Extra Schmaltz!

The outcome of this recipe can only be described as a foodgasm. It's a traditional French dish and now it's one of my favorite ways to prepare steak. Anoka Meat Market was selling something called "butter steak", and I figured, butter + steak = how bad could it be? It was some kind of well-marbled strip cut and the price was right. Over the past couple of weeks I kept hearing references to Steak au Poivre, and figured I'd put my outrageous spice collection (and my awesome wooden mallet) to work and try out the recipe. Side note: If you're curious about the mallet, Dan made it in his wood-turning class to replace the mochi pounder, which didn't survive the trip back from NY. It comes in handy a lot, and I mainly use it to crush spices and pound sauerkraut. We're working on making an even better design (the one in these photos is a prototype). The recipe is very simple and based mainly on Julia Child's version. She calls for a combination of pepperc...

There are countless recipes for banana bread, and I consulted four cookbooks to come up with my own version. This one is primarily based on the recipe in The Melting Pot, but has a few variations. To be extra decadent, I added dark chocolate chips instead of walnuts--everyone knows that nuts in dessert are revolting, so use chocolate instead! If you are low on bananas, you can substitute applesauce, and I hear that Alex has had good luck with using applesauce entirely. Banana bread is very accommodating of whole grain flour, which you can substitute for up to 50% of the flour. To be honest, I'm not sure why you add the milk and vanilla at the end, but why tempt fate by changing the steps around? Preheat your oven to 350. 1/2 c. shortening at room temp 2 eggs, beaten 1 c. sugar 2-3 mashed bananas to make 1 c. 2 c. flour 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 3 Tbsp. sour milk, buttermilk, or yogurt 1 tsp. vanilla 1/2 c. chopped nuts or 3/4 c. dark chocolate chips B...