Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I’m kind of a routine eater. I eat essentially the same thing for breakfast every morning, I eat at the same 4-5 restaurants for lunch and eat the same thing at each restaurant. It’s not that I’m not adventurous when it comes to eating… because, I can be. It’s that I’m generally too lazy to try new things. I mean… the old stand-by is stable and for sure. I don’t want to have to read a menu or think up something new to have for breakfast.

Eventually, though… I get bored. It takes a long time to happen, but it does. Such is the case of the bananas that had been sitting on my kitchen counter for a week or so. My favorite way to eat bananas is in cereal. So, when I’m not eating much cereal… I’m not eating many bananas. I only like bananas when they are bright yellow, still a little green at the stem and devoid of any black or brown spots. At the onset of even one brown fleck, the banana is essentially dead to me and must be used up in a recipe.

Which is why I was looking for a new banana recipe...for whatever reason I have become a peanut butter fanatic in recent months, so I was really feeling like I wanted to try some sort of peanut butter and banana combination. And… with bananas and peanut butter… why not throw some chocolate chips and pecans in there, right??

Yum. These were delicious.. but you know…I might add more peanut butter and more chocolate chips next time.

I made half a batch and got 10 muffins.

Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Also… so.. I really need to figure out how to manipulate my camera to blur the background more and focus in on the actual baked good. I also need to learn how to notice shadows when I’m taking pictures instead of later when I’m looking at them on the computer. Hopefully the issue is my skills and not my camera, cause I really don't want to have to buy a new camera.

Pecan Pie Muffins

My favorite pie is easily pecan pie. With this cherry pie a close, close second. Anyway, I have a really sweet sweet tooth. Like, it's ridiculous. I love all things super, super sweet and if they're gooey, then I've died and gone to heaven. Take for example my love of cadbury eggs. I know that there are scores and scores of people out there who cannot stand the sugar, tooth-achinginy sweet cadbury egg. But, dude... thats my favorite seasonal candy. Oh, that and chocolate covered cherries. But... don't try to get all gourmet on me and give me the dark chocolate covered cherries from some fancy dancy chocolate shop.... no sir. I want the milk chocolate covered cherries made by Queen Anne and sold in your local wal-mart and walgreens. Yum. See, I love my super sweet chocolate and pure sugar fillings.

So, is it any wonder that my favorite pie and maybe my favorite dessert in general is the pecan pie? I also love pecans, so that doesn't hurt.

Now, pecan pie was one of those things that I usually only had at Thanksgiving and Christmas. If my mom was going to make a pie... it was almost always cherry because that's my dad's absolute favorite pie. But, when I went to my grandma's house for Thanksgiving and Christmas, there were always two pecan pies sitting on the dessert table. Each of them made by my Aunt Rita. My Aunt Rita was a very special person in my family. She was extremely intelligent and extremely silly. She didn't have any children, but was basically like a big kid herself. And while all the adult men sat at the kitchen table, the kids at the dining room table and the women (well... did the women even actually eat? I just remember them hovering over the kids and the husbands making sure we were all happy), Aunt Rita always sat with us kids. And we would all laugh and tease. She had a great laugh.

Tragically, my Aunt Rita passed away in a car accident when I was a freshman in high school. Her laugh and smile is something that we all really miss and that I can't help but think about at every family get together.

Since her passing, there have been empty spots on the dessert table where her pies used to be. The pecan pie was her contribution and I guess no one can bear to bring pecan pies, for fear of "stepping" on her memory? A couple of years ago, an outsider brought a store bought pecan pie and it sat untouched on the dessert table. Even with my love of pecan pie (yes, I even love store bought ones, I'm not picky with my pecan pie) I couldn't bear eat a slice of this "foreign" pie.

But, I've kind of decided, that after all this time.... almost 15 years now, that maybe making a pecan pie would honor her memory, instead of step on it. I'm still not sure, I've got some time before thanksgiving to think about it...

The memory of her and the pecan pies is something that makes me love pecan pies even more! Because, when I have pecan pie, I can't help but think about her and smile. But, pecan pie is one of those things that I just can't make for myself. I mean, I could seriously eat an entire pie at one sitting and still be craving more. So, you see how dangerous it is?

I saw this recipe ages ago on Recipezaar for Pecan Pie Muffins. Everyone raved over them in the comments section and they seemed easy enough, so I printed out the recipe, although, I was very skeptical that they actually tasted like pecan pie. How can a muffin taste like pecan pie?

Then, recently... Jennifer at Bake or Break made them. And let me just say... I have made a ton of the recipes she posts over there... and they are always delicious and always right up my alley. I kind of consider myself a Bake or Break stalker, actually. When I get a random 5 minute break at work, I always click on my favorites and she's at the top of the list, so I probably click on her site 3 times a day, just to see if she's posted anything new, or to look over some of her past recipes, to see if there's anything that sounds good for that day. I do that with Cookie Madness too and a few other blogs, but those two I definitely visit the most.

Anyway.. wow, I can get off on a tangent, can't I?

So, I made these muffins last week, and y'all... I have no idea how it can be... but these taste SO much like a pecan pie. I mean, they are obviously a little cakey-ier than a pie, but they are so delicious and so easy to make! They are chewy and gooey (although my picture doesn't really do that justice) and moist and sweet. Perfect! And so easy, too! I will definitely be making these again and again and passing this recipe on to lots of folks.

And while, it's not a pecan pie, it still makes me think of my Aunt Rita. I know she'd love these muffins and heck... maybe I can make these to bring to the holiday gatherings instead of an actual pie!

Banana Muffins

So, apparently, having very ripe bananas is a huge factor when making banana muffins.

I bought bananas that were fairly green at the grocery and then tried to make muffins out of them that night. I even tried microwaving them (something I saw Rachael Ray do on tv once). But, these muffins just aren't sweet enough. And I know it's because my bananas weren't anywhere near overripe.

The banana slices on top were pretty gross, too. Not sure if that had something to do with the bananas not being ripe enough, or what.

Anyway, I will try this recipe again with bananas that I've had lying around for awhile. I do love muffins and will hopefully be making more in the near future.

Banana Muffins

Blueberry Muffins

It’s funny how your tastes change as you get older. When I was growing up, I always thought I hated blueberries. I never liked blueberry flavored candy, blueberry muffins, blueberry pie. Nothing. I wouldn’t even try anything with blueberries in it. And, we never had blueberries around the house, either, so, the unknown factor was definitely in play there.

About 3-4 years ago, my mom started buying fresh blueberries to eat with my parent’s breakfast. And for some reason one day, I opened the carton, popped a couple in my mouth and was in love. They were sweet, but also tart and a perfectly semi-firm texture. They were delicious! Where had they been all my life?

Now, I love blueberries and try to eat them as much as possible (they apparently have all kinds of healthy antioxidants in them).

Last night, I went on a bit of a baking spree. I am sick of making regular cookies and my palate was sick of cookies, as well. I wanted something rich and different. So, I looked around for some good muffin recipes. I found a few and even a cookie recipe that sounded good and I headed off to the grocery store list in hand.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before… but the grocery store I go to is prime guy territory. There are always lots of attractive single guys milling around in the grocery store. Last night was no exception… in fact, I actually had a fairly embarrassing encounter with a crush of mine. There is a guy that comes into my work sometimes (maybe once a month) and I’ve always had a huge crush on him.. he’s really nice, cute, has an incredibly sexy deep voice and striking blue eyes. Definitely drool-worthy. I’ve even gone so far as asking my brother (who I work with) to give me the scoop on this Adonis (ok, Adonis might be a stretch, but he is hot), but he didn’t really cooperate, he just told me he was too young for me. Hmph. Well, anyway.. who did I bump into in the baking aisle last night??? Yes, him. There was no ducking out of the situation, as we basically met each other head on. So, we exchanged pleasantries (I wasn’t sure if he really recognized me or not) and there was a girl on the other side of the aisle, that I was afraid might be his girlfriend, so I totally stiffed up and kind of skirted by him after a few moments. Come to find out, they weren’t together. Arrrg.. I’m always screwing up situations like that. I am so not a slick flirter.

Anyway, I got home and whipped up these blueberry muffins. They turned out really pretty! And very tasty! And I used half white whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. They could actually be a little sweeter for me, but still a good muffin. Good texture and flavor. I’ll make these again!

On a side note… I got a kitchen scale for Christmas:
And I absolutely love it! I’ve been using it some and I’m realizing that I’ve been using too much flour and not enough brown sugar, etc… so fun to measure things out precisely! I highly recommend a kitchen scale if you are kind of anal about measurements!

Blueberry Muffins - Healthy ones.

So, I’d love to be able to say that I can make cookies everyday and eat them everyday and that I’m healthy as a horse (are horses even really that healthy? where did that phrase come from?). But, the truth is… May, June, and July are my gluttonous months. These are the three months that I give into my sugar cravings and my fatty carb cravings whenever I they strike. These are the three non-marathon training months.

Starting at the end of this month… the blog will be filled with healthy, whole grain, flax-seed filled, antioxidant rich, protein packed recipes… there will still probably be plenty of sweet recipes, too… but, hopefully there will be lots of healthy ones mixed in.

Back to the post at hand… last night, I noticed some blueberries that were fastly approaching toss-out condition. And I remembered a recipe that I printed from recipezaar awhile back for supposedly excellent low-fat blueberry muffins.

I pulled the recipe out, realized I had all the ingredients and whipped these up from start to done in about 35 minutes.

I tweaked the recipe, so I’ll post the recipe I made and you can find the original recipe here.

Next time, I will add more sugar (or something to sweeten it more) and maybe some nuts. They come out very mild in flavor, but have a great, muffin texture. Also, I think I'll cook mine till the toothpick comes out completely clean. This time it was still a little tacky and I thought it would be fine, but I'd like the texture to be a little drier. Overall... a recipe worth tweaking and trying again.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

2 cups whole wheat flour (I used king arthurs whole wheat organic)
1 tsp baking soda
1 ¼ cup buttermilk
2 egg whites
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup splenda
½ cup flax seed
1 cup blueberries
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.

Coat 12 muffin cups with cooking spray.

Sift together flour and baking soda.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg whites, oil, sugar, flax seed, and vanilla until creamy, then stir in the blueberries.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold together with a rubber spatula until the batter is moist.

The batter is thick, scoop batter into 12 cups and bake for about 20 minutes, checking with a toothpick till it comes out clean. If you want smooth-topped muffins, be sure to smooth out the tops before you put them in the oven as they don’t spread.

Martha Stewart would call these "rustic."