blue artichoke

Because summers in mid-Missouri are sultry, hot and humid, and because we don't have central A/C, and because our poor window unit struggles to cool just the living room, I've switched to a no-oven menu for the summer. Meals are now cooked on the grill or stovetop. This works out well, because it's just too hot to eat anyway. But every so often, a girl just wants to bake, so I try to save up all my baking needs for one day a week (preferably a relatively cool day, say, only 90 degrees). Yesterday was that day. I made a cheddar and onion pie for dinner, a loaf of molasses-oat banana bread for the Snackdown (see below) and a blackened blueberry cobbler. The cobbler wasn't browning like I hoped, so I flipped on the broiler, let Fat Larry out to play in the back yard and came back to an oven belching smoke. Oops. The top is slightly blackened, but luckily the topping prevented the blueberries from burning, turning acrid and bitter. It was more like an upside-down blueberry cake than a cobbler, but it was yummy.

Snackdown #16, Molasses-Oat Banana Bread
Recipe from Cooking Light. This bread has all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, oats and dark molasses, making it one of the healthiest of the bunch. I cut down a bit on the molasses and added an extra banana, in violation of the Snackdown rules, but it turned out great. Even with the extra banana, the fruit flavor is rather subtle. I think the molasses flavor would have completely overpowered the banana if I hadn't reduced the amount of molasses and added another banana. This definitely wouldn't satisfy a banana bread craving, but is still really good. I think it'll go to the top five nontraditional banana breads.