Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love by Samin Nosrat

    

I have a lot of cookbooks in my TBR, and there is nothing my husband loves more than for me to cook. To inspire me, I took photos with 24 cookbooks I have and I've prescheduled one post a month for the next two years. I'll plan to link up with In My Kitchen, hosted by Sherry's Pickings, and Weekend Cooking, hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader (and Baker). To further inspire me, I've created a Cooking/Baking Challenge for me for 2026 in which I read and bake from and post about one cookbook a month.

Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love by Samin Nosrat

I shall start with Good Things by Samin Nosrat.

How could I resist Good Things? I am a fan of making a daily list of good things, and I have posted my Three Good Things each week since the pandemic.

Samin Nosrat begins this cookbook with an intro where she philosophizes about recipes. Nosrat writes, "For as long as I've been cooking, I've had a complicated relationship with recipes---I could never escape the feeling that each was an attempt to capture, quantify, and define the ineffable." And I love the way she puts this: "I've always thought that a cook's relationship to a written recipe is akin to the way a musician relates to notes on a page." And, further, Nosrat says, "...I do believe that the practice of cooking is another way to touch infinity." Beautiful, right?

Person after person has asked Nosrat to share her favorite recipes. She knows that good cooking is not about "mindless repetition," but about "being completely present with an experience as it unfolds." At last, she has heeded their requests and created this book.

The recipes are, in general, simple, with a few ingredients and a few steps.

I bookmarked these recipes I want to try later (and I’m linking them here for easy future reference): Ricotta Custard Pancakes; Sarit’s Ashura Cereal; Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe; Creamy One-Pot Pasta with Ricotta and Peas (similar); Sky-High Focaccia; and Sparkling Banana Bread.

I decided to make Sparkling Banana Bread from Nosrat's book.

Three things I like about the Sparkling Banana Bread recipe:

1. This recipe uses five bananas in one small loaf. That’s one thing I like about it right away: the recipe uses a lot of bananas. I thought I was ordering four bananas from Kroger’s last week, but apparently I accidentally ordered four pounds of bananas.

2. You make this bread in a 8 x 8 inch square pan. That’s another thing I like about this bread. It cooks better.

3. You put two whole bananas on top. I like this because it gives the bread a lovely appearance.

Ingredients

Banana Bread

• 1½ cups all-purpose flour

• 2 tsp kosher salt

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 1¼ cups well-mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)

• ¾ packed cup dark brown sugar

• ½ cup neutral oil

• ½ cup buttermilk or sour cream, at room temperature

• 1½ tsp vanilla extract

• 2 large eggs, at room temperature

Topping

• 6 tbsp granulated sugar

• 1½ tsp ground cinnamon

• ½ tsp flaky sea salt

• 2 very ripe bananas, halved lengthwise

Directions

Yield: Makes 1 8" x 8" square

Make Banana Bread

• 1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and preheat to 350°F. Coat 8″ square baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Line with parchment sling and spray parchment.

• 2. In large bowl, whisk together flour, kosher salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon.

• 3. In medium bowl, whisk together mashed banana, brown sugar, oil, buttermilk, vanilla and eggs until evenly combined.

• 4. Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients and mix to combine, making sure to incorporate all dry flour at bottom of bowl.

Make Topping and Bake

• 1. In small bowl, combine granulated sugar, cinnamon and flaky salt.

• 2. Pour batter into prepared pan and let pan drop from height of 3″ onto countertop a couple times to release any air bubbles that might have gotten trapped inside batter. Sprinkle topping in thick, even layer over batter, then gently place banana halves, cut-side up, atop batter, cutting into pieces as needed to make fit.

• 3. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until toothpick inserted around halved bananas emerges clean.

• 4. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely before slicing. (Alternatively, leave cake to cool in pan and serve it directly from there.)

• 5. Wrap and store at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Be a part of the friendly In My Kitchen (IMK) community by adding your post at Sherry's Pickings each month - everybody welcome!  We'd love to have you visit.  Tell us about your kitchen (and kitchen garden) happenings over the past month.  Dishes you've cooked, preserves you've made, herbs and veg. in your garden, kitchen gadgets, and goings-on.  And one curveball is welcome - whatever you fancy; no need to be kitchen-related. The link is open from the first of the month to midnight on the thirteenth of the month, every month.

Weekend Cooking was created by Beth Fish Reads and is now hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader (and Baker). It is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.  

For more photos, link up at Wordless Wednesday, Comedy Plus, Messymimi's Meanderings, Keith's Ramblings, Image-in-ing, Soul and Mind and So On, Wild Bird Wednesday, and My Corner of the World.