Just because it’s hot and sticky outside, it doesn’t mean you can’t make dessert.  Especially one that doesn’t require the oven or stove.

This dish is as much a function of the weather as it is the economy.  Sure, stone fruits and berries are in season, but my local supermarket was selling cherries for $6.99 per quarter pound. So I’ve been buying bananas instead.  When I found free organic vanilla wafers at a street fair, I immediately thought of banana pudding.  Instead of making custard though, why not use yogurt?

The result was a little tangy, but it was entirely worth the two-minute effort.  You really don’t need a recipe (Layer yogurt with cookies and sliced bananas.  Refrigerate.  Eat.), but here’s approximate amounts.

Effortless Banana Pudding

4 cups plain or vanilla yogurt (see note)
60 to 70 vanilla wafers
4 to 5 organic bananas, sliced 1/4-inch thick

Line the bottom and sides of a 10-inch pie pan or a wide 1 1/2- to 2-quart dish with wafers.

Layer with half the yogurt and bananas.  Put another layer of wafers on top, and repeat with the yogurt and bananas.  Save a little yogurt and cover the top of the bananas completely, to prevent browning.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours.

Note: Because the bananas and wafers are sweet, you don’t want the yogurt to be loaded with sugar.  I prefer plain yogurt and flavor it to taste (1-2 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract).  Seek out a high-quality plain yogurt, or else it will be grainy and very sour.  I don’t like Dannon, Axelrod, La Yogurt, Stonyfield (the low-fat variety), and Trader Joe’s.  Wallaby and Brown Cow are more mild.

Although conventional bananas are safe to eat, they contain far more pesticides than American-grown fruit, and are possibly killing off songbirds.

I recently inherited a gallon of organic milk and wanted to finish it before it went bad. Drinking it was out of the question. I dislike the taste of plain milk so much that I eat my cereal dry. And why would anyone want to ruin a perfectly good cookie by dunking it in milk?

Not one to waste anything (not even bread cubes), I turned this milk into “ricotta cheese.” Real ricotta isn’t made from milk per se. It’s actually a by-product of other cheeses. Whenever you make cheese, you have the solids (curds) and leftover liquid (whey). The liquid is usually thrown out, but if you re-heat it, you have ricotta. Hence its name, which is Italian for “re-cooked.” You can make a good approximation at home though by heating milk with an acidic ingredient. And poof, that gallon of milk reduces down to a sizable four cups.

Fresh ricotta makes the supermarket tubs seem like spackle in comparison. It’s refreshingly tart, like sour cream. Rather than having a uniform grittiness, fresh ricotta has giant, billowy curds that you can eat while still warm.

Of course I had to make this cheese into dessert, so I used Lidia Bastianich’s torta di ricotta recipe and added some mix-ins. For a dessert, this cheesecake has relatively little sugar and fat but lots of protein. It’s even Passover-friendly, if you use nuts for the “crust” and matzo meal for the flour. The texture is light and fluffy if you like that sort of thing, but I like my cheesecake creamy and dense. If I were to make this again, I would add the eggs whole, instead of whipping the whites separately.

Fresh Ricotta Cheesecake

This cheesecake is light and fresh, with its soufflé-like texture and bright, citrus-accented flavor. If you like your cheesecake dense, try blending whole eggs with the sugar.

Adapted from Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Bastianich and The 1997 Joy of Cooking

Start to finish: 3 days (includes making the cheese and chilling the cheesecake)
Active time: 2 hours

Ingredients:
Softened butter and fine dry bread crumbs (wheat germ, crushed cereal, or finely ground nuts can be substituted) for the pan
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts (chopped almonds are a good substitute)
1 Tbsp diced candied lemon peel
1 Tbsp diced candied orange peel
2 Tbsp coarsely chopped dark chocolate
1 Tbsp flour
3 cups firm, homemade whole-milk ricotta cheese, recipe follows (If using store-bought cheese, place 3 1/2 cups ricotta in a cheesecloth-lined sieve and place the sieve over a bowl. Cover the ricotta with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours or up to one day.)
5 large cage-free eggs, separated
1 tsp vinegar or lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt (a heaping 1/4 tsp if using unsalted ricotta cheese)
Grated zest of 1 large lemon
Grated zest of 1 large orange
1/2 cup heavy cream or whole milk

Special equipment: food processor

Brush an 8-inch spring form pan with enough softened butter to coat lightly. Sprinkle the bread crumbs over the butter to coat generously. Shake out the excess crumbs. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a small bowl, combine the nuts, lemon peel, orange peel, chocolate and flour. Set aside.

In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, blend the egg yolks, sugar and salt until pale yellow. Add the drained ricotta, lemon and orange zest and process until smooth. Combine the cream or milk.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and vinegar or lemon juice with a hand mixer until they form firm peaks when a beater is lifted from them.

Add the chocolate-nut mixture to the ricotta mixture and pulse in the food processor once or twice, just until combined.

Add about one fourth of the egg whites to the ricotta mixture and gently stir with a large rubber spatula. Pour the ricotta mixture over the rest of the egg whites (you’re really supposed to add the egg whites to the top of the ricotta, but who wants to dirty another bowl for mixing?) and gently fold the mixture, using a large rubber spatula to scrape from the bottom of the bowl up and over the top. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared pan and bake until the cake is golden brown on top and the edges are set but the center jiggles slightly when the pan is tapped, about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Cool the cake completely before removing the sides of the pan. Serve the cake at room temperature or chilled for at least 6 hours.

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

Adapted from Michael Chiarello and Italian Food Forever

Start to finish: 1 hr and 10 minutes

Makes 4 cups

Ingredients:
1 gallon whole milk
1/3 cup vinegar (I like the taste of cider vinegar)

Special equipment: cheesecloth, thermometer

Heat the milk in a large, heavy, non-reactive pot until it reaches 185 degrees F, or until the milk makes popping sounds and barely simmers. Be sure to stir the milk frequently with a rubber spatula and cover the whole pan bottom to prevent scorching. (Warning: the heating process can take 40 minutes if you start with cold milk from the fridge.) While the milk is heating, rinse a large piece of cheesecloth or muslin with cold water, then fold it so that it is 6 or more layers, and arrange it in the sieve or colander placed in the sink.

Remove from the milk heat and add the vinegar. Stir gently just to mix. The curds and whey will begin to form immediately. The whey looks like cloudy water underneath a mass of thick white curds on the surface.

Working from the side of the pot, gently ladle the whey into the prepared sieve. Go slowly so as not to break up the curds. Finally, ladle the curds into the sieve. Lift the sides of the cloth to help the liquid drain. Resist the temptation to press on the curds. When the draining slows, gather the edges of the cloth, tie them into a bag, and hang the bag from the faucet. Continue to drain until the dripping stops, about 15 minutes. If using the ricotta for cheesecake, drain until it is firm and crumbly, about 30 minutes. Store the ricotta in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

When eating out, I am notorious for bringing home every piece of uneaten food. I’ve asked waiters to wrap cranberry compote (what else will go with leftover pumpkin pancakes?) and the bread basket. This weekend, I took home leftover bread cubes from the fondue at Artisanal. If you’re paying for quality, why let it go to waste?

Laugh all you want, but if you threw that bread in the trash, you would have missed out on Nutella bread pudding. It’s like baked French toast with swirls of chocolate. Bread pudding is perfect for stale artisanal bread, the kind that’s marked 50% off at the end of the day (although white sandwich bread will do). Hot out of the oven, you get the contrast of a jiggly, spongy bottom and a crunchy, crouton-like top. Bread pudding is also divine cold, in a cold pizza/morning hangover type of way. Not that I would know, since I don’t drink.

In New Orleans, my friend Erik spent a grueling night scrubbing burnt bread and custard off a pan because we didn’t use a water bath. At the risk of offending Erik, I never use a water bath for bread pudding at home. I like the crusty edges.

Not only is this recipe a delicious way to clean out your pantry (I used soy milk and leftover Nutella babka), but it’s low in fat, too.

Nutella Bread Pudding

Adapted from Emeril Lagasse and Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich

Oil, for greasing pan
1/4 cup Nutella
8 slices day-old crusty bread or Nutella babka (about 4 cups when cut into 1/2-inch cubes)
4 large eggs
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups milk (soy is fine)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease an 8 by 8-inch square pan with oil.

Spread Nutella on four slices of bread and top with remaining pieces of bread. Cut the sandwiches into 1/2-inch cubes.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar and vanilla until very smooth. Stir in milk and add the bread. Let the mixture sit for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake until the pudding is set in the center, about 55 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes. Slather the top with more Nutella, if desired. Bread pudding is best hot out of the oven, or refrigerated after a day. Microwaving it makes it rubbery.

Don’t you hate it when cookbooks, magazines and blogs have lovely pictures of food that you can’t make at home? I assure you, not everything I make is pretty or delicious. I only reserve the best recipes for this blog, but now I’ll take you into my mishaps through this new column: Don’t try this at home. I won’t post the recipes in the recipe index because they’re so bad, but sometimes you can learn as much from your mistakes as your successes.

A while back, I received a free sample of True Blue blueberry juice. The name implied that it’s 100% pure blueberry juice. It was a great concept and tasted like real berries, but it was made from blueberry and grape juice concentrates, plus added sugar. It might as well been called “reconstituted blueberry-blended cocktail.” The selling point was also the antioxidants, but you have to drink two cups of juice (220 calories) to get the same amount of antioxidants as 1/2 cup of blueberries. No thanks. I’d rather eat a pint of blueberries for the same amount of calories and get the extra fiber. And if I’m thirsty, I’ll just drink water.

Hoping to rid myself of 32 pounds of juice (aren’t you proud that I carried it all to my door?), I boiled down several cups into a concentrated syrup. I wanted to see if it was possible to make sorbet only out of fruit juice. Since sorbets are 25-30% sugar by weight*, and the juice only had 12% sugar, I reduced it over several hours. Then I added a little lime juice to brighten up the flavors. After I froze everything, an unappetizing syrup leached out from the sorbet. It was a tell-tale sign that it had too much sugar. Either my calculations were wrong, or the liquid kept evaporating as it cooled. Also, the sorbet didn’t taste like blueberries anymore. It was astringent and drying, like grape juice. So no, you can’t make sorbet only out of fruit juice, for reasons that I’ll get into later.

While the sorbet sat in my freezer (who wants to eat sticky, fast-melting sorbet?), I made another frozen dessert from Florence Fabricant’s shiso granita recipe in the New York Times. I substituted one bunch of leftover cilantro, since it’s a close cousin of shiso. After I froze it, it looked as appetizing as wheatgrass juice. It tasted like Mexican salsa gone bad. Plus, it wasn’t sweet enough.

Here I had two desserts: one with too much sugar and one with too little. Voila, I combined them and made them semi-edible. I wouldn’t recommend that you do the same though.

Lessons learned:

• Don’t put cilantro in dessert. Ever.
• Don’t boil fruit juice for long periods of time. The delicate flavors will disappear, while the less desirable ones will get stronger.
• If you want to make sorbet out of fruit juice, you need to add sugar rather than boil it to death.
• Liquids evaporate as they cool. If you measure one cup of hot liquid and think, “Perfect! That’s the right amount!” you’ll have considerably less when you actually use it.

*Source: San Francisco Chronicle

It’s ironic that two ways of preserving food are also synonymous with “difficult.” If you’re in trouble, you’ll say you’re in a pickle or in a jam. Making pickles, however, is easy. My dad can’t boil pasta, but he can make pickled cucumbers and radishes with soy sauce and cilantro. Let vegetables sit in vinegar, salt and/or sugar, and you’ll have a snack to fall back on whenever you’re, er, in a pickle.

Since the summer brings a surplus of watermelon, I used leftover rind that would have gone to the trash. The rind is edible, as long as you peel off the tough skin. By itself, it’s akin to cucumber.

There’s several methods for pickling watermelon rind, some which call for buckets of salt. I chose a vintage Joy of Cooking recipe, because it has sugar instead. The finished product resembles extra crisp, tart apple pie filling. It’s great by itself, but it can also accompany yogurt, ice cream, pancakes, pork chops and hot dogs (finely mince the pickles to make a sweet relish). It’s so good that you might want to buy watermelon just to use up the rind.

Canning and preserving gets a difficult rap because most recipes call for sterilizing the jars and creating a vacuum seal. I use ordinary glass jars and don’t worry about removing the air. The acid, sugar and salt act as natural preservatives, as long as the pickles are left in the refrigerator.

This recipe may be my cheapest one yet. The watermelon rind is essentially free and so is the recipe (I found the book on a giveaway shelf).

Sweet Pickled Watermelon Rind

Adapted from The Joy of Cooking Standard Edition (1973)

Makes about 5 quarts

Rind of 1 large watermelon, about 5 quarts
7 cups sugar
2 cups apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon

1. Cut the watermelon rind in strips before peeling. Remove the green skin and pink flesh. Dice into one-inch cubes.
2. In a large pot of boiling water, parblanch the rind for about five minutes, or until it can be pierced with a fork. Do not overcook. Drain and set aside in a large bowl.
3. Bring the sugar, vinegar, cloves and cinnamon just to a boil. Pour the syrup over the rind, making sure the rind is covered. Let stand overnight.
4. Strain out the syrup into a large pot and reboil. Pour the syrup over the rind. Let stand overnight as before.
5. On the third day, sterilize several glass jars and lids by boiling them for 15 minutes. Arrange the jars sideways, allowing the water to flow in. Using tongs, remove the jars and lids. Allow to air dry on clean paper or cloth towels.
6. Pack the rind into the jars. Boil the syrup again and pour over the rind till overflowing. Seal and store in the fridge.

According to an online quiz, my ideal pets are rocks and hermit crabs. Pet rocks are nice because they live forever and never have to be fed or cleaned. Believe it or not, there are more unusual pets to be had, such as wild yeast. Yeast is in bread of course, but it also floats throughout the air. Before modern days, bread bakers could not go to the supermarket and pick up packets of yeast. They had to cultivate wild yeast in a sourdough starter, which was made by letting flour and water sit out for for several days at room temperature. The idea is for the starter to go “bad” and attract natural yeast in the air. This time-honored tradition makes crusty artisan breads, such as baguettes, taste so good.

There are several ways to ferment flour. Nancy Silverton’s Breads from La Brea Bakery uses grapes, while others insist that rye flour is easiest to work with. See The Fresh Loaf and The Amateur Gourmet’s chronicles for more info. To build a starter, it needs to be fed with flour every day for about a week. With all the fuss, you can easily run into problems.

In Kitchen Confidential, chef Anthony Bourdain described getting a late-night phone call from his baker, who insisted that Bourdain “Feed the b—-, or else she’ll die.” The baker was referring to a beloved 250-pound batch of sourdough that he kept in his apartment. For one reason or another, the baker was away, and Bourdain had to brave his way into the apartment to save his restaurant’s bread.

If I weren’t a baker, I’d much rather keep a pet bird or better yet, a rock. But as a recipe tester for Peter Reinhart’s new whole-grain bread book (due out in 2007), I had to keep pet bacteria. The problem with sourdough is that it inevitably involves waste. Every time you feed the yeast, you end up with a bigger blob that can potentially take over your kitchen. You’re supposed to throw away some starter or flush it down the toilet, but I don’t like wasting anything.

For a while, I used the excess starter for crumpets (thanks to The Baking Sheet for the tip), but I grew tired of them. After some googling, I found that sourdough can also be used to leaven muffins. This recipe from Sourdough Home makes the closest thing to cake for breakfast without inducing guilt. A tip: if you’re using whole-wheat starter, use white flour for the main dough, or else your muffins will be extra wheaty and coarse.

How else can do you use excess starter? How do you convert regular quick bread recipes to incorporate sourdough?

Resources to tide you over until Reinhart’s new book comes out:

Reinhart’s excellent recipe for NY-style bagels

Free sourdough starter (with SASE) if you’re too lazy to make your own.

If you’ve ever made strawberry shortcake, a trifle, or whipped cream frosting (all summery desserts, I might add), you’re bound to have leftover whipped cream. Instead of throwing it in the trash, you can make ice cream without a machine. In still freezing, you need don’t a special machine to churn the ice cream. The air is already incorporated via the whipped cream.

Having acquired excess whipped cream from a semi-illegal source (don’t ask, don’t tell), I adapted a chocolate ice cream recipe from Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book.

Would you take whipped topping from a Starbucks frappuccino, add lots of sugar and eat it by the spoonful? It’s essentially what ice cream is. That’s why I lightened the Ben & Jerry’s recipe by reducing the heavy cream by half and substituting thick, low-fat evaporated milk for the rest of the dairy. I also added some extra steps to ensure a delicious ice cream.

The first thing I did was heat the milk and egg. The simplest ice cream, Philadelphia style, contains no egg and is often not cooked over the stove. It’s the easiest method and comprises typical supermarket ice cream. However, store-bought ice cream contains stabilizers not readily available to the home cook. For homemade ice cream, custard style is best, because egg yolks contain emulsifiers that make everything creamy. Also, heating the proteins in the milk makes it freeze smoother. In this case, heating the liquid also makes the chocolate flavor bloom.

I also added vodka to lower the freezing point (so it won’t freeze rock hard). Rose Levy Beranbaum (author of The Cake Bible, The Pie & Pastry Bible and The Bread Bible) suggests 1 1/2 tsp of 80% proof liquor per cup of liquid. You can use flavored liquor, like Frangelico or rum, but vodka is versatile because it has a neutral flavor.

Lastly, a thorough chill gives time for the flavors to meld and makes it freeze faster, which means fewer sandy ice crsystals.

This ice cream isn’t as rich as Ben & Jerry’s, but it by no means tastes low-fat. It is creamy, flavorful and knocks the socks off of Edy’s!

Chocolate Ice Cream (lightened recipe)
adapted from Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book

Makes one scant quart

Ingredients
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 pinch salt
1 can (12 fl oz.) evaporated milk (fat-free is fine)
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup lightly sweetened whipped cream (whipped from 1/2 cup heavy cream and 1 Tbsp sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Tbsp vodka

Method
Put the cocoa and salt in a saucepan and add just enough milk to make a paste. Add the remaining milk and scald over medium heat.

In a separate mixing bowl, whisk the eggs until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Temper the eggs by gradually adding the hot milk mixture and whisking constantly.

Transfer the mixture back into the pan and cook over moderately low heat until a thermometer registers 170F, or until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon.

Add the vanilla and vodka. Pour custard through a sieve into a metal bowl set in ice and cold water and cool. If necessary, use a hand blender to smooth out the custard. Cover and refrigerate until cold (preferably overnight).

Fold in the whipped cream and pour into ice cube trays and freeze. Unmold the cubes into a food processor and break up with a fork. Pulse until smooth. (If you don’t have a food processor, freeze in a shallow pan for three hours. After every hour, break up the mixture with a fork, whisk or hand blender. If you have an ice cream maker, add the cream to the milk in the first step. Freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.)

Transfer to an airtight container and freeze for at least three hours to harden. If it becomes difficult to scoop, thaw in the fridge for 10 minutes prior to serving.

Nutrition (serving size: 1/2 cup)

The new version: calories 203 (34% from fat); fat 8g (sat 5g); protein 7g; cholesterol 75mg; calcium 17%; fiber 3g; carbohydrate 30g

The original: calories 305 (57% from fat); fat 20g (sat 12g); protein 5g; cholesterol 104mg; calcium 8%; fiber 2g; carbohydrate 32g

Caffeine addicts drink coffee every day, while the health-conscious turn to tea or wine.  As for me, my daily drink is hot cocoa.

It’s no secret that cocoa contains more antioxidants than green tea and vegetables:

"Like some other plant foods, chocolate is chock-full of a wide range of antioxidant compounds called polyphenols, including the procyanidins epicatechin and catechin. Fruit, vegetables, wine, and tea have polyphenolic flavonoids as well but, amazingly, polyphenols are found in much higher abundance in chocolate and cocoa. The amount of polyphenols in milk chocolate is equivalent to that of five servings of fruits and vegetables. The following is the measurement of the polyphenol content in 1.25 ounces of cocoa products:

• Milk chocolate 300 mg
• Dark chocolate 700 mg
• Cocoa powder 1,300 mg

Polyphenols are antioxidants that help the body’s cells resist damage from free radicals, which are formed in normal body processes as well as by environmental pollution, poor diet, alcohol and drug use, and smoking. Free radicals can damage cells, thereby causing cancer and accelerated aging of the body systems. Polyphenols in cocoa also minimize the oxidation of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, a major factor in the promotion of coronary disease such as heart attack and stroke. Reducing the oxidation rate of LDL cholesterol may be just as important as reducing the level of LDL cholesterol. Polyphenols also help inhibit platelet aggregation and activation, meaning they help prevent platelets from clumping together, therefore reducing the risk of arteriosclerosis. Cocoa polyphenols also seem to thin the blood, which slows the rate of coagulation, reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke." - "Today" Show Food Editor Phil Lempert

As if women didn’t have enough excuses to eat chocolate, they’re now popping morsels into their mouths and proclaiming, "I’m eating health food!"  But remember, just one ounce of semisweet chocolate has 8 grams of fat, with 5 being saturated (25% of the daily recommended value).  50% of its calories come from fat, and nutritionists recommend a diet of 30% of calories from fat.  Eating too much chocolate can cancel out its health benefits.

Chocolate is a mixture of cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar and vanilla.  Guess where all the nutrients and flavor come from?  I can in good conscience chug hot cocoa and proclaim it a health drink.

This banana hot cocoa was inspired by a recipe from Jacques Torres.  I swapped the chocolate with cocoa powder, so it’s lower in fat but not in flavor.  Since bananas are naturally sweet, you can also get away with using less processed sugar, and the banana/chocolate flavor is a classic combo.  Plus, bananas make it "arteriosclerotically thick," which is how NY Times writer Ed Levine described City Bakery’s legendary drink.

This drink packs a power punch: calcium and protein from the milk, potassium from the bananas and of course antioxidants from the cocoa.  Save your overripe bananas for this chocolately treat.

Banana Hot Cocoa

Inspired by a recipe from Jacques Torres
Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 large overripe banana, mashed with a fork
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons sugar
2 cups milk

Directions:
Combine all ingredients except milk in a heavy saucepan. Stir in enough milk to make a paste.  Whisk in the remaining milk.  Scald the mixture over a medium-low flame.  Pour into a blender to make the drink smooth and frothy on top.  Pour into cups and enjoy!

If you’re feeling lazy, you can just microwave the mixture for about 3 minutes, or until hot.  You can skip the blender and leave the drink chunky.

Notes: I like my hot cocoa strong, with a 1:1 ratio of cocoa and sugar.  Most hot cocoa recipes call for a 1:2 ratio, so you can increase the sugar to your tastes.

Potato chip manufacturers cheat you twice. The promise of a full bag is deflated once you open it and hear the air rush out: it’s only half full. Once you finish the few unblemished chips, you’re left with a pool of crumbs on the bottom. Most often I shake the bag like a maraca and spitefully throw it away.

Not anymore. Crushed chips actually make tasty cookies! The promise of sweet and salty, plus a hint of the bizarre prompted me to try a potato chip cookie recipe from Real Simple magazine. These cookies are reminiscent of pecan sandies and snickerdoodles. When fresh, they’re delicately crisp like shortbread. After a couple days, they get chewy but remain delicious for weeks.

I upgraded these cookies by using leftover Terra chips, a mixture of taro, sweet potato, yuca, batata and parsnips. I imagine tortilla chips would work too. Any nut can also be used; I substituted hazelnuts. I also omitted about 1/3 of the butter (the original recipe called for two sticks) to no ill effect.

Terra Chip Cookies
Adapted from Real Simple, May 2005
by Nancy Myers

1 stick plus 3 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus 1/2 cup more for coating
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup Terra, potato or tortilla chips, crushed
1/2 cup toasted pecans, chopped
1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt (if using low-sodium chips)

Heat oven to 375° F. Cream the butter and 1/2 cup sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed. Lower to medium speed and add the vanilla. Add the flour, cinnamon and salt (if using) to the butter mixture. Beat on low speed until incorporated. Fold in the chips and nuts. Form into approximately 1 1/2-inch balls. Dredge in the remaining sugar. Flatten with the bottom of a glass cup. Place on parchment- or foil-lined baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake until golden brown around the edges, about 13 minutes. Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks.

Yield: Makes 2 1/2 dozen

NUTRITION PER SERVING (from full fat recipe)
CALORIES 138(54% from fat); FAT 8g (sat 4g); PROTEIN 1mg; CHOLESTEROL 16mg; CALCIUM 6mg; SODIUM 18mg; FIBER 1g; CARBOHYDRATE 15g; IRON 1mg

Notes:
When lightening a cookie recipe, you may remove up to half of the fat. Because cookies depend on butter for crispness and chewiness, I don’t recommend replacing the fat with anything. Fruit purees like applesauce will make the cookie cakey and gummy. Just leave out the fat: most recipes have plenty already!

This recipe is a variant of the Earl Grey tea cookies that have popped up in IMBB 17: Taste Tea and Blogging by Mail 2. The Earl Grey cookies use 1/2 cup each of granulated and powdered sugar, 2 Tbsp tea leaves pulverized with the dry ingredients, and no cinnamon. They are the slice-and-bake variety.

Frozen bananas are creamy like ice cream, fun to eat like popsicles, but easier to make than both.  They’re also lower in fat and sugar than store-bought frozen treats.  Paired with the right toppings, these desserts can actually be part of a healthy breakfast!

These might be my favorite fruit to freeze, besides grapes.  You’ll actually look forward to blackened bananas because the mushy ones stay soft when frozen.  There’s really no need to throw away bananas that ripen too quickly; besides banana pops, you can also make the ubiquitous banana bread or banana souffles.
 
Banana Pops
adapted from a Food Network recipe by Cat Cora

4 large bananas
2 cups fruit-flavored yogurt, Nutella or peanut butter (For easiest spreading, dilute nut butters with enough vanilla or plain yogurt so it’s the consistency of thick cake batter)
1 cup combination of chopped dried fruit, granola, crushed cereal, crushed cookies or crushed candy

Peel the bananas, cut in half crosswise, and dip them in the yogurt. Roll them in the toppings to coat. Freeze until firm. Serve when firm.