Recipes

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Fried Banana Love

Oh yes, I told you there were fried banana’s involved, but first lets start at the beginning of Valentine’s Day. 

A friend of mine gave me a loaf of this delicious, dense, rye bread with lots of nuts and seeds, made at her bakery.  This bread was the inspiration for a delicious Valentine’s Day Breakfast!

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We picked up a package of smoked wild salmon, some fresh chive cream cheese, and red onion. 

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Including our delicious Santorini Capers, we had a fabulous breakfast on our hands.  Plus it’s something we don’t have often at all!
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This bread was hearty and dense and my 1 slice was plenty to fill me up and keep me full til lunch. 

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We also enjoyed iced lattes with cinnamon :)

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Then we headed up to Portsmouth, NH to spend the day and to have our Valentine’s Day Dinner.  Originally I was thinking about making reservations at The Oar House because that was our very first Valentine’s Day dinner together senior year of college :)  But, I quickly got over that because I wanted to try something new!

Once we arrived it was lunch time and we headed into one of my favorite little cafes downtown called Popovers!  I had a cup of tomato bisque and half of a roasted veggie sandwich! 
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My soup came with a small popover…I LOVE popovers…crispy, light, eggy batter.  After our meal, we share two small cookies…1 chocolate chip and 1 oatmeal raisin. 

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After some walking, shopping, a trip to a local brewery so Brian could fill up a Growler of beer, and driving around our old alma matter (UNH!), we headed back in Portsmouth for dinner at:

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The Black Trumpet

I had checked out the website before making reservations and knew it sounded like a place we’d love, and I was right.

We were a little early, so we went upstairs to have a cocktail while waiting for our table.  I ordered the Lava Lamp: champagne, pomegranate liquor, and pomegranate molasses.  Tangy, tart, and refreshing!  They even put a few pomegranate arils in the glass.  This picture is once down at our table because it had better lighting than the bar.

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Once at our copper covered table, we perused the menu they had “little dishes”,”medium dishes”, cheeses, salads, soups, and main courses.

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We opted for 1 little dish, 2 cheeses, and each a main course.

Our little dish was:  Marinated White Asparagus, Crispy Ventrêche and Grapefruit in a sumac béarnaise  

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Ventreche is pretty much pork belly…like little morsels of the best bacon you’ve ever tasted :)

This had so many interesting flavors and they all tasted amazing together.

Next was cheese.  I was worried about getting full off cheese, but no matter if you chose 1, 2, or 3 different types, you always get 2 oz. total. 

We chose the sheep's milk, and goats milk. 

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The sheep's milk was served with a sweet onion jam which tasted like a little cup of caramelized onions!!

The goats had a truffled chestnut and date molasses.  I wasn’t wild about this goat’s cheese by itself, but with the crostini and molasses it was delicious.

I also love the slate cheese board with the name of the cheese written in chalk!

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we clearly hated it…

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I enjoyed a glass of Sauvignon Blanc with the cheese

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Both of our entrees were specials for Valentine’s Day.  I had the:

Oven-roasted Gulf of Maine halibut with Maine shrimp fritter and black venus rice, served with fava bean puree, and spice soy aioli.

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Brian had the short ribs…they were delicious.

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My fish was perfectly cooked, simple, but great flavor!  The little shrimp fritter was DELICIOUS!  The rice and bean puree were good, not amazing but at that point I didn’t even need them. 

Then came dessert…oh yes, what you’ve all been waiting for. 

Now I usually shy away from “deep fried” items, but after reading this description there was no WAY I was leaving without trying it!

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um…yes please!!!

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yes, that would be a deep fried banana, cut into 4 pieces, with marshmallow on the left, peanut butter mousse on the right, and all drizzled in delicious chocolate sauce.  The chocolate tasted like melted semi-sweet chocolate.  A-MA-ZING!!!!!!!!!!  The banana was hot and gooey and eaten with a bite of all components was heaven in my mouth. 

Since Brian was driving home, he opted for a cappuccino as well…
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Thanks, Black Trumpet, for making our first Valentine’s day as husband and wife a memorable AND delicious one!

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11 comments:

  1. those are some SERIOUS eats but the fried 'nanas are the show-stopped for sure. What a lovely day :)

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  2. What a FABULOUS Valentine's day! That breakfast looks like something I saw Giada make recently- yum! Great bread. Portsmouth is just the cutest- isn't it? That dessert is way incredible. I bet the nana paired perfectly with the pb mousse and the marshmallow- yummmmmmm

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  3. Jealous you has such an amazing evening- mine consisted of family dinner and stories from my grandparents in town- not much in the way of romance! haha

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  4. AMAZING recap of your Valentines Day! Can I just say that your blog is a joy to read, Bridget? I mean it. I am so happy you had a lovely and delicious V-Day with your husband!

    and wow, just wow, to the food :)

    <3

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  5. Wow... fantastic V-Day eats! I wouldn't have been able to resist that dessert either :).

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  6. So so much yumminess, I especially like the look of the peanut butter moose, mmmm x

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  7. hey found your blog through amy's (coffee talk) bc i saw that you're a lulu lover too :) i'm half vietnamese and a total viet cinnamon addict. stuff is like crack. oh that bread looks amazing too!!

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  8. What a fabulous food packed day! Perfect for Vday I think, time with your significant other doing things that revolve around food and wine. Haha, yes that is my perfect day.

    I would have chosen the same entree as you. The salted cashew caramel with the chocolate dessert probably would have swayed me, but looking at your dessert I would have picked wrong. I'm less intrigued by the banana, but the marshmallow and peanut butter sauce? Um, YUM!

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  9. Yummm! Love the fried banana!

    Maggie

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  10. what a fantastic day of eats!! yum... what a great bread, too :)

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