Trip report: Vegetarian Tokyo September 2011
I’ve waited so long to write about my Tokyo trip that my recollection of the details has mostly faded. The main thing that I remember is that food in Tokyo is extremely expensive. Everything is about twice as much as you would pay in Europe or the U.S., and some things (like fruit and nuts) are even more expensive. Ignoring the prices, though, I had a lot of very tasty food. Here are the food memories have persisted: Read the rest of this entry »
Vegan banana bread with peanut butter frosting
I used to make banana bread all the time in Pittsburgh, but for some reason I stopped making it once I moved to Germany. But yesterday I had five over-ripe bananas gracing my windowsill, and so I decided to resurrect my old recipe. We were having guests for dinner, however, and Derek thought that plain banana bread was a little homely to serve for dessert, so he decided to dress the bread up a little with a peanut butter icing. Banana and peanut butter is a ubiquitous combination, but somehow I’ve never had banana bread with a peanut butter icing. But a quick internet search reveals quite a few recipes for banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, so clearly others have trod this path before us. I even found one recipe for banana bread that calls for mini Reese’s peanut butter cups in the batter. Wow. Our banana bread wasn’t quite that decadent, but the peanut butter / banana bread combination was definitely a winner.
My recipe makes a basic banana bread with deep banana flavor, a moist, crumbly interior, and a golden, crisp top. Use older, more darkly speckled bananas because they are sweeter, more moist, and give more banana flavor than less ripe bananas.
The captious vegetarian 