Meat, Mashed Potatoes, Peas, Banana Bread

Tonight we had a “Jim” meal, meat, potatoes, and peas.  Jim was so excited he pulled out a really good bottle of wine from the cellar.  It was a 2005 Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast by Williams Selyem.  He bought it a zillion years ago at the Iron Bridge Wine Company in Warrenton, VA.  I marinated pork tenderloin in onion and pineapple jams.  We grilled it.   For the potatoes I used Idahoan 4 cheese mashed potatoes.  If you have not tried these potatoes, you should.  They are just as good as mashing real potatoes yourself.  The pea recipe comes from Penzeys.

Ingredients:

2 C cooked frozen peas

1 T EVOO

2 T whole brown mustard seeds

¼ onion, thinly shaved into slices and then chopped very small

2 t curry powder

¼ t granulated garlic powder

¼ t powdered ginger

2 t honey

¼ C sour cream

Directions:

1.      Heat the oil over medium heat.  When hot, add the onion.  Stir and cook until translucent/starting to brown, 2-3 minutes. 

2.      Add brown mustard seeds.  When they start to sizzle and pot, add the curry powder, garlic, ginger, and honey.

3.      Stir well, and then add the peas.  Cook for a few minutes until the peas are heated through. 

4.      Turn off the heat, stir in the sour cream and serve. 

These ingredients made the peas sweet as if you had fresh peas.  It is 4- ½ C servings.  I was not real excited by this recipe. 

Finally earlier in the day I made “Best Ever Banana Bread.”  Don’t throw your existing recipe away.  I thought it was greasy and I could taste the corn flour and the pie spice.  In fact you can taste everything but the bananas.  The good thing was I could finish my rice flour that I have had for years.  This was in Meat Free Monday cookbook.      

Ingredients:

9 T butter

½ C sugar

2 eggs

3 mashed bananas

1 C rice flour

½ C corn flour

1 t pumpkin pie spice

2 t baking powder

¼ t salt

Directions:

1.      Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and line with parchment paper a 1# loaf pan. 

2.      Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 

3.      Beat in the eggs one at a time. 

4.      Gently stir in the bananas.

5.      Stir in the flours, spice baking powder and salt and fold until incorporated. 

6.      Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 1 ½ hours until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. 

7.      Cool on a wire rack.