Munchie Mondays: T's Birthday Banana Muffins with Peanut Butter Chocolate Icing

Yes, I know this is another early Munchie Monday post as it is Friday, however, today is my Darlin Hubby's Birthday! He turns 31 today and except for the increased man-fur, looks pretty much the same as when I first met him nearly 9 years ago. He's out with my brother watching Beowulf in 3-d at the moment. Meanwhile, I've been whipping up a batch of his favorite muffins.

I figured after the movie, T and Jbro will probably want something nice to munch on anyway.



I can't take full credit for the recipe as it is derived from a banana muffin recipe in Betty Crocker's Cookbook, which incidentally was a gift T's Mom gave him ages ago right before he was to head off to college. The intention was to give him a simple guide to cooking to encourage him to acquire good eating habits as a bachelor--ya know, to not consider Ramen, potato chips and peanut butter straight from jar as a full meal. I'm not sure how much use the book he received because by the time we got married (which was some 6 years later after he acquired the text) the spiral bound volume was still pristine. ..however, *I* got a lot of use out of it. The recipes in there work as a perfect base to add/change/tweak into your own dishes which is what I've done here.

The muffins from this book are obscenely easy to make.

T's Birthday Banana Muffins with Peanut Butter Chocolate Icing
makes 12

3 mashed ripe bananas
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla or maple extract
1/3 cup of light brown sugar
3 tbs of vegetable oil
2 cups of Bisquick
1/2 cup of pecans (plus extra for garnish)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Icing
(you will have leftovers)

2 cups of dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup of smooth peanut butter
1/3 cup of whipping cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line muffin tin with muffin paper or grease lightly with shortening (I suggest muffin cups because these muffins are light and fall apart easily).

Whisk bananas, eggs, oil, vanilla extract and brown sugar in a bowl. Gently fold Bisquick flour and pecans into wet mixture until just moistened. Do not overmix. Otherwise, you'll get a heavy batter. Spoon mixture evenly amongst the 12 muffin compartments.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Meanwhile, prepare the icing.
Place chocolate chips and peanut butter in a sturdy bowl (glass or ceramic is best as it conducts heat). Heat whipping cream over stove while whisking to aerate the cream. When steamy got (but not boiling) pour over chocolate chips and peanut butter. Continue to beat mixture with whisk until chocolate is melted and everything is well incorporated. It'll be the consistency of a thick pudding.

When muffins are done, remove from pan and cool on a wire wrack.

Spoon icing over the tops and garnish with pecans (or sprinkles, or coconut flakes...or nothing at all). Ta da! Done!

Munchie Mondays: Cindy's Spinach Salad

As Claudia once pointed out, I put pecans into everything and it's true. Pecans grow natively around here and I have pleasant memories from childhood picking up the mature nuts that had fallen off of the bare trees around our house during the fall. I give kudos to my mom for coming up with an activity to keep her kids quiet as cracking these fruits and harvesting the meat was quite a challenge for my brother and I as it required some manual dexterity and concentration.

Another thing I attribute to Fall are tree ripe apples from Ithaca, NY (where I met my hubby.) I spent a short amount of time up there while in graduate school and I still recall being able to buy all sorts of these fragrant beauties by the bucket full on road side stands. The apples I'd seen were smallish, about the size of a lemon but packed with tons of flavor and crunch. You really don't see apples down here like those.

Anyway, as this is technically the first day of Fall, we might as well celebrate by making a salad featuring these fall fruits!

Cindy's Spinach Salad
feeds 2

3/4 cup of shelled pecans
1 tbs of butter
3/4 cup of brown sugar

1/4 cup of dried tart cherries, cranberries or raisins
1/4 cup of crumbled blue cheese
2-3 artichoke hearts roughly chopped
1 small apple (Pink Lady is my favorite)
4 cups of baby spinach
oil and vinegar, salt and pepper for dressing

What makes this salad is the candided pecans. Don't get to bent out of shape with "hard ball" "soft ball" stages with this candy mixture. The longer you cook it, the more hard caramel like it'll be. The shorter time, the more it'll be like a praline. They both tasted good...You just don't want to over cook the mixture!



Melt butter and sugar in a heavy skillet over medium heat.





Beat vigorously until fluffy and almost frothy seeming. The butter and sugar should be well incorporated. This is when I add the pecans. Again, stir vigorously until the pecans are well coated.





Dump pecan candies onto wax paper to cool being careful to try to separate the pieces as much as you can. Please don't touch the caramel with your bare hands as you're doing this. As the pecans are cooling, slice apple into thin wedges or cube and arrange salad ingredients between two plates.

Dress with candied pecans, salt, pepper, oil and vinegar and you're good to go! You'll probably have more candied pecans than you care to use, but that's okay. Just wrap them up with the waxed paper once cooled and stick in the refrigerator. They'll keep for a couple of weeks.

Not a good day

I just opened an already open bag of pecans from the bottom end and spilled all the contents onto my lap...and the floor. Sigh.

Ya know. It's just one of those days.

On a somewhat related note, I keep drawing these two cards:





Which oddly in combination means an end to bad and destructive habits. If that means I'll stop re-opening bags of pecans upside down, that'll be a good start.

I think Sammi says the Tower cards freaks her out whenever she sees it in people's readings because it basically means shit hits the fan, death, destruction and all, but I'm actually rather fond of the Tower card since I tend to rebuild myself into something better whenever I have a meltdown.