FFwD: Double Chocolate and Banana Tart

This was quite a rich recipe! Pretty easy to whip up though. I decided to do a mix of the Nutella tart and the double banana. I put a layer of Nutella on the bottom, then the caramelized bananas and finally the chocolate ganache. I skipped the bananas on top, just wasn't really feeling them. The tart turned out very good!

Tart dough ready for oven!

If you notice, I made a big tart to take to a BBQ and a little tart for hubby and me to try last night. Well, in my infinite wisdom, I forgot that the little tart would cook quite a bit faster. Yeah, it burned and I ended up throwing it away.

Caramelizing the bananas

These were a great idea in concept, but mine turned into a mushy banana mess of butter and sugar caramely goodness! Totally worked out, just spread it on the bottom!

Ganache

The ganache was really easy to make, I did it all in one pot! It was funny, I was stirring it and eating Swiss Chard chips at the same time hoping that no Swiss Chard fell in the ganache!

Final yummy!

So, we ended up eating slices out of the big tart, luckily the BBQ today is with family and they don't care! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

WokWednesday: Stir-Fryed Garlic Spinach

Hello! This is the first recipe in a new group Wok Wednesdays! Super excited, I have always wanted to learn how to stir-fry and this will be something good to counteract all the butter from my other groups! We will be stir-frying our way through Grace Young's 'Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge'.

 Bought a nice 14 inch flat bottom carbon steel wok and then seasoned it today.

Seasoning with scallions and ginger

I think it worked, stir-fryed the spinach for dinner. Made sure all the ingredients were measured out beforehand (luckily only a couple) and went to wok!

Stir-frying away

Probably went a little long, the spinach was really wilted.

But, it was awesome! It tasted so good!!! We had it with some salmon and red quinoa and called dinner a success. Can't wait to try Cashew Chicken in a couple weeks!

Yummy!

TwD:BwJ: Pecan Sticky Buns

OK, these buns were definitely a labor of love. Without a stand mixer, the brioche dough gave my arms quite a workout! Between the first kneading and then the incorporating of the butter, I kneaded dough for about 35 minutes straight!  They turned out excellent, but I might wait to make them again when I get a stand mixer (fingers crossed for a birthday present)!

Waiting to be kneaded!

After a lot of love!

I kept pretty close to the recipe, only a couple of changes. I doubled the amount of filling and halved the butter in the bottom of the pan.

Yummy filling!

I left a couple of them at home for the hubby and took the rest to work (my coworkers alternately curse me and beg me for stuff!). The buns rose beautifully at room temperature.

Pretty buns!

After a bit in the oven, the came out and I realized that when I halved the butter in the bottom, I probably should have halved the brown sugar also, because there was not a gooey sauce, it was kind of caramelized pecans and chunks!

But, it did not matter, because they were seriously good! I had 3 of them that day, I could not help myself! They were a hit with the coworkers too!

Just times this by 3 and that was breakfast, lunch and snack!

Thanks so much to our hosts this week: Lynn and Nicole!