Mango Plantain Quick Bread

Growing up on a Caribbean island meant that one always had a surplus of tropical fruits like mangos and plantains. In Jamaica, the most common use of Plantain in a desert is in Plantain Tarts or Turnovers. I guess they could be called "Empanadas de Platano" in Latin American countries. Indeed, in those countries like Panama where Jamaicans, and people from other Caribbean islands went to work at the turn of the 20th century to help build the Panama Canal, they also left their mark on the cuisine of those countries. In Panama, the Plantain Tart is called "Plantita" with an accent on the final "a". I never much liked Plantain Tarts as a child, and back then nobody ever thought about using them to make anything else. I thought therefore I would start using them in Quick Breads, and I have a number of variations on this site. For this one, I thought I'd like to try these two favorites together to make a bread. To achieve the balance of sweetness I wanted, without using too much sugar, I used very, very ripe plantains. It's at that point that the sugars in the fruit are at their highest concentration. The resulting bread is a very dense, very crusty, slightly sweet, and delicately flavored product that's just great with afternoon te or coffee, and spread with your favorite jelly or jam!
Ingredients

2 cups bread or all-purpose flour

½ cup Scottish oatmeal

¼ cup grated coconut
1 ½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt  
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon  

½ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground coriander (optional)
¾ cup brown sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

½ cup canola oil
½ cup Greek or strained yogurt 
3 eggs, well beaten

Juice and zest from 1 lemon or lime
1 tsp vanilla
1 ¼ cup mango, coarsely shredded (the flesh of the mango should not be green but yellow and firm, not yellow, soft and ripe)

1 ¼ cups very ripe peeled, steamed, and mashed Plantain

½ cup dried cranberries, finely chopped

¼ cup milk or half and half

Directions

1.      Mix flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and soda, and dry spices together in a bowl. Set aside.

2.      Cut and peel the plantain,

and steam in a small amount of water until cooked.

Remove from heat, drain and mash the measured amount. Add the oil and yogurt to this and mix well.

3.      Peel and shred the mango using the large holes on your grater. Add the lemon juice, zest, and dried cranberries to this and set aside.

4.      In a large mixing bowl, whisk sugars, oil, and vanilla until pale in color.  Mix in the mango and plantain mixture. Add dry ingredients all at once and mix until just blended.  Do this quickly as the chemical reaction between the soda and the lemon juice starts at this point to form carbon dioxide bubbles.  Add the milk and mix until incorporated. The batter will be thick just like a bread dough. Pour into greased and floured loaf pan.

5.      Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes or until a cake tester (skewer) inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

 

Crunchy Nutty Millet Squares

This recipe came about because I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to eat with my coffee! I didn’t want a granola bar, didn’t want Biscotti, didn’t want a cookie, didn’t…..well you get the idea. This is like a cross between all three things. I got 20 squares, and according to an on line nutritional calculator, each square has 170 calories, 6.3  grams sugar, and 18 grams carbohydrate.This is not that far removed from a standard "healthy" granola bar! You can use nuts of your choosing. I used walnuts and almonds. For seeds, I used pumpkin and sesame seeds.

Ingredients

1 cup Durum flour

1/3 cup flax meal
1 1/2 cups mixed nuts and seeds (chop nuts only, not the seeds, to meal like consistency)

½ cup puffed millet
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
2 large eggs
1/3 cup brown sugar ( I use coconut sugar, but ordinary brown sugar may also be used.)

1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1.      Set oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit

2.      Line a 11x9x1 inch baking pan (or slightly smaller) with parchment paper, leaving a generous overhang on all sides (see photo)

3.      Chop the nuts (NOT the seeds) to the consistency of coarse meal, and mix in a bowl with the flour, flax meal and salt.

4.      Whisk the eggs, sugar, vanilla and oil until pale in color

5.      Mix together the dry and wet ingredients to make a thick dough

6.      Pour the dough into the baking pan and spread it using a moistened or oiled spatula

7.      Bake for 25 minutes in oven then remove. Carefully lift the partially baked sheet out of the baking pan, using the parchment paper overhangs as handles. Place on a flat surface and cut into squares/rectangles. Separate the squares. Let cool for 20 minutes.

8.      Transfer the squares on the parchment paper to a cookie sheet. Put back in the oven but decrease the temperature to 275 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for another 90 minutes until nicely browned. Remove from oven and allow to completely cool on a rack. Pack in an air tight container.