thank you Minnesota has millions of families each with distinct stories we've invited three Cooks to share their cultural culinary Journeys with us from family recipes to Brand New Creations the cooks will then show off their skills flavors and Ingenuity competing for the crown to be named the winner the food is delicious and there's room for everyone at our table welcome to the great Minnesota recipe [Music] tonight on the great Minnesota recipe whoa I think I enjoy baking a lot more now with the kids I grew up in St Louis Missouri my parents they owned a Mexican restaurant they kind of taught me how to do everything there cook everything and it was a lot of fun it was a great experience it's a family favorite my husband he requested almost every week I'd say my mom and I used to make a lot of banana bread together when I was a kid this is really encouraging to see this recipe that your family loves that you have really really made your own funding for the great Minnesota recipe is provided in part by Doherty appliance sales and service Goat Hill Marketplace the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund and viewers like you thank you do you know how to climb a tree not yet you're gonna learn my name is Maria Crum I grew up in St Louis Missouri and I currently live in Isanti Minnesota I'm a stay-at-home mom to two toddlers [Music] this is my oldest son his name's Gabriel he is almost four years old he turned four in July and then this is Hadrian he's the littlest and he is a year and a half and very grumpy [Music] here you go here are your Hot Wheels do you want to play too much yep that's a lot of Hot Wheels everything is just so much more fun with kids just the holidays and everything I think I have more fun now with holidays than I did even growing up with them and my parents went all out for Christmas and Easter and everything but now as an as a mom when everything gets set up and I plan everything and we decorate and all of that I just I get so excited like I'm shaking from excitement I shake a lot like a chihuahua or something but when I get too excited it's it's just too much fun I love seeing how when they are happy and they Giggle and everything it's just it's just the best thing in the world which one's your favorite all of them thanks for being here we're excited to see what you're going to do in the kitchen yeah so tell us a little bit about your childhood and how like you grew up with regards to cooking and food so I grew up in St Louis Missouri I was born in Minnesota and then I moved back here when I was about 17 and my parents they owned a Mexican restaurant in St Louis my dad was from Mexico and my mom American so we kind of did a hodgepodge of everything there and when I eventually learned how to cook everything and it was a lot of fun it was a great experience when you were a child and you were learning how to cook was there a moment where you said yeah this is where I live yeah in terms of the kitchen yeah I definitely think it was uh that the restaurant really really pushed that and it's probably going to be a repeat answer for all of the cooking stuff because that's when my parents kind of sat down and made sure I knew how to do things because that was not only helping them but it was benefiting me as well and they had us bright and early in the morning for school prepping everything and then we went to school and then right after school we came back and on our days off we were working there and it was great and we actually we would go home and we would do a lot of the cooking too in case my parents were still at the restaurant I had a little brother that I was you know helping take care of so it really that the restaurant impacted my uh the cooking in my life [Music] okay Maria what are you making or what are we making yes teamwork here we are going to be making a cheesecake banana bread with a crumble topping sounds delicious there's two of my favorite things it's a family favorite my husband he requested it almost every week I'd say it's not a daunting recipe at all it just has to be broken down in three different parts and before we do any of that we do want to set our oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit so first I'm going to do all of my wet ingredients in the big giant Bowl here so I'm going to do my vegetable oil do you always like to use vegetable oil when you bake I think it's a lot easier honestly I used to use butter but I always forgot to take it out of the fridge and soften it and then melting it sometimes it didn't give it the right consistency so I've just scrapped that and used vegetable oil so now we're going to add in we have two different kinds of sugar in here we have white sugar and then the brown sugar I a lot of recipes don't call for brown sugar but I use it in so many of my recipes even Savory dishes because it has that really nice rich caramely flavor and it's it's almost like honey and molasses and stuff when you put it in things it just really really gives it an oomph so you see that you were measuring the sugar are you a stickler about like flour and sugar and using a knife to measure oh no not okay I eyeball most things okay um so yeah trying to actually write down my recipes I had to go through and make sure I measured them and I got them all done proper so that if anyone else wants to follow them they can actually follow them because saying about a quarter cup is not gonna really work well if you're baking a cake next we are going to add the eggs and the eggs I have done so many so much experimenting with my ratios on eggs and bananas particularly for this recipe I've done less and I've done more and I found out that three is the perfect number for eggs in this like large medium doesn't matter I usually use large eggs so once you've mixed together the egg sugar oil mixture then you're also going to want to put your bananas in and like I said before with the ratios I have done different ratios of bananas and four is perfect I've tried five I've tried three and none of them turn out right when they're overripe they add like a really really rich flavor to it so I just throw them in in whole chunks a lot of people like to mash them at the side but I think it's unnecessary then the fun part I get to sit and mash bananas for a few minutes do you leave any chunkies or I do yeah that's kind of why I like to do it this way too because it gives it a more texture and some of the pieces are really small and irregular and some of them are a lot bigger about here is usually where okay I leave it so yeah there's definite chunks in there yep I want to hear a little bit more about your dad's background you said he's a Mexican yes so I say Daddy's it was my stepdad but he raised me um so yeah he grew up in Aguascalientes Mexico and he moved to Missouri I want to say when he was about 16 years old with his family and then a few years later he met my mom and I think I was about two or three at the time and then they got married shortly afterwards so pretty much from when I was about two years old all the way until you know adulthood it was a big part of my life and I was doing a lot more stuff with like his family and everything because most of my family lived in Minnesota at the time so it was mostly his family his friends all of that and we were really immersed into that culture I was too stubborn to learn Spanish I don't know why I wish I would have learned Spanish but my mom and my brother knew Spanish and I just knew enough to know if I was in trouble because I could like listen to what they're saying and but yeah it was it was really really great because I also um you know got the experience with the food and everything too and it was it was a lot of fun what other cultural influences uh have you had with your cookie I grew up Eastern Orthodox and so in that church there's lots of Eastern Europeans going and it was really really fun getting to try lots of different foods and I know I like Greek food more than Russian food it's Forest is not my thing it's it's a lot of cabbage but the Greek food is great and um I got to go to a Convent for a little bit and they showed me you know different things there too with the cooking which was awesome I'd never cooked anything with crab before and then they had us make some crab and stuff there which was a lot of fun it was very cool and I think my religion had a lot of influence and you know bringing different cultures into my cooking and experiences because after church too we would have different families bring in different dishes and we'd all try everything we are going to start adding in our dry ingredients to this bowl the first one like you said before I do kind of eyeball my flower a little bit more I don't measure it perfectly a lot of the stuff I do with my baking it sounds kind of weird is I won't do it here but I taste the batter after I've put everything together because I know how it's supposed to taste for it to uh work well in a cake do a little bit more flour Maria how did you come up with this recipe is this a family recipe or is this something you made up I've seen things here and there where they people combine cheesecake and banana bread and stuff and I know different restaurants they make really really fancy cheesecakes that use like banana bread as a crust and all of that and I'm not good at making cheesecake so I thought this was a good kind of in between and my mom and I used to make a lot of banana bread together when I was a kid so it's just it's a comfort food it's something I grew up on and yeah I love banana bread then we're also going to put in our baking powder and baking soda I use about the same amount for both think I have a feeling this recipe is going to be one that your kids talk about and oh my mom you know would make this regularly and teach their kids oh I really hope so I I think that them helping me cook and do all of you know the prep work and all of that it's gonna help build that appreciation for them and yeah hopefully I'll get calls from their wives saying hey what did uh how did you make that because he won't stop talking about it that would really boost my ego So when you buy bananas at the grocery store do you usually buy a few extra because you know that you're going to be making the banana bread I actually I order my groceries because leaving the house with kids is absolutely terrifying with two little kids I should say so yeah I oh I always put in there in my memo I need 10 bananas I need five of them green five of them yellow so then that usually holds us over so that I can make banana bread okay so we are all done with this batter and I did add a few things like our cinnamon and vanilla in there and I'm just gonna set this one aside oh these are my very messy uh cupboards for my pantry got lots of snacks and cereals and pasta up here I put a lot of my baking stuff I have chocolate chips and all my sugars up here and then for my spices we have we had to get two of these uh lazy Susans for multiple shelves in there because we have so many different spices that we use all the time and then I've got more baking stuff up at the top cupboard there we also have all of our canning Goods at the very very top of our cupboards and then over here again with the littles and then my my husband too we've got everything we've got baby food cereal lots of like 10 different kinds of chips and nuts and fruit yep and we have our fish over here do you have two fish what other what are the fish's names caddy and whiskers we got them by accident uh when my husband was getting bait for ice fishing they accidentally gave us baby catfish so we kept them my husband does a lot of hunting so we have a deer roast um this is kind of the first time I've actually ever worked with a deer roast so he wanted me to look at a recipe and I refused because I'm lazy I just threw a bunch of stuff in there we put red wine bay leaves Mustard Seed basil oregano salt pepper stuff like that it smells good well let's I hope it tastes good [Music] we've got all our cute decorations on the fridge from arts and crafts and then we have our coffee Corner we drink lots of tea and coffee here so big variety lots of food next we are gonna go into the cream cheese part of it so we've got our block of cream cheese here I use a whole block because you know if you have extras too and this usually takes about two pans so then you have enough for everything then we do the cream cheese and one of the tricks I do is I add a little bit of flour to it because instead of adding eggs which it would take longer for it to bake if you added eggs instead the flour helps it thicken up really really quickly secret that's yeah it's it's a saving trick that's super secret anymore but so I am going to mix this with cream cheese it's kind of hard to do it by hand so we'll just use a mixer for this part and sometimes with the cream cheese it does get a little bit too thick because right now it's kind of it almost looks like Feta cheese in there so just do a tiny bit of water at a time to help it see what it's all about it's almost like frosting yeah it does it looks kind of like the cheesecake or the cream cheese frosting yeah so what I really love Maria is that you're you're actually making the recipe to how you want it you're not following the recipe it's so it's almost like you have made all these ingredients in there to your excess and it's like I've never seen flour added to cream cheese and then you're just adding the water to thin it out great it's because I make a lot of mistakes so I have to know how to fix them too I think that's really encouraging I mean thank you it's pretty scary for a lot of people to bake because it's so scientific but I mean this is really encouraging to see this recipe that your family loves that you have really really made your own do you find that you're cooking the same things throughout the year or do you cook for the seasons there are a couple of things that I will just do year round even if it's a crock pot stuff when it gets warmer my husband and I love to grill and we're grilling like almost every single night depending on what fruit and vegetables are available in different seasons we try to work around that lots more fresh veg and fruit and we actually we have a garden so we grow our own vegetables let's go show them the garden last year with the gardening that was actually my first year really getting into that what do we have over here what are these going to be raspberries and then do you remember what we plant in our garden yep tomatoes and cucumbers and what else did we have in the garden gabes we had peas and green beans and we tried peppers and that did not work how and on the other side of your our yard we planted some apple trees yep we have a honey crisp and a Fireside apple tree right over there and that's a good spot we're probably gonna put another apple tree in our yard up over here and then we're gonna plant some rhubarb and then some more raspberry bushes but yeah this one is a honey crisp and then the last bowl this is a rare crumble topping a quarter cup of flour here and then our oats the oats I kind of just eyeballs it also depends on the oats you use too some of them are a bit drier or heavier and you're using uh the old-fashioned or rolled oats uh yeah I usually use those at home and I always have a little bit of extra crumble topping whenever I make this and you can layer it however you want in the recipe it's pretty flexible and sometimes I do that and I usually kind of toss it with my hands a bit because it's a little easier than mixing it with a spoon and so we're also going to put in a bit of cinnamon and then we are going to use both of our sugars again and then a tiny pinch of salt in there this one then to break up that brown sugar a bit more so it's a nice kind of crumbly consistency in there so just get it really well Incorporated and you're gonna see all that flour but there's probably I would say one part flour to two part oats in there so next we have everything ready we just need to grease our pan yeah this is another reason why I like vegetable oil because I don't feel as bad too when I use a lot of it to do stuff like this butter I try not to grease things with butter because then I have to use too much and butter is a bit more cherished in my house so like with new recipes or things that you're not used to you know do you go to people you know do you go to the Internet do you go to recipe books what is like kind of your process with cooking and learning yeah a little bit of both I'd say my my mother-in-law is really great and my husband has some dishes that I'd never cooked before like your basic tater tot hot dish I'd never made that before um I'd met him and so he'll just tell me call my mom just have her send you the recipe so I'll call up his mom she's like okay I don't really remember because I just kind of throw it together and she goes and she digs through some recipe cards and then she sends me a recipe card from their family and stuff and then it's really fun do you line up your tater tots or are you just willy-nilly on the top oh no no I'm organized with like I'm pretty organized with everything in general but yeah I I even count I'm like all right this many this okay multiplication and then I'm I make sure and I'm like all right I'm three short and so yeah I I try to make it up all nice and I've tried it varying ways putting it on the bottom man on the top I found out that did not work for me so only the top but yeah much more organized so what we're gonna do first with the muffin tin is we're going to sprinkle a little bit in there about that much of the streusel topping or the crumble topping in each each tin yep okay and each one oh so you're gonna have some on the bottom too yes I like the way you roll and I actually I found I don't want it no one intended then with this we're going to scoop a layer about I want to say a third of the way because we're going to be layering all of these components together so about there we're going to layer that trust me with that awesome I think you're great at this so this is a surprise I was not Imagining the layers yeah it's really nice it gives you all those different textures and flavors too because the banana is really really rich and sweet and then you've got the tanginess from the um the cream cheese and then a really good sweet and kind of seasoned crunch from the crumble topping you know if someone's not a fan of Cheesecake I think they would really go for this I do not like cheesecake but I love this recipe it gives you all the components without being overpowering so I'm gonna take a smaller scoop and see if we can whoop a little dollop in there like that so you don't you don't spread it out you just let it kind of melt in there we actually will spread it out I usually just kind of get it all in there first and then spread it out of it because that's usually I have a heavy Bowl I'm pouring over a bundt pan and I don't want to stop and these ones are a bit easier it's a lot of fun I think I enjoy baking a lot more now with the kids and honestly even being married I think I enjoy baking a lot more because I mean my husband doesn't know how to bake and so when I do make stuff that he likes he really appreciates it and it's better than you know just me baking by myself and I'm like okay I did it and I'll just get one of these small spoons and yeah we'll just spread it around a little bit I think I'm another small spoon here it doesn't have to be perfectly level and even everything so far has been such a surprise this is so fun oh good that's exciting to hear so then once we're done with that if you don't mind actually handing me that bowl again I could take these from this thing right here yep we're gonna put a very very thin layer over the top just enough to kind of cover that this is this is really really pretty oh thank you so the cups should be about three quarters full in the end uh yeah roughly [Music] and if a little cream cheese is peeking out it's not a big deal perfect if we have any crumble topping and if you want to then you just sprinkle a little bit over the top again I don't do too too much on the top there just a little to give it a little garnish once this is done we'll pop it in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes kind of depends on the oven but yeah just quick who would be your biggest cooking influence I probably have a couple my family they're really really into baking and everything my mom she's she's really really good at doing the nice comfort home-cooked food and everything so she made really good chicken noodle soup with the egg noodles and I learned how to do that and now everyone says it tastes like my mom's which is great and then they say that my mom's taste like my grandma's so I feel good about that and then my uh my grandma on my dad's side she was really into the comfort food cooking a lot of it's comfort food which is kind of important when you're a stay at home and you have the two boys she did I think it was like a sweet potato casserole but it was more like a pie the way she did it was almost like a pumpkin pie but it was in a big dish and everything and she finally she sent me the recipe before she died which was really nice so that's really important to me and I got to have that and a couple times you know before she died we get did get to cook together here in there which was really great so I always look back on that and I think about the things she did even down to you know how she made her coffee and I try to do it that way too hey so and I usually give them just a couple of minutes and then they are ready to pop out of the tin whenever you want at home I just knock it on the counter after about 10 minutes of cooling but I make too much of a mess here so I won't do that to you guys all right let's see yeah the aroma is incredible it's this it really feels like home they look beautiful thank you this looks so I can see the cheesecake swirling around it's pretty too because that little added effect is really nice and since they're hot they're going to be very soft wow look at that it's like a surprise got a little I've got a little surprise there too very well done Maria thank you it is not too sweet which I love and it is not heavy at all like a traditional banana bread very light yeah I think it's I don't put as much flour and I think as most recipes call for which I think helps a lot and you did take the words out of my mouth not too sweet it's banana it's banana sweet not sugar sweet yeah but it's not heavy like a cheesecake right yeah and I don't like the the very dense you know texture of the cheesecake so this is perfect thank you so much Maria thank you thank you yeah next time on the great Minnesota recipe welcome back to the great Minnesota recipe the competition is finally here and we've got three exciting judges ready to taste the food and Crown a winner on your marks get set cook smells incredible I wanted to snitch it works for me that's incredible just done perfectly I really hope that they they get the vibe that you know there is competition out here and I've been having a game otherwise you can just save the background how you doing Santi I am doing good how are you it's in the oven it's in the oven already it's in the oven everything's done are you done too yeah classic comfort food with a beautiful Twist on it very well routed you got your sweet you got your heat the dish is a fusion of flavors a fusion of cultures you're never finding this plate anywhere else and then the taste of course the taste fabulous this is a five-star dish I think I have a favorite it is my great honor to announce that the winner is funding for the great Minnesota recipe is provided in part by it's already appliance sales and service Goat Hill Marketplace the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund and viewers like you thank you thank you