This shit is Bananas!

B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Yeah, I just did that. I'm sorry.

Anyways I made some Banana Walnut muffins yesterday with a super easy recipe. I've made lots of muffins in my life and while these definitely aren't the best ones I've ever made they do the trick. They were a little more dense and  than I am used to but that's an easy fix for next time. The recipe calls for 1 cup sugar but when bananas are ripening from green/yellow to yellow black they are converting from starch to sugar so they naturally get sweeter, I think cutting the sugar down to 3/4 of a cup or even just over a half a cup will do the trick. As far as the denseness, I'm pretty sure I over mixed them. I was drinking beer and rocking out to loud punk music while I was mixing them so that's all my fault. Nevertheless, they are still pretty tasty and I am sure they are going to be fantastic cut in half, slathered in Earth Balance and toasted on a griddle. Mmmmmmm.

Basic Banana Muffins

3 super ripe bananas

1/4 cup oil 

1 tsp vanilla

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 cup sugar (again, i think 1 cup is too sweet but you might not, so play with it)

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup chopped walnuts

• Preheat to 350
• Mash the bananas in a large bowl til they are soft. Add oil, sugar and vanilla and mix thoroughly.
• In a separate bowl sift together the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. 
• Combine with banana mixture gently until just combined. 
• Grease or line muffin tins. Fill 2/3 full and bake about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when you stick it in. 
• Let cool 5 minutes in tins and remove. Cool to room temperature and eat.

Cookbook Challenge - Week 9 - Yellow Rose Recipes

Oh, hey guys. How's it going? I haven't been around much lately and I've been missing you. The past few weeks I have been so exhausted at night and have had zero motivation to drag my ass into the kitchen to cook anything worth writing about. Until now. Remember that Cookbook Challenge I was doing? I haven't posted anything about that in weeks because I didn't have some of the books(and the other reasons above) but I am pretty excited to jump back in for the last few weeks of it.

The book for the past week was Yellow Rose Recipes written by the lovely Joanna Vaught. YRR has tons of easy and awesome recipes complete with adorable illustrations and some drool-worthy photos. I was so excited when Joanna busted out about a dozen copies of this book from her personal stash to sell to some of us PPKers who didn't have it yet.

I made the Penne Alfredo and the Very Berry Muffins. Both were extremely easy and were omni-approved by my best friend Diane.

The Penne Alfredo is a really versatile dish. It didn't remind me of the Alfredos of my pregan past but I really can't say that's a bad thing. In the time it took to boil the pasta the sauce was cooked up and ready! The "sauce" for this alfredo was thick, creamy and stuck to the penne but wasn't very saucy if that makes any sense. The Alfredos I am used to are fat laden cream and cheese based sauces while this one consisted of mostly soymilk, raw cashews, garlic. Much easier on your waistline but still very satisfying. After the sauce had cooked I gave it a whirl in the Vita-mix to make it extra smooth, tossed it with some fresh parsley and rosemary and that was that!

Next up were the Very Berry Muffins. I've had a box of Ener-G Egg Replacer sitting in the cabinet forever but I had never used it until this recipe. These muffins came out pretty good but I can't say that I love them, at least not yet. I used a mix of raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. I have a huge love/hate relationship with blueberries but I think if I had used just them and not mixed berries I would have loved the muffins a lot more. I sliced one in half, smeared it with Earth Balance and toasted it up in a skillet and had a nice little treat for myself Saturday morning though!

It felt great to be back in the kitchen cooking again so stay tuned this week for the latest book of the Cookbook Challenge, Viva Vegan