Fun With Nutella and Other Mixed Nuts by Shell

 I realized I was in trouble when I was elbows deep in a Sam’s Club sized jar of Nutella and consuming it with a zeal I hadn’t possessed about anything in my life for the past seven years.  What is it about nuts combined with vanilla or chocolate and whipped into submission then put in a jar for consumption?  I could live on this stuff!  Combine it with peanut butter and put in on my all time favorite food of all – the humble toast - and even the pickiest of them will be singing Hallelujah! 

It was at this moment of enlightenment when I simultaneously realized with horror that not only did I have this giant jar of chocolate hazelnut spread, but I also owned a pretty good sized jar of vanilla hazelnut spread from World Market.  How did this end up in my cupboard?  I needed to do something fast!  Running to turn on my oven, I accidentally passed by the mirror and noticed my face was smeared with chocolate….I looked like a crazy person!  I grabbed 3 overripe bananas on the counter and my Mom’s cookbook: “From Blueberries to Wild Roses” and made quick work of an altered recipe:

Put the Spoon Down! Banana Bread with Whipped Nut Spreads

1/2 cup sugar

¼ cup brown sugar

1 stick of butter/softened

3 ripe bananas, smushed

1/3 c. nutella + ¼ c. vanilla hazelnut spread (or whatever you have on hand)

1 egg

1 t. vanilla

1¾ c. flour

2 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

¾ t. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Combine sugars, butter, bananas, egg, vanilla, nutella and vanilla hazelnut spread.  Mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a separate bowl.   Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix.  Put in a bread pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until center is done.  Cool completely before serving.  This bread is great with some cinnamon sugar toasted pecans on top (if you have them handy). 

Thanks Mom, you’re the best!!!

Food - Life - Food...by Shell

Food has always been a common theme in our family.  From my Mom writing her cookbook, to our family owning a café, to my husband and I running a pizza parlor, great food runs in our veins, nourishes our body and soul and can make a good day turn great. 

I have had a love/hate relationship with food for some of my life in that my body does not require much of it for survival, however; my entire being craves it for its own necessity.

In most careers that I have been in, food is either a theme, main money motivator, or what the whole office revolves around.  The most mundane job I had, in a cubicle processing insurance forms, actually had an entire cafeteria inside of it.  I would look with envy and confusion as my co-workers would down whole turkey dinners and return to work without falling asleep at their desks.  They would munch hot dogs, smothered with cheese and bacon, with a healthy helping of crinkle cut fries without batting a mascaraed eye lash.  I mostly ate fruit salad or soup.  Sometimes I would just have a little packet of oyster crackers and call it good.  However, this cafeteria had one redeeming quality: pita bread that was so pillowy and chewy, it would make you weep.  I would treat myself once a week to this delight, warmed on the grill and filled with roasted veggies or chicken.  The pita bread steamed when pulled apart and was a culinary delight if combined with red peppers, black olives, grilled onions and sometimes chicken. It truly was the one and only highlight of this job.

Along with owning the pizza parlor, I am a technical services librarian at the library in my town.  You would think that pictures of food in cookbooks would be the only food here.  Not so!  The many patrons in our town share their baking adventures with us willingly.  Often we have lots of treats to choose from and not your average sandwich cookie.  Oh, no, we are treated to the likes of thick lemon bars, cinnamon sugar donut bread, white chocolate dipped pretzels and cherry coffee cake among other delights.  We can wash it down with fair trade organic coffee graciously supplied by the Friends of the Library.  If that isn’t enough, soon after I started this job, my boss showed me the “chocolate drawer”.  Yes, we have an entire drawer filled with giant gourmet chocolate bars. 

I think I am destined to a life revolving around food, a fact I actively avoided for some years.  I no longer run away from it, but actively embrace it.  And, if it makes me blue, I can find easy solace in a giant chocolate bar – I know where to find them.