A new banana bread recipe

We were getting rid of some of our old files when we re-discovered this recipe for Banana Bread sent to us by our friend Aida who lives in Toronto, Canada. She wrote: "The large amount of soda as well as long baking time gives the dark color to the bread. Delicious!" Right! This is a good one, thus here it is for you to try and maybe sell.

You need three medium very ripe bananas (green plantain)–the blacker the better; one cup sugar, three teaspoons baking soda, a dash of salt, two eggs, half cup oil, one and a half cups flour, half cup buttermilk or sour milk (made by adding one teaspoon lemon juice to one half cup milk). Put bananas (with a little oil) in a food processor until pureed; you should have one cup of puree. Add sugar, soda and salt and continue to process for 30 seconds. Add the eggs and oil and blend well. Pour in flour, then milk. Continue to process for about 10 seconds or until smooth. Line a 9" x 5 " loaf pan with butter or aluminum foil. Pour the batter and bake on the middle rack of the oven at 275F for about two and a half hours or until the toothpick test shows the cake is done. This yields one loaf. You can freeze the bread. Enjoy!

At a recent garage sale, we found this Pugon Pan de Sal Bread Master group and tried some of their products which, for the price, are good enough. At the moment their selection includes (all bromate free) pan de sal at P35 for a pack of 10, bacon and cheese roll at P25, cinnamon roll at P6, floss bread at P20, kani roll at P35 and tuna pan de sal at P20. They will soon expand to making foccacia and ciabatta bread and cakes. They have two outlets–at 27 Amelita Street, BF Almanza, Las Piñas (tel 806-3026) and at Bromelea Street in Verdana Homes, Molino, Bacoor (tel 517-1097). Our second discovery was the Marjolaine cake introduced recently by Red Ribbon and sold in all their outlets. This is layers of meringue wafers with praline cream, decorated with rich chocolate and roasted cashew nuts topped with sweet chocolate wedges. Great to indulge in once in a while. The small one costs P264 while the regular goes for P480. As explained by the gracious ladies behind the counter, this is like sans rival, but with less butter and sugar. We did not realize it until recently, but Red Ribbon also offers take-out palabok and spaghetti. Our brood have always liked their chicken empanada at P18 per.

We went dining again with friends. Our friend Toni brought us to this place called Guava on the ground floor of the Serendra at The Fort. Of course, their dishes are basically guava-based and since this is a Southern Tagalog technique of cooking we anticipated a lunch we would savor. We had the usual sinigang and kare-kare, the latter served with choco-bagoong, which we would rather not have again. For dessert, the group shared the innovative banana cake in dalandan and kesong puti cream.

With another group, our UST chums, Blanche, Chita, Evie Cely and Auring, we tried the food at Swagat Indian Restaurant on Rada Street in Makati. Per Blanche who is an authority on this kind of cuisine, we were in for a real gastronomic high. Indeed we were, as we started with the refreshing Lassi (they serve it either sweet or salty), and fried papadom lentil wafers, then proceeded to Murgh Malekanwila or chicken cooked in lots of Indian spices, Rogan Josh or mutton done with cream (this is good), Curry and Shrimp Masala, likewise in thick sauce. Dishes start at P160 each. Servings are small, but as you would want to try as many dishes as possible, a lunch of about four or five courses would be fine. A word of advise to the owner (she does all the cooking in a home-type kitchen, thus service is rather slow)–train the staff on service. They serve the food from across the table, nearly hitting the faces of the diners. Certainly a most unwelcome way of putting food on the table.

The Vita Plus line of health products now includes Yellow Tea with bamboo shoots, champorado and arroz caldo packets (add water), and Eight-in-One Choco Coffee. As with their original First Vita Plus Natural Health Drink, these are formulated using premium leaves such as malunggay, saluyot, sili, colitis and talbos ng kamote, with dalandan juice for its rich Vitamin C content. The group is open to dealership, call 02-837- 4257.

We are still waiting for the opening of the new S & R outlet, either in Alabang or The Fort. Hopefully they’ll have the same meat supplier. It is sad that at this point, we cannot find any that approximates what we used to buy in the old Price Smart.

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