Burgs in the Big City

I wish I could say that I created this. A tuna tartare burger with a side of sweet potato tots. It was excellent.

Relocating to a new state, a new city, makes cooking in the home kitchen tough. Especially when home is a temporary, cramped apartment. And not the best of appliances to work with. The stove top gets way too hot, and the oven does too ... and the oven thermometer seems to be lying about that fact. So the baked goods have been a little on the dry side, and there's a lot of boiling-over on the stove top going on.

Maybe it's just another lesson for a beginner cook. Appliances are all different, with their own quirks and nuances.

By the way, I miss Earth Fare (a bit better than Whole Foods, in my opinion), Clean Catch (Charlotte is truly lucky to have such a high quality fish market), The Secret Chocolatier, Great Harvest Bread, Dilworth Coffee (especially the people behind the counter), Daphne's Bakery (in Mint Hill), and especially the Matthews Farmer's Market (again, Charlotte/Matthews is lucky to have such a high quality, year-round farmer's market).

That said, I have gained an abundance of new restaurants to choose from. One of the specialties/obsessions here seems to be the all-mighty burger. There's Flip Burger Boutique for one, where I went pescatarian with the tuna burg above. And there are a lot of really good veggie burgers, too. Farm Burger and the World Peace Cafe both have delicious, non-soy (watching the soy intake; there's too much soy in everything these days) veggie burgers that are just as hearty and tasty as the all-American beef kind (yes, really, Steve!).

Also, aren't those great names ... Farm Burger, Flip Burger?

And, lastly for this post, here's a veggie burger I made in my own lowly apartment kitchen. It's a concoction of whatever was on hand ... pinto and cannellini beans, mushrooms, onions, etc. Pretty good in a pinch, but not as good as a Peace Burger by any means.

The 99% Are Hungry

The time has come to inject some political opining into Fried Sage. Getting into political discussions at the hair salon tends to get the juices flowing. Listening to NPR will do that, too ... especially with only 6 weeks to go.

On the "On Point" NPR show today, they were discussing some alarming findings about poverty and the middle class in America. A fellow with the Brookings Institute shared some of the findings from their research. They defined certain benchmarks as a measure of how well children in America are succeeding along the path to middleclassdom. The benchmark at age 19 is for a kid to: graduate from high school with a GPA of at least 2.5, not be convicted of a crime, and not become a parent.

Currently, 57% of American kids are meeting this benchmark. That means pretty close to half of all kids are either not graduating from high school or are doing so with very poor grades, have criminal records, and/or are having babies. One of the other experts on the show was comparing our rich-poor gap with countries like Rwanda.

Making the rich richer is not the answer. I'm talking to you, Republican party. Their candidate has made it perfectly clear that he cannot relate to the 99%, he has no desire to relate, and he doesn't even have the ability to pretend to relate.

I won't go down the ranting path any longer (for now). I really just wanted to share those disturbing findings. The discussion on the show began with a soundbite of Paul Ryan's speech at the RNC in which he claims that there are three basic keys to making it to the middle class: graduating from high school, working hard, and marrying before having children. The Brookings fellow agreed that doing those three things can help, but that is over-simplification at best. She said the biggest factor is whether you are born into a rich family or poor family, and of course no kid gets that choice.

Banana Bread

This is a moist, sweet bread that isn't overpowered by the flavor of the bananas. I've taken Erin McKenna's gluten-free recipe and added the gluten back in by using spelt flour. I've yet to bake something with spelt flour and not get a moist, delicious end result. I can't understand why it's so underused in recipes.

For some reason this recipe was designed to have leftovers, using a smaller loaf pan. I used my larger 9-incher, filling it up half-way with the batter as directed, and made three muffins from the leftovers. But in the end there was enough room in the loaf pan for all of the batter, so next time I won't bother with the muffins.

The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of mashed bananas. I used two smallish bananas, which -- when mashed -- looked to be less than that. So, if you like more of a banana-y flavor in your banana bread, just use more bananas than I did.

I also threw in a handful of chopped dates and about a cup of bittersweet chocolate chips. I think toasted walnuts (or some other nut) would be good as well.

I'm not sure what the sinking in the middle was all about.

Banana Bread

(adapted from Erin McKenna's Babycakes)

2 cups spelt flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup extra virgin coconut oil, melted
2/3 cup agave
2/3 cup milk (I used 2% organic)*
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 mashed bananas
extras (I used a handful of chopped dates and a cup of bittersweet chips)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Oil a loaf pan (I used coconut oil).

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl, and whisk together. Add the coconut oil, agave, milk of choice, and vanilla, and stir until smooth. Fold in the bananas (and any extras, like chips) until evenly distributed.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 35 minutes, rotating the pan after 20 minutes. A toothpick should come out clean.

Let the bread cool in the pan for about 20 minutes. Then, after running a knife around the edge, cover with a cutting board or plate and invert it onto said board. Next, re-invert it onto another board or plate to get it right-side up.

Store the uncut loaf in plastic wrap at room temp for up to 3 days. (After that, I stored it for a few days in the refrigerator before transferring the remainder to the freezer.)


* I've neglected to mention it, but I hope it's a given that the type of milk used is up to the baker. Many of the recipes I use are adapted vegan recipes. I use regular (albeit, organic 2%) ol' cow's milk because I live with a carnivore and haven't had (made, is more like it) the opportunity to explore other types (rice, coconut, soy, almond). Also, even though I don't always specify organic, I try to use organic everything whenever possible (like the flour, for example).