Seriously Reduced fat banana muffins with tea.

One, two, three

I used the Post Punk Kitchen's recipe (for banana bread) with some changes, replacing all the oil with apple sauce and halving the sugar. I also replaced half of the all purpose flour with fine-ground durum flour (the chapati flour available in Indian stores.) The muffins turned out very moist, sweet, and all around Delicious.

Dry Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour + 1 cup durum flour (or use 2 cups all purpose flour)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp chai masala ( a combo of cloves and cardamom)

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 cup applesauce (This is in lieu of fat, you can replace some or all with butter/margarine)
2 tbsp molasses
1/4 cup sugar
3 well mashed medium bananas (or two large ones)

What to do:

- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease a 9 x 4 bread pan or a 12 cup regular sized muffin pan.
- Whisk all the wet ingredients together in a large bowl.
- Sift all the dry ingredients together and add them to the wet.
- Mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. Pour into the greased pan.
- For the muffins, bake for 23-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the muffin comes out clean.
- For bread, bake for 50-60 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool for ten minutes.

Eat Me

* Makes 10 muffins- per muffin, 160 cals, 0.3 gm fat, 36.6 gm carbs, 4 gm protein, 1.8 gm fiber.

Happy Fireworks, folks!!!

 

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Vegan chili with cornbread

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Chances are if you're attending or hosting a 4th of July get together this weekend, potato salad will be involved. Usually it's potato salad purchased from a deli or one that comes in a tub, both utilizing mayonnaise as the binder. But instead of firing up the grill for just dogs and burgers, and maybe some corn, throw on some potato salad as well. I not only find grilled potato salad tastier, but it's also healthier and you can leave it out in the sun all day if you want without worrying about mayo-spoilage. This comes from Heidi, and with a full size grill can be made with relative ease. First, prep your ingredients

10 medium potatoes, quartered - I used new and red
4 medium squash, halved - green or yellow
1 bunch of green onions
2 lemons, quarter
1 onion, quartered

Squash

Potatoes

Ready to be grilled

Soaking Potatoes

Potatoes

Onions

Obviously everything isn't going to cook at the same speed, so either rotate ingredients on and off the hot spots of your grill or take them off as they finish cooking. I sliced the onions and squash after cooking to make them more manageable to eat.

Grilled Onions

Grilled Onions

While everything is grilling, mince a couple garlic cloves and combine 1/4 C each of rice vinegar and olive oil for a dressing. Taste for seasoning and add a few drops of sesame oil. A little lemon zest or even minced jalapeno would be good additions as well. Toss the dressing with a few handfuls of mixed greens and toss in the grilled ingredients. I also topped the whole thing with some pico de gallo, minus the tomato, for some extra flavor and freshness. You can squeeze the lemons over everything or allow people to squeeze as much as they wish.

Potato Salad

Potato Salad

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I made bleuberrie moofins (okay, I’m just poking fun– but blueberry muffins ARE fun, right?) a few days ago. It was my first time making them, and I decided to make them healthier by using applesauce in place of much of the sugar. I also used vegetable oil instead of butter– I don’t know if that made too much of a difference. I’ll try making the fatty version of blueberry muffins sometime to see…

As it is, here they are!

Blueberry Muffin

Bleuberrie Moofins

Ingredients

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2/3 cup applesauce
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/4 cup blueberries, washed and coated with a thin layer of flour to keep the blueberries from sinking** (you may use frozen ones if you like, just add them directly before putting the muffins in the oven, to keep from staining the batter a deep blue-purplely bruised color)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Combine the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients in separate bowls, leaving the blueberries for later addition. Then slowly whisk the milk/egg/applesauce
   mixture into the dry ingredients.
2. Gently fold in the blueberries so that they do not break and turn the batter strange colors.
3. Spoon the batter into twelve oiled muffin cups.
4. Bake for 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Muffin - Inside

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       I LOVE and adore banana pudding, real banana pudding. By real I mean the kind where you make the pudding from scratch and pour it warm over a bowl of yummy Nilla wafers and fresh cut bananas. That stuff with boxed pudding mix cannot even come close to how this tastes. If you think you've had banana pudding before and it involved a boxed pudding mix...THAT was not banana pudding! THIS is Banana Pudding!

Puddingingredients

.
Put a layer of Nilla wafers in the bottom of a medium sized mixing bowl. Slice a banana over the top. Repeat these layers until you've used up all your nilla wafers and bananas. It really is important that you put Nilla wafers first, by the way. These are going to soak up all the yummy pudding that settles at the bottom of your bowl. I use a mixing bowl because thats what my mother always used. She had this Corning green glass mixing bowl, it was enormous. She must have made at least two recipes of banana pudding each time she made it. Seeing that bowl on the counter was always a welcome sight!

HPIM2164

Crack your three eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. Since we aren't making a meringue, we won't be using the whites. You can save them for another use or throw them away (which I did because....I just care about my banana pudding right now.)

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Place 1/3 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar (or splenda), and a dash of salt in a saucepan. You can use a double broiler for this and not have to fret over it so much, but I just like living on the edge. Muhahaha! My trick for substituting splenda for sugar in this is to always use just a wee bit less than the recipe calls for. If it calls for a cup of sugar, I might do a cup minus two tablespoons of splenda. To me, that keeps it from tasting artificial.

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Put this on the stovetop on medium low heat and stir it really well with a whisk. You can also just use a spoon for this.

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When you are done stirring it up well, it will look something like this.

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Now settle in and BE PATIENT. You need to stir the pot constantly, scraping the bottom so none of it gets a chance to stick and scorch. This will take about fifteen minutes so I usually get something to read while I stand there and stir because I don't think I've ever "just" done one thing for fifteen minutes straight.
    Today I read a few articles from the new issue of PopSci. I love that magazine. This one shows you how you can turn your iPod or even iPhone into a projector that will project movies onto your wall up to 5' x 7'! All you need are a small cosmetic mirror, a cardboard box, some tape, and a lense from an old slide projector. I actually want to do this. Anyone have an old slide projector? ~grins~
    Seriously, be patient, keep stirring, don't turn the heat up past four. This is going to take a long time and do nothing, but then ALL OF A SUDDEN it will be thicker.
Yes, I need to clean my stove. I started to photoshop that out but then decided....."eh".

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Now, your pudding isn't going to get super thick, but after about fifteen minutes of stirring, it will suddenly get thicker. The consistency will be about what that boxed pudding is right after you mix it before it sets well. TAKE IT OFF THE EYE! Quick! we don't want it to scorch or keep getting thicker. Now if you end up with scorched pudding or lumpy pudding, just use it anyway and pay attention to me when I tell you to slow down next time!

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Add a teaspoon of vanilla and stir.

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Immediately pour over your bananas and wafers.

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This morning I was making biscuits when my daughter announced that she wanted chocolate for breakfast. Hey, the gal is smart. Even at the tender age of three, she knows what she needs. As I mixed up my biscuit dough, I had one of those light bulb moments - chocolate gravy. Its one of those things that old people in the south expound about, recalling with wistful smiles normally reserved for Christmas morning. Still, having been a southerner all of my life, I had never actually tried it. I admit, it did sound a bit odd to me and always has.
    Today, with biscuits going in the oven and Katy requesting chocolate, fate pointed me in the direction of the recipe and with all ingredients on hand, I had to give it a shot. :)
    In days of old, with flour in abundance and other resources scarce, biscuits made a great breakfast and filling snack any time of day. Sweets were not a regular occurrence and so waking up in the morning to find fresh biscuits and a boat of chocolate gravy was a wondrous treat. It was poured over the buttered biscuits, then the tender bread soaks it up and as I found out today - you are then on your way to heaven no matter what the day has in store for you.
    Here is the recipe I used, Don't try this unless you want the flavor to linger in your mind for the rest of your life. It was purely divine.
               
   Chocolate Gravy
 (pour over biscuits - the scone like bread, not a cookie)

• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 T flour
  
• 1 T unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 tablespoon butter

Combine everything except butter in a heavy saucepan. Bring to boil, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Once boiling, cut the heat down and stir for a minute more (it will get pretty thick rather suddenly). Take off eye and stir in butter. Pour over biscuits. I tear my biscuit up in a bowl first and then pour it over.
You can die happy now. :)

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With 4th of July upon us, my latest post at Ward Street Bistro is a corn fritter casserole. Great with BBQ!  And super-easy to make.

Easy and delicious...

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Gouda and caramelized onion pork chops

I have been absolutely exhausted lately. I've been busy at home and on the weekends, and I've been working at a different office (that takes longer to get to/from) during the week. I've been neglecting blogs (including my own!) and emails, and I apologize.

Normally I have some sort of rambling at the beginning of my posts but today you're getting just the food! No rambling (for those of you who bother to even read my rambling, that is).

We had these chops last week so I can only hope that I got the measurements right because it's been a while. But, if I were to make these from scratch today this is how I would make them so I assume this is how I made them last week :) As you know, I am a smoked gouda fanatic and while it lends itself to many dishes and flavors, I think smoked gouda pairs best with pork. And when you add caramelized onions, mushrooms and thyme, the complementary flavors only enhance. Enjoy!

Gouda and caramelized onion pork chops (2)

Pork Chops with Smoked Gouda, Caramelized Onions and Mushrooms
Serves 2

2 pork chops
1 oz. shredded or sliced smoked gouda
1 tsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter
1 yellow or vidalia onion, cut in half and sliced
2 sprigs thyme
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 Tbsp. dry sherry or marsala
1/3 cup beef broth
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350. Slice a pocket into each pork chop and fill it with the gouda. Season the chops with salt and pepper. Heat an ovenproof skillet over medium heat and add the oil. Sear the pork chops for about a minute per side, just to brown them. Move the chops to a baking dish and cook in the oven until just slightly underdone.

Meanwhile, melt the butter to the skillet in which you pan-fried the chops, over low heat. Stir in the onions and thyme and cook over low heat until golden brown, stirring occasionally--about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and the mushrooms and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes.

Increase the heat to medium high and add the sherry. Scrape up all the browned  bits from the bottom of the pan and cook until the sherry is almost completely evaporated, a couple minutes. Stir in the broth and cook it for another couple minutes to reduce it, slightly, too. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the pork chops back into the skillet, spooning the onions and sauce over them. Place the skillet in the oven for about 5 minutes or until the pork chops have cooked and the sauce has thickened slightly.

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[Homemade] Blueberry Muffins

Blueberries were on sale at our local grocery store yesterday. And of course I went shopping while hungry, so... I ended up coming home with 6 containers of blueberries. [Hey, it could have been worse!]

Container #1 of blueberries contributed to blueberry muffins at 6 this morning.
Blueberry Muffins:
2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c + 1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp double acting baking powder
1/2 teas. salt
1 egg
1 c milk
1/2 c [canola] oil
1 1/2 c blueberries [I always add more]
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine all ingredients together. Stir and spoon into muffin pan. Bake 20 -25 minutes. Allow to cool. Eat!

[Homemade] Blueberry Muffins 2

I also bought 4 really nice peaches... So maybe some sort of peach/blueberry rustic tart will be next???

.... anybody want a blueberry muffin?... please?... 

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I just had my first sip of iced tea, made from a chocolate mint plant. The plant does have a mild aroma of chocolate about it, but I wasn't expecting anything beyond that.

But, to my surprise, chocolate mint actually TASTES like chocolate mint! There's no sugar, of course, but the after-taste has definite chocolate overtones.

Man, this is fun! I also have a pineapple mint. Will that taste like pineapple? I'll be finding out soon enough!

But...cool!

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