Kirsten's Butterscotch Brownies

http://www.food.com/recipe/betty-crockers-butterscotch-brownies-441026

Banana Bread

Banana Bread Recipe

• Prep time: 5 minutes
• Cook time: 1 hour

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Ingredients

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Method

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Yield: Makes one loaf.

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/

Curried Lentils

(prep-- if using dried lentils, sort out the lentils to remove small rocks, or discolored beans. Soak lentils for about 8 hours in fresh water. They will absorb water, so be careful that your bowl is big enough.)


Ingredients:
  Main Dish:
-lentils
-1 or 2 carrots
-1/2 onion
-curry powder


  Optional:
-garlic
-bay leaves
-other spices (chili powder, cumin)
-mint garnish
-hard boiled egg side
-rice
-dark greens garnish (bok choy or spinach)
-tofu
-cheese topping

Directions:
-chop ½ a head of onions 1cm x 1cm and sautee on low heat in a big pot with a tablespoon of oil, until they start turning clear.
-put in 3 tablespoons curry powder, cook stirring occasionally for about 3 minutes.
-add chopped garlic (1 teaspoon) and 1 or 2 chopped carrots.
-add a bag of soaked lentils (pour out water they were soaked in and rinse), and enough water for the beans to be covered by about an inch of water. Bring to a boil. Add a bay leaf, and a dash of salt.
-simmer on low heat for an hour

Serve on rice (let's make 4 cups in your big cooker, so we can give some to hungry people and freeze leftover), or greens (steamed hakusai, 3 1-inch slices, I think it'll use the rest we have which is good), and garnished with a boiled egg (please boil 5, if we have them. If not, whatever we have left), and cheese (Vicki will buy).

Tatara - Poteto - Sarada

This is a recipe for potato salad, Japanese-style, from my friend, Tatara-san.

Potato Salad ingredients:
-4-5 potatoes
-mayonaisse
-1 cucumber
-dash of salt

Garnishes:
-3 boiled eggs
-ham
-apple

1. Peel potatoes, and put in a pot. Fill so the potatoes are just submerged/floating. Boil like crazy.
2. Take out excess water and keep in a cup (you might use it later if the potatoes are too dry). Let the potatoes cool. (In summer, setting them down in front of your fan will help cool them down faster.)
3. Slice your cucumber very thinly. (I use a mandolin, but watch your fingertips!) Put in a bowl with a dash of salt, toss to cover the cucumber evenly, and set aside.
4. When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, put in mayo to taste. Squeeze cucumber out over the sink to get rid of excess water, and put in with the potato. Squish with your hands, yay! (Or, if you don't find squishing things with your hands as fun as I do [stay away from handmade gyoza (pot stickers) then], stir with a fork.)
5. Good garnishes: apples sliced incredibly thinly and small go well mixed into the salad if you want a sweeter potato salad. Ham (lunch meat style), sliced thinly, is also delicious. Mashed up boiled eggs go well on top, or with the whites chopped and mixed into the salad and the yolks mashed and sprinkled on top.

MeriPon

This is a recipe for my homemade ponzu. I never make the same batch twice, but here's a general recipe I follow:

Base: 1/2 vinegar, 1/2 soy sauce.
Spices: 1 fair sized lobe of ginger (approximately 2x2x2 cm), grated. 3 cloves of garlic, minced. The juice of 1 citrus; in Japan I use yuzu or kabosu, but in America a lime would do well. You want something less zesty than a lemon, but not sweet. (I don't recommend mikan, oranges, or grapefruit, but if you try it and find it delicious, let me know!)
Mix and serve!
I find it gets tastier the longer it sits, so I mix it when I have free time in the kitchen, and then let it sit in the refridgerator.

Tatara-san's Umepon
This is an idea from Tatara-san for an alternative to the Ponzu above.
Put 8-10 unripe green ume (Japanese plum) in soy sauce, let it sit for a month or two in the refridgerator, and then serve.
I will test this recipe out in May, when ume grow.

Snickerdoodles

• PREP TIME 40 Min
• TOTAL TIME 50 Min
• SERVINGS 4

1 1/2 cups sugar  (360 mg sugar)

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened (120 mg butter)

1/2 cup shortening (120mg)  [or, if you don't want to use shortening, just put in another 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened (120 mg butter) ]

2 eggs

2 3/4 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose or unbleached flour (660 mg )

2 teaspoons cream of tartar [can be replaced with baking powder (maybe equal parts?)]

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 

 

 

• 1 Heat oven to 400ºF. (200C)
• 2 Mix 1 1/2 cups sugar, the butter, shortening and eggs in large bowl. Mix with a hand mixer.
• Stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Add a little bit at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl. When the dough becomes too tough to mix with the handmixer, hand mix in.
• 3 Shape dough into 1 1/4-inch balls. Mix 1/4 cup sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
• 4 Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.

Expert Tips

To ensure recipe success if using a vegetable oil spread, use a spread with at least 65% vegetable oil.
Rise to the occasion! If using self-rising flour, there is no need to add cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.
These rich cinnamon-sugar cookies make a great gift! Place a bag of them in a small basket along with packets of cappuccino or hot chocolate mix.

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/snickerdoodles/7ffc92a9-d847-4869-9ecb-99de3b751b14


From Kirsten:
Shortening = butter
Cream of tartar = some baking powder (didn't realize we could substitute this until we had already put baking soda in)
Sugar = only had 1 cup of sugar, so we did the rest with dark brown sugar.  (dark brown sugar always makes things more yummy)

Mom suggests next time to put cinnamon in the dough, as well as the outer coating. 

Renkon Pickles

Renkon no Sunomono (Marinated Lotus Root)

Makes 6 servings
8-inch piece of renkon (lotus root)
4 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon salt
Finely grated lemon rind, for garnish
1. Wash the renkon thoroughly, then peel off the outer layer with a vegetable peeler, and slice into thin slices. Blanch the slices in a pot of boiling water for 1 minute and then drain.
2. Combine the remaining ingredients then toss with the renkon slices. Chill the renkon in an airtight container overnight.  To serve, garnish with finely grated lemon rind.


http://www.lafujimama.com/2011/12/renkon-no-sunomono/

*They only came out so-so. I will have to play with this recipe some more.