de Verde stuffed with shredded chicken, queso fresco, and carrot. As seen in the Savoury Pastry Cookoff thread (with full method.)

I'll submit the Empanadas de Verde I was talking about earlier for consideration. This is my first time using whole plantains in the dough - normally I just use the flour and some water. However, my friend Beatriz (from whom I got the dough method) has almost completely converted me to fresh plantains; the flavour is far superior. Traditional Empanadas de Verde are stuffed with queso fresco sauteed in achiote oil with fresh chopped cilantro; since my Dad's allergic to achiote we planned some other fillings instead. Linda - here's why I couldn't just give you a dough recipe: all it is, is 4 plantains and 400g of plantain flour! It's the technique that makes the masa. Masa Verde 4 green plantains - I used FHIA-23, because that's what the corner store had; any green plantain will work. roughly 400 g Plantain flour (if you're scaling the recipe, use about 100 g of flour for each plantain) Salt Water to cover. 1. Begin by washing and then peeling the plantains (if you've never done this before, the easiest way is to cut both tips off, then slice a line through the skin and peel them by rolling the fruit off of the skin, as shown in step 2 of the first picture.) Then chop them into chunks, and put them in fairly salted water. 2. Boil until they're tender - they'll change colour. Raw plantain is pinkish, and soft-cooked plantain is yellowish. 3. Take out of the water and allow to cool. DO NOT THROW AWAY THE WATER. You'll need it later. 4. Once the chunks have cooled, break them up with your hands. Then, toss them in the food processor with a bit of the water you boiled them in, and give 'em a whirl. You're looking for a fairly gooey pinkish paste. 5. At this point, start adding the flour and kneading. This is an incredibly gooey job, but part of the fun. Use your hands to break up any large chunks of plantain that might still be in the dough. What you're looking for is a dough with a fairly firm hand but a soft consistency. The dough will have a grey-pink colour when it's done - not terribly appetizing to look at, but it does miracles in the pan. Fillings I prepared 4 based on Queso Fresco and fresh Mozzarella, and we used 3 of them. From upper left: mushrooms and red onion in spicy aji-paprika sauce with extra cumin; green tomatoes with red pepper in yellow curry with heavy amounts of oregano; shredded cold chicken with peas and carrots; plain QF/Mozza with parsley and oregano (the filling we didn't use - it got tossed onto an avocado salad instead). Empanadas! The masa is quite sticky and it's best to liberally flour your workspace before you roll it out; the best dough thickness I've found that preserves the covering capabilities while not overwhelming the filling is about 1/8." I made several shapes, of which the UFO rounds are shown (as they were the most successful). Once you've got the entire wodge of dough out and stuffed, put about 1/4" of oil in your skillet and fry 'em up. Beatriz swears that the only pans that should ever be used for frying empanadas are cast iron, and I tend to agree. Nothing sticks to 'em, and they hold the oil at heat with minimum gas consumption. Masa Verde has one excellent feature in the pan - it turns gold when it's cooked. This way you always know exactly when you've got perfect empanadas, every single time. It's also got a lovely flavour, which is currently defying my attempts to describe it. It's soft, not crunchy, and it's incredibly nutritious as well - apart from the bit of oil you fry the things in, there's no fat in the dough at all. Plantains are high in iron, calcium, and phosphorus. Nom nom nom... Shown opened is a chicken filled example; the next time I make these I'll be going for exclusively the spicy mushroom filling (shown in the assembly step), which was my fave out of the three. However, that will be a while off - the recipe made about 5 dozen empanadas of various sizes, and we couldn't eat them all in one sitting. I'll post back with an open spicy mushroom later today - it's what's for lunch.

Marmelade is Marmelade. Hence the name.

Here's what I was taught: Jellies are made primarily from juice and may have small inclusions of fruit but never seeds and never loose pulp. They've got enough pectin in them to hold their own shape when scooped from the jar; the best ones should have a gelatine-like consistency. Jams are made from whole fruit, contain pulp and possibly seeds, and have a lower sugar and pectin content than jellies. They should hold their shape only very gently when dropped from a spoon or knife, and should spread fairly easily. Fruit butters are smooth, contain only pulp and juice, and no seeds, and should be soft and easily spreadable. Spices are often featured. Preserves are chunky, may or may not hold their shape, and should have almost no sugar in them at all - they're more about the natural flavour of the fruit/veggies or the flavour of the spices used. I'd include Chutneys here, as well as chunky ketchups, salsas, and kimchee. Conserves are chunky, may or may not hold their shape, and feature sugar heavily, often before the flavour of the fruit. Peaches and Strawberries in syrup fall into this category. Confits are the same thing, but with the syrup blended together with the fruit to form a butter-like spread.

Nope, you're not nuts. (Although I can't speak for other New Yorkers; I'm a crazy Canuck displaced to the equator.) IMHO, non-toasting is really only for bagels that are still warm from the oven. Every other bagel at every other time, regardless, is improved by showing it to a bit of heat.

All of the above, and consider Cilantro, Epazote (if you eat beans at all), Chervil, and Lemon Balm.

OK, that makes sense, especially in big cities! Thanks, Soba.

OK, I have to ask. What is a CSA?

What do you cook on Taro leaves? I'm more familiar with their use as a vegetable.

No idea if this would work, but what about coconut milk and a banana puree. Would it freeze hard enough, or would you need to add water (or something with high water content)? Coconut as a popsicle works very well if you've got access to a whole coconut to puree - what you want for the popsicle is basically heavy coconut cream (the very thick, very creamy stuff) - then it freezes like a dream. In Salcedo (a little town that is the home of the best popsicles in South America), this is how they're done, with the inclusion of shredded coconut and a bit of sugar (to taste). Coconut is one of my faves, and done this way it freezes hard enough to be handleable and remains soft enough that you don't get the straw-mouthfull thing. Banana is one of those things that discolours when frozen, and the best approach to it is simply to freeze whole or half bananas, sprinkled with lime juice, wrapped in Saran, and with a stick stuck up them. The minute you go to puree with the bananas available in North America, you'll end up with a really unappetizing brown moosh. This goes for them when added to other fruits. Even large amounts of citrus juice or Vit C doesn't help Cavendish and Gran Naine bananas - they'll still oxidize super rapidly. On the unsweetened popsicles end, I'd say check out Maracuya (passionfruit) if you can find it, and also try doing Lavender with Mint (super-refreshing!).

Robert, the photo doesn't do them justice! Those are creamy 1-lb Patate Gold avocadoes, which are only available for the space of about 3 weeks in Ambato (which, I presume, is about 1 week after the few growers in Patate with the trees harvest them). When you open them, the flesh around the pit to about 1/4" from the skin is a clear, wonderful yellow gold colour. They're among my favourite types of avocado, behind Santo Domingo Giants and Puyo Reds. I'm kind of cheesed that the gold colour washed out in the picture; they're really not that green at all. Kim, there's a reason I have a nice charcoal grill! In the summertime, I do a lot of cooking outdoors and also a lot of chilled salads (more on that later - Andean tubers are best for these). I love the heat - as a former -40 degree-er, it's gorgeous.

BM - with banana leaves, it's not really necessary. Banana leaves on their own are quite salty, and I've found (through extensive trial and error) that it's best not to salt meats that are cooked in them until I've tried a little bit, and then adjust to taste. The potatoes that accompanied the dish, however, were cooked in a seawater-equivalent brine with saffron pollen and provided a really nice counterpoint. Also, in my household, the general rule (obeyed in all cases except for paprikash and banana beef) is that I don't salt anything in the pan - this comes from the people eating preferring vastly different levels of saltiness in their food. I'm happy with just a bare pinch in most cases, my mother likes more, and if I were to salt things in the pan for my father, nobody else would consider them edible.

OK, as promised in the Dinner thread: here's a how-to for wrapping fish in banana leaves. Last night's dinner used Tilapia fillets because the fishmonger didn't have anything whole that looked tasty. The leaves in this example are from a Red Iholene banana plant, which has a nice sort of dark-coppery sheen on the undersides of its leaves, and which needed a leaf removed yesterday. Fish cooked this way poaches in its own juices and ends up pleasantly firm (rather than mushy). 1. Select the leaves and remove from the midrib (if you've got fresh leaves. Lay them upside-down. (Photo shows the difference between upper and lower leaf surfaces). 2. Lay the fish in the center of the leaf. Make sure you leave enough space on all sides to wrap inwards at least 3/4 of the way over the fish. 3. Spices! In this example, I'm using Yellow Seasoning (a blend of mustard, thyme, oregano, nutmeg, and turmeric), Hungarian Paprika, fresh cracked black pepper, and various garden herbs, along with striped lemon and my golden plum sauce from the January harvest. 4. Wrap it up. Begin by bringing the top and bottom (the long edges) together over the fish, then fold the ends up and secure with toothpicks. This takes a bit of practice, but is basically quite simple once you get the hang of it - it's like folding an envelope. 5. Bake at 350 F (180 C) for 30 minutes. Before: After: 6. Open carefully - the leaves will be a bit crispy but still flexible. 7. Plate up and enjoy!

Kim, the weather station referenced by weather.com is in another valley entirely, closer to Riobamba. Ambato doesn't have its own public weather station, because we don't have an airport (despite being a city of 300,000 people - there just isn't enough flat land to land the domestic passenger planes on. Everything here that comes by air comes in choppers.) Microclimates here are fairly extreme from one to another, and I live in what's termed the Altitude Desert. Even so, 68 is a winter temperature - our summers are normally in the 100's to 120's. At 68, my bananas show cold damage! Which brings me to last night's dinner, in a sort of roundabout way. This is tilapia filets baked in banana leaves with fresh chard and salty saffron potatoes. I'll put the whole method for doing the fish in the "Cooking with Leaves" thread, but here's the result:

Who said yeast dough didn't count? I just said it doesn't belong in Empanadas. It's essential to Calzones! Linda, I'll post the recipe along with how-to pics this weekend. It's something that kind of has to be seen to be learned properly.