One of my favorite flavor combinations are bananas and chocolate. And consequently, I find different ways to put these two together – like this Banana Chocolate Chip muffin recipe. It’s adapted from The New Laurel’s Kitchen cookbook, modified to meet my needs, depending on what I have on hand. 

These are yummy and healthy (especially if you use 60% cocoa dark chocoate chips instead of milk or semi-sweet chocolate).  And they freeze well.

Ingredients:
3 very ripe bananas (~ 1 cup mashed)
Juice of 1 lemon (I use 3 Tablespoons of lemon juice)
1/3 cup oil or butter (I use butter or olive oil)
1/2 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup wheat germ

~ 1/2 of a 12oz bag of chocolate chips (60% cocoa dark chocoate is the healthiest, but I’ve also milk chocoate and semi-sweet, depending who I’m making them for and their preference.)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375F.

Mash bananas and mix them with lemon juice until smooth. (If you have a
stand mixer – just mix the whole bananas and lemon juice until smooth)

Cream butter or oil and sugar together and add to the banana mix, stirring
well. (I soften the butter and put it in the mixer with the sugar and banana
mix and stir well.)

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Mix in wheat
germ. (I just mix it all together in a separate bowl.) Add to banana mix.
Stir until mixed (DON’T OVERSTIR – just mix together until all ingredients
are moist.)

Gently stir in chocolate chips.

Makes 12 cupcakes (cook for 30 minutes) or 1 loaf of banana bread (cook for 45 minutes)
To test for doneness, insert a knife into the loaf or cupcakes. If it comes
out clean, it’s done.

Tip: When you have left over bananas that are starting to turn, just throw them into the freezer peel and all for the next time you want to make this or another banana bread/muffin recipe. Then when you are ready to use them, use the microwave to defrost them up so you can peel and mash the bananas.

Another Tip: To increase the fiber factor in muffins, try replacing 1/4 or 1/2 cup of the flour with Bob’s Red Mill Organic High Fiber Cereal mix. I’ve been doing this with pancakes, waffles, muffins, and rolls with great success and it really boosts the fiber content and adds the Omega-3s from the flax seed. Yummy and healthier!

Last week another mom and I were discussing routines and kids, and the subject of dining out versus cooking in came up. While she wanted to cut down on how much they were dining out, to help with their budget, she just didn’t know what to cook that everyone in her family would like. 

Up until then I really hadn’t understood why there was a need for menu services like Dine Without Whine , Menu Planning Central or Menus 4 Moms. But I think I’m finally getting it. In our busy-ness and media-oriented-ness, we, as a culture, seem to have lost that tradition of cooking, and eating meals together as a family.  As a family who cooks and eats together often, I was oblivious to this, until just recently, but apparently these menu planning services aren’t.

Just for kicks and to see what it was all about I’m trying the Healthy Menu Mailer. I like the menu suggestions, but my favorite part, a part I haven’t done yet with my own menus, is the grocery lists. This is a fantastic, time-saving feature.  It lists all the foods needed, by grocery aisle category, so it can just be printed and taken to the grocery store. That is worth the $7.95 price tag in my book.

If you’re struggling with ideas of what to cook, it is worth taking a look at one of the menu services – but first look at the sample menus to see if it’s the type of foods your family likes.  For example, I first looked at Dine Without Whine, but found I wanted something that better matched our food preferences.  Many of the menu planning services offer a free or 1 cent trial period as well, which is also a good way to figure out whether the service will work for your family’s tastes.

Later this week I’ll share more about how we handle family meal time. Until then, enjoy your week!

Sundays are usually an at-home day for us. This is a quiet recharge kind of day. One of my favorite things we do sometimes is cooking together. I’ll start cooking something for the coming week and someone will ask “Can I help?”.  And so we spend the next little bit engaged in conversation and activity making or baking something.  

One of our latest favorites is a very simple and fast recipe originally from the Hungry Girl cookbook. We call these Chocolate Muffins but Hungry Girl calls them “Yum Yum Brownie Muffins”. My 11 year old made the one in the picture for Christmas dessert and sometimes she makes them during the week for a special snack.

Ingredients

1 box of Devil’s Food Cake mix (or make your own mix – dry ingredients only)

1 15oz can of pumpkin, solid pack

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven for 400 degrees F (205 degrees Celsius) Spray your muffin or mini-muffin tin with non-stick spray or wipe gently with olive oil

 

2. In a mixing bowl, mix the dry cake mix with the can of pumpkin. (Do not add any other ingredients!) Mix until all the wet ingredients are wet with pumpkin. (It will look thick, but that’s okay.)

 

3. Fill your muffin tins and bake.  Regular size muffins cook for about 20 minutes. Mini-muffins cook for less time, depending on the size of your pan (you’ll need to check them to guage the time with your equipment).

This recipe is so yummy it’s hard to keep them in the house. They freeze well, but around here don’t tend to last that long.  And the best part is that they are relatively low calorie (compared to other muffins) and low fat, and have an extra boost of fiber and nutrition (esp. vitamin A) thanks to the pumpkin.

Side note: when we’ve been out of eggs or oil, we’ve used the pumpkin trick in other chocolate cake recipes too. Generally 1/4 cup pumpkin can be substituted for 1 egg or for the oil portion. I haven’t experiminted with it too much, but it definitely has worked each time we’ve tried it.  We’ve also used applesauce in place of oil in other muffin recipes. But pumpkin adds better nutrition and we like chocolate!