Category: Food & Recipes

banana peanut butter coconut muffins

banana baking
cravings are only quelled by
oven fresh, moist goodness.

banana peanut butter coconut muffins

One food that always makes me happy is the Perfect Banana. Freckled all over, a few days past ripe, sweet and slightly squishy… that is the best way to have a banana. Especially dipped in peanut butter.

But what do you do when they’ve gotten past the freckled stage and have moved on to almost solid brown? Can’t let a perfect banana go to waste… it’s banana baking time! There are few things I love more than oven fresh banana bread… and among those few things is this recipe for peanut butter banana muffins.

The recipe calls for egg white, to be healthy; I dislike using just egg whites because then what do you do with the yolk? Throw it away? Seems awfully wasteful.. but I didn’t want them to be too eggy, so I used an egg white substitute I found: 1/2 cup applesauce plus 1/4 tsp baking powder for every egg white. Apparently you can also substitute 1/2 of a mashed banana plus 1/4 tsp baking powder for a whole egg, as well, which would probably work nicely in this recipe. Without the egg, the muffins didn’t puff up like they normally might, but I liked that better since I was using my heart-shaped silicone pan.

I also didn’t have any plain yogurt on hand, so I used sour cream. And in a few of the muffins, I added dark chocolate chunks; in a few others, I sprinkled coconut. Mm-mm.

Banana Peanut Butter Muffins
1/2 c Peanut Butter
1/2 c Plain Yogurt or Sour Cream
1/2 c Mashed Banana (about 1 banana)
1 c Flour (i used 1/2 c oat flour and 1/2 cup white flour)
1/2 c Applesauce with 1/4 tsp Baking Powder mixed
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 c Brown Sugar

Preheat the oven to 350° and spray your pan with nonstick spray (i used Pam with Flour for baking) or line with paper muffin cups. Mash Banana to your liking (i prefer to still have some small banana chunks), and mix with Peanut Butter and Sugar until well blended. Add Yogurt (or Sour Cream) and Applesauce with Baking Powder, mix. In a separate bowl, stir together the remaining dry ingredients: Baking Powder, Baking Soda, Salt, Flour. Mix dry ingredients in until combined, then spoon into muffin cups until 2/3 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes (less for mini muffins, more for extra large muffins).

Optional: before baking, add dark chocolate chips or coconut (or both!) for prime deliciousness.

Yields 12 average sized muffins.

Make sure to eat one fresh out of the oven (but not burn-worthy) with a big glass of milk.

Not only are these Peanut Butter Banana Muffins incredibly delicious, they’re good for you too! A wonderful breakfast treat or a great snack to have with mid-morning coffee.

405 dollies

And I just stopped over to the Craft Hope website to see how the dolly project ended up… they received 405 Dollies. I am filled with joy at the goodness of the online crafty community… there’s just so much love. And can you find my dolly (click for larger image)? I found him! It’s like Where’s Waldo, and he resembles Waldo a bit too!

cloudy day projects

mornings give choices.
make your own misery, or
embrace the new day.

It’s wet outside and very cloudy, chilly inside and quite dark. It’s a day with a choice: Be A Sloth Day (just don’t get out of bed) or Baking and Sewing Day (once the lights are all turned on). I’m glad I chose the latter, because it’s been a fun morning.

I made myself breakfast and afterward, as I roamed around the kitchen, I noticed the abundance of bread bags each containing a heel or two. Our family (as i’m sure many are) is notorious for leaving the first and last pieces of bread entirely untouched. I didn’t want to eat five heel sandwiches, nor did I want to watch this bread mold over, so I googled bread pudding.

pumpkin bread pudding… mmm

Got to this recipe, and it sounded perfect for this chilly day. It was easy to make, just mix it all up and throw it in the pan, and it was super delicious. My mom and I ate it warm with whipped cream, but I’m thinking cream cheese would be really good with it too. Hurray for baking success!

boy doll in progressThen I was reading through my favorite crafty blogs and noted numerous mentions of Craft Hope‘s collection of little dolls to send to an orphanage in Nicaragua. With no set projects for the day, I figured this would be quick, easy, and would give my heart a nice happy feeling. They said they needed both boy and girl dolls, but I’m guessing most people so far have made little girl dollies… plus I don’t want to deal with yarn hair because it’s not very high on my skill list.

I found an old pattern I made up awhile ago, cut out pieces, stitched him together, stuffed him… I’ve just added his face, so he’s all done and ready to go! I’ll take pictures of him tomorrow, today is an awful day for photo lighting. He’s a super cute little dolly, and such a quick and easy project… perfect for this cloudy day. I can’t wait for him to be received and loved. :)

mm mm cookies

sometimes change of plans
can be blessings in disguise
or just delicious.

m&m cookies

Today I was supposed to start working on the dress I’m wearing to my brother Ben’s high school graduation, but I ended up sleeping way later than I meant to. For me, this means I woke up at like, 10, but that’s late for me. I worked out and made myself an awesome breakfast: recently I’ve just been slicing red and green pepper and onion and frying them in a very lightly oiled pan, then frying an egg and dumping the whole thing on a piece of toast. It’s super delicious and way good for you!

After that successful experiment, today turned into a food-creativity day rather than a sewing day. Remembering that it’s Ben’s last day of high school (!!), I decided to mix up a batch of M&M cookies according to this recipe that google found for me. I just taste-tested one (with a glass of milk of course) and I must say.. they might be the best cookies I’ve ever made. I halved the recipe and it made about 18 good-size cookies… hopefully they’re all still here when Ben gets home! ;)

It’s almost time to head off to work, so nope, no dress-making today. I’ve still got over a week, right? I’m not too worried.. I made my prom dress in two weeks so this should be a breeze.

Be sure to take some time to check out the brand new Sewing Story page and my new-and-improved About Me!