When the pandemic really began to spread, I—like many of us—briefly lost my mind in the grocery department and rushed to buy an absolutely nonsensical collection of items. Now that shopping has resumed some semblance of normalcy (although I still have yet to go to a grocery store!), I’ve returned to buying groceries in my ordinary manner. I buy a mix of staples (things I use with regularity) along with fresh items like produce and meat and eggs and so on.
And to no one’s surprise, I never ended up using much of that frantic, panic-hoarded assemblage of food—and they've been crowding my cabinets since April. It used to make me feel comforted to know that whatever happened next, I would be able to survive on a diet of brown rice cakes and cannellini beans and three kinds of almond butter. I was prepared! With coconut sugar and plenty of English Breakfast tea and spicy sesame sticks!
To be clear, nothing I bought was that bizarre. I only stocked up on things I would conceivably like to eat.
That being said, there’s absolutely no reason why anyone needs to have as much canned tuna as I now have, nor three different brands of soba noodles and also, so many nuts that it is…well, okay, I’m sorry but there’s no other way to say this: it’s NUTS.
But I’ve decided that I should make my way through them, since I prefer a clean and streamlined kitchen (and house!) and the cluttered feeling is starting to get to me.
With that task ahead, cooking feels a bit like being on a real-life episode of Chopped. (With no competitors except me. And no studio audience. And no dramatic musical interludes.)
In order to use what I’ve got, I’m making some slightly more creative/unusual meals, so I’ll begin describing them more often here (assuming that’s useful). While I realize that my ingredient stash might not match what you have to work with, hopefully the spirit of the cooking will resonate with you. If you understand why I’m making the dish, you could riff on it with what you have.
For example, if I made a salad with crumbled Mary’s Gone Crackers super seed crackers and canned chickpeas and warm roasted sweet potatoes, I could explain that I was looking for crunch and protein and something hot to wilt the greens. You could then search through your pantry to find things to play the same roles: toasted nuts or crushed tortilla chips for the crunch, say, and maybe leftover cooked lentils or grilled chicken for protein, and quickly sautéed zucchini or melty cheese for something warm.
One area of the kitchen that has especially plagued me is the freezer. I stocked it so haphazardly—and then stubbornly refused to make use of any of it. A cache of frozen food made me feel so safe and okay; but HELLO, it isn’t doing much good just sitting there. (Except as an emotional support, which is not a small thing!)
Not only is my freezer too cluttered, I’m unable to make enough space for anything new: leftover slices of berry yogurt cake, corn tortillas that I crisp and crumble over salads, A BILLION PINTS OF ICE CREAM.
Enough is enough. I have to start somewhere—so I’m beginning by using up all the frozen bananas, which of course means yet another loaf of banana bread. (Don’t look at me like that! It was either use the bananas or the frozen breast milk, so you’re getting off easy. I KID I KID. Did I lose you? Were you not hoping to read the words breast milk on Friday morning?)
Okay, moving on. Banana bread. Lately I’ve been trying different versions every time I bake it—I’ve made sour cream banana bread and rye banana bread and two-banana brown butter banana bread and cardamom sourdough banana bread.
But today’s recipe is so good that I’ve made it twice in the past two weeks, which is saying a lot for me.
Miso banana bread might sound a little too weird for you, but don’t be put off. I always have miso languishing somewhere in the back of my fridge, since it keeps basically forever. It adds this strange and amazing quality to the loaf: a punch of umami, a subtle savory note, an almost…funky taste? That’s not a good description. If I didn’t tell you it was miso, you’d never be able to guess. It’s just better than regular banana bread.
The recipe calls for white miso, which is the most mellow and mild of all miso. I have, however, tested the recipe using a VERY STRONG red barley miso and I still loved it! So use what you have, but know that if you use a darker miso, you’ll taste it more. I only recommend doing so if you love that flavor on its own.
If you don’t have miso paste, and decide to buy some for this recipe but then have no idea what to make with the rest of it, you’re in luck! Endless uses of miso paste are my speciality.
Make a simple miso soup with it (good guidelines here), stir a few teaspoons into any savory pasta (be sure to reduce the salt slightly to compensate), soften a stick of butter and mix it with a tablespoon of miso paste then spread that on grilled vegetables or toast, mix it with melted butter and toss popcorn with it (bonus points for sprinkling it with shichimi togarashi), stir it into oatmeal for a very good savory breakfast (I like it with a jammy-yolked egg), roast sweet potatoes and slather them with a miso+yogurt mixture, toss it—along with mirin and rice wine vinegar—with soba noodles and edamame, add a spoonful to sautéed greens, make a miso caramel (SO GOOD).
Think I’m finished? I AM NOT. Here’s more:
-Add a spoonful to chocolate chip cookie dough or oatmeal cookie dough
-Make a classic pesto with a tiny bit of miso
-Any custard or cream pie (butterscotch, coconut, banana) would all benefit from a tablespoon of miso
-Roast vegetables, toss with a bit of miso and olive oil (weirdly, turnips and radishes are especially good here)
-Add some to mashed potatoes along with the butter (skip the salt)
-Make butternut squash soup with miso (use this recipe)
Miso Banana Bread
Adapted from Food52
1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons white miso paste
1/2 cup (98g) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (106g) brown sugar
3 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups (210g) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
turbinado sugar
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9” x 5” loaf pan (an 8 1/2” x 4 1/2” pan will work as well).
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter with the miso and sugars. Beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes on medium-high speed.
Add the bananas and beat for another minute or 2, until well-mashed.
Add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla and mix well.
Add the flour, baking powder, and salt, and mix until just combined.
Pour the batter into your prepared pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle the top generously with turbinado sugar (I use about 2 tablespoons).
Bake for about 60 minutes (it may take closer to 70 or 75 but start checking at 60). The bread is done when a tester inserted into the center comes out without any wet batter clinging to it.
Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan.