These sweet little cakes are perfect.

They are single-portion size. They pair beautifully with homemade vanilla ice cream (See ice cream recipe here.) They are beautiful. And then, there is the combination of quality chocolate (Barry Callebaut chocolate)  and ripe bananas–a sure-fire winner on the flavor scale.

I used my new mini bundt pan mold for the recipe and the little cakes came out great. I love this pretty swirl pattern.(I think this is Nordic Ware’s prettiest bundt pan. I also have their full-size swirl pattern bundt pan that I used on the lemon bliss bundt cake that I previously posted on Blue Cayenne. You can take a look here. While you are at it, you might want to try that recipe for the holidays. It is an outstanding cake.)

Have I mentioned that I’m a kitchen gadget junkie?

When we were traveling to exotic places, I sought out obscure local cookware stores and bought whatever intrigued me. I have Turkish kebap skewers, Greek retsina carafes, and a lot of other stuff I am still trying to identify. I used to have a semi-pornographic raw coconut grater from the Cook Islands (a gift from a friend), but, after years of storing it in the dark recesses of my closet where no one would see it,  modesty finally took over and I tucked it away in a Goodwill donation. I can only imagine what a stir that one caused when it was unpacked in the Goodwill back room.

I have drawers full of kitchen gadgets. Call me if you need anything. No. Really.

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This is a recipe adapted from the King Arthur Flour site. Here is the link: Double Chocolate Banana Bread .

          –Lewis Carroll

First, let’s talk a bit about cabbages.

Wild cabbage is thought to have first been consumed by humans thousands of years ago. Historical records show that ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans ate it. In fact, many considered cabbage a delicacy. Diogenes, the Greek cynic (You know the story. He was the one who carried a lantern around ancient Athens looking for an honest man.), is said to have consumed nothing but cabbage and water–not even a dolma for him!

The Egyptians and Romans were more fun, though. They consumed copious amounts of cabbage, to be sure, but their motives were skewed a bit more toward having a good time. They believed that eating cabbage before binging on alcohol would ward off a hangover and allow them to drink even more alcohol.  No wonder Tut died at such a young age! It was the partying.

Later, at the height of the Ottoman Empire, the emperors sponsored sports clubs to demonstrate their power and train their cavalries for battle. The clubs also served another purpose. They provided the “bread and circuses” that kept the masses occupied and distracted. For a long time, the two most important Turkish sports clubs were, get this!, The Okras and The Cabbages–an homage to local production of the two popular vegetable crops. I don’t know about you, but I would have put my money on the Cabbages any day. I can only imagine the slime jokes that the Okra team was forced to endure.

During the age of exploration, European ship captains carried barrels of fermented cabbage to treat the wounds of their sailors and to ward off scurvy.

In more recent times, cabbage often has been relegated the background as a cheap food for the poor. Orwell’s 1984 envisioned the miserable life of the urban poor in tenements permeated by the smell of boiled cabbage. Lewis Carroll, though, approached cabbage with a little more serendipity in his poem The Walrus and The Carpenter (quoted above) from Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.

When World War I came along, cabbage took center stage again. The popular fermented cabbage dish, sauerkraut, was way-too-German for patriots in the west and was renamed “Liberty Cabbage.”

More recently, food scientists have extolled the health benefits of cabbage, a vegetable with almost no fat, that is rich in fiber and is high in vitamins C and K. Too, cabbage is a part of the brassica family that includes broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and other cruciferous vegetables. Some scientists believe that regular consumption of brassicas can ward off some types of cancer, protect heart health and manage type two diabetes. Brassicas are also the second cheapest vegetable to consume, after potatoes.

Now that we’ve discussed cabbage, we need to move on to Lewis Carroll’s question about whether pigs can fly.

I’m pretty sure they can. Apparently, they get the window seat.

Here is a recipe for a warming chowder-like cabbage soup I like a lot.

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This recipe was adapted from one that appeared in the New York Times.

This probably never happens to you, but I sometimes find myself wanting to get in and out of the kitchen quickly after a tiring day.  If I can do that and still produce a great meal, I’m one happy camper.

This is a recipe for a spur-of-the-moment meal, skillet chili. You’ll want to make it soon because it is very good and because you can make it in about half an hour. Don’t be afraid to adjust the spices to make it just as spicy as you want it to be. Be sure to use a good quality chili powder, though. The quality of your spices makes all the difference in this simple dish.

There is an extra bonus with this recipe. You get a recipe for wonderful pickled red onions.

The pickled onions are a perfect accompaniment for this chili (or, any chili) but this onion condiment is also good with a lot of other foods–salads, sandwiches, other Mexican foods, ice cream. OK. Maybe not ice cream.

The Epicurious site had a good line about pickled onions. “The first time you make pickled red onions, you will very likely slap your forehead and exclaim to anyone who may be listening, “What took me so long?” Because this simple condiment–which couldn’t be easier to prepare–has an uncanny, almost magical ability to completely transform just about every sandwich, burger, taco, sausage, and salad it touches.”

What took me so long, indeed.

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Here is a link to the original recipe from which this recipe was adapted: Vegetarian Skillet Chili.