Improvements and Banana Bread

I made banana bread in a microwave!! I'm really pleased it came out as well as it did. It's a cheater recipe, because I used a cake mix as a base, but whatever. I don't have any flour or sugar to make it from scratch. Besides, more importantly, I can bake in a microwave!! I think I've mentioned that the dormitories I'm in don't have ovens (if I haven't, there ya go). This greatly disappointed me, as I had just gotten really interested in making baked goods--cookies, cakes, dessert bars, etc. I was determined to have my baked goods, so I did a quick Google, and lo and behold, you can bake in a microwave!

I've read many cooking articles despairing about the use of the microwave in cooking. I say screw that. When a microwave's all you got, you make do. Besides, it's not like I'm about to start microwave-cooking everything. Just things that can't be made on a stove. Like banana bread.



I currently have two banana bread recipes in my large virtual recipe library. I picked the simpler of the two, the Quick & Easy Banana Bread featured on SavvyMiss, courtesy of Myvesta’s CheapMeals.com, and modified it slightly to suit my needs (basically, the dilemma that I had no vanilla extract, no nuts, and most of all no oven).



Cheater Microwave Banana Bread

3 large ripe bananas
1 box yellow cake mix
3 eggs

Also:
1 ramekin (or many, if you don't want to "bake" these one at a time)
vegetable oil for greasing the ramekin
microwave-safe mug filled with water

~In a large mixing bowl, mash up the bananas somehow. I used the tip of a whisk because I had no potato masher available.
~Add the cake mix and eggs and mix well.
~Grease the inside of your ramekin(s) with vegetable oil. This will help your banana bread come out easily.
~Fill the ramekin about halfway to the top, and stick it in the microwave. Put the mug of water alongside it; the water will evaporate in the microwave and keep the banana bread from getting too dry as it rises.
~Set the microwave timer on about 4 minutes--you may need to add more or less time depending on how powerful your microwave is. When the loaf is done cooking, it should have risen a centimeter or two above the edge of the ramekin. Use your first "loaf" to get the time right. Test your banana bread by sticking a toothpick or skewer into the center of the loaf and seeing if it comes out clean. If your loaf is too dry, set the next batch for less time, and if it's still partially raw when you test it add another minute.
~When your banana bread is done, turn the ramekin upside down over a plate and slide a butter knife or fork against the edge of the bread to loosen it. If you greased the ramekin enough, it should pop out pretty easily.

Yields about 4 ramekin-loaves...well, I don't know for how many people exactly, because the first two were torn apart by Mi and E and our dorm neighbors.

I made chicken teriyaki for dinner tonight like E asked yesterday. This time I made a few changes to the recipe, namely adding 2 tbsp of honey and a handful of sliced ginger. Made it a lot better.

























Before I go...
Fire Alarm Count: 14.
Apparently someone was burning incense, which is not allowed in dorms for the explicit reason that it sets off fire alarms.

Using Chicken Teriyaki for Evil

Fire Alarm Count Thus Far: 6.
In case you couldn't tell, it's really starting to piss me off. I mean, is it really so difficult to turn on a vent fan and open a window? Let me answer that for you. No. No it is not. Better yet, don't burn anything in the first place. I'm sure at this point, the NY Fire Department, who has come down every time the alarm has sounded, hates us and wishes we were dead. I bet that the one time there is an actual fire, they're going to think, "Screw this, it's just another stupid teenager who can't cook for shit and is too dumb to open a window."

Now that I'm done with that little rant...let's get to the cooking.

As you might have gleaned from this post's title...tonight I made chicken teriyaki! I'll be very honest, whole chicken legs make me a tad nervous. It is much trickier to tell if they are fully cooked than with chicken breasts, since the texture of cooked chicken leg meat is not too dissimilar to that of raw, partially frozen chicken leg meat. The first and only time (to date) that I have attempted to make fried, whole chicken legs, my mother failed to tell me that the drumsticks needed to be stabbed several times in order to cook thoroughly, and so I dipped and re-dipped the chicken legs into the hot oil until the breadcrumbs nearly turned black, and still the meat next to the bone remained pink and decidedly raw.

Today, cooking for my two suitemates Mi and E and The Boyfriend (who had come to visit), I was determined to do this right. I stabbed those chicken legs 5, 10, 15 times as if they had done me some great personal wrong before letting them sit in fridge and soak up the marinade for a half hour. Then I fried them in a pan over the electric stove (which I love) for a long time until I was sure those legs were completely cooked through.

Marinating chicken legs.

And before you ask, it was yummy. A resounded success, if you will. Especially since this is my first time using chicken drumsticks for anything besides fried chicken or curry. It made the whole kitchen smell delicious, The Boyfriend hung around behind me while I cooked staring intently at the pan, and just to be evil, E and I opened our dormitory door and fanned the smell out into the hallway to tempt innocent passerby.


Photo of me browning the onions and scallions, taken by The Boyfriend who was hovering around with my camera. Like my cupcake earring? It's my favorite pair.



Drool-Worthy Chicken Teriyaki

4 chicken legs with skin still attached
1 medium onion, diced
1 scallion, chopped
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
1/4 cup cold water
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp vegetable oil
black sesame seeds for garnish

~Stab the chicken legs multiple times with a small knife until they are appropriately perforated (not actually, just make sure you stab it enough so that cooking it won't take forever). Chuck them in a large bowl while you mix the marinade.
~In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the teriyaki sauce, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Pour over the chicken legs, and dunk the chicken in and out of them until they are soaked and more or less submerged. Pour half of the onions in and mix it in good. Pop this in the refrigerator to marinade for about 30 minutes.
~Near the end of the 30 minutes, it is probably a good time to start making your rice.
~After 30 minutes are over, pull the chicken out of the fridge. Heat up the vegetable oil in a pan, and when it's hot add the remaining onions and most of the scallions, setting some aside to garnish. Saute until the smell of the onions are wafting up from the pan before putting the chicken legs in.
~When one side of the chicken is nicely brown, flip it to cook the other side (This task can be made much easier with a pair of wooden chopsticks or tongs. Since I had neither, I made do with a wooden spoon).
~Meanwhile, use the leftover marinade to make a sauce by adding the water and cornstarch to the bowl and whisking it all together. Wait until both sides of the chicken is browned before adding this mixture to the pan, because if you don't you will wind up boiling the chicken instead of frying it like you're supposed to.
~Stir the contents of the pan slowly to keep the liquid from sticking the to bottom of the pan and burning. By the time the sauce starts to thicken, you can stab a couple of chicken legs a few more times to the bone to see if they're done. You will know the chicken won't make you sick if you slit it open and the meat inside is white and the juices that gush out from the incision are clear. A few spots of pink near the bone is normal, as long as it's not actually bleeding.

Makes enough for 4 people. Serve garnished with reserved scallions and steamed rice topped with sesame seeds.


I used store-bought Tsunami-brand teriyaki sauce for this, because I didn't have all the ingredients on hand to make it from scratch (in case you were wondering how I managed to have bottled teriyaki sauce in a kitchen I just recently moved into but not ginger or brown sugar, which by all rights should be staples and are the two ingredients I'm missing...I brought it from home). But if making it from scratch is more your style, check out this recipe from Recipezaar, which got very high reviews, and tell me how it turns out so I can use it the next time my kitchen is more well-stocked.

You can also use chicken breast for this recipe, obviously, but let's be honest, chicken legs just taste so much better.

























The Boyfriend, eating my chicken teriyaki and rice. I almost wouldn't believe his pronouncement of it being good if I hadn't also eaten it myself.