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Oh So Easy Muffins

This post is in response to my friend Heidi’s Easy muffin post. Her recipe sounded so healthy and good I just had to try it. There were also 4 over-ripe bananas hanging out in my kitchen, so the timing was perfect to makes these.

… Or so I thought. Turns out I didn’t have raisins, wanted to use all 4 of my bananas, and only had a 6-muffin tin to bake in. Time to experiment! Fortunately, this was one of those rare times when one of my kitchen experiments went well so I thought I’d post the changes I made for any other tiny-pan-havers out there.

Oh So Easy Vegan Banana Muffins
Yield 6 large muffins

4 very ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup chopped papaya
2 1/2 cups thick rolled oats
1/2 cup whole raw almonds
1 T cinnamon
1/2 t cardamom
1/4 t nutmeg
1 T baking powder
1/2 cup almond or peanut butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Coarsely chop oats and almonds together in a food processor.
3. Put all ingredients into a large bowl and mix well.
4. Spoon batter into lightly oiled muffin tins. Bake 25 minutes. Cool muffins completely before removing from tins. They will pop right out.

These turned out very yummy and hearty and are more than satisfying for a breakfast on the run. Thanks, Heidi!

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What NOT to Eat

Yesterday I started following the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Information Office on Twitter (yes, they are Twittering). It’s a good thing too because there have been an alarming number of foods recalled across the country since yesterday afternoon. I can only imagine what I’ve missed throughout these thirty three years on the planet. Surprisingly, I haven’t died yet. [FSRI main site]

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Nutrition in Public Schools

I came across this [TED] talk by Ann Cooper who is working to make school lunches healthier and teaching children about food and nutrition. I really like how she describes tying gardening and cooking together in the classes she has oversight on. Lots of things she says aren’t ground breaking in the least, but within the context of public schools it is a no-brainer. Her point about spending more on a gourmet coffee than it costs to buy school lunch for a week for one child is particularly poignant.

I’d like to see the vegetable orchestra in the music curriculum too :)

I don’t have any kids of my own, but if we teach nothing in our schools we should at least teach children how to take care of their bodies and eat to be healthy.

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Food Inspiration

When things get busy in my life my food creativity decreases significantly, and I’m sure I am not the only person to experience this phenomena. During these times I simply can’t seem to do anything with the food in my refrigerator and feel absolutely uninspired despite that I truly do like cooking.

The past two weeks have been especially hectic and now that it is all over and the long weekend is slowing things down food is becoming more interesting (finally). On top of that I came across a site with the most beautiful pictures of food linked to recipes at TasteSpotting. Perfect timing.

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What’s for Dinner?

I tried this recipe for Shrimp and Spinach Curry with some large wild shrimp last night and it was quite tasty.

Photo courtesy of krayker on stock.xchng

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Visualize What You Eat

Spotted in the Shared Reading of Danielle, one of my two super cool sisters. Foodsel is a website that provides visualizations of food nutrients based on food category or by manufacturer. It also can display equivalence - “eating this food is the equivalent of eating…”

So if we look at something like a Taco Bell taco salad, it is the equivalent of eating 13.2 D-cell batteries (amount of energy not nutrients) and its fat content is equivalent to eating 0.2 sticks of butter (17.88g of fat). Not an overwhelming amount, but I can’t stomach the thought of eating even that much butter straight.

Foodsel also will tell you how much of a variety of exercises you would have to do to burn the calories for each food. In this case, we would have to dance for 52 minutes or carry a load of bricks for 36 minutes if we ate the salad from Taco Bell. I’m not a huge fan of dancing, but it does sound more appealing.

Image of the Canal Walk food court, courtesy of coda on Flickr

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Baker’s Edge Recipes

While I can’t help but make fun of novelty bake ware, the Recipes page on the Baker’s Edge website all sound extremely tasty right about now…
Ganache and Peanut Butter Layered Brownies
Rocky Road Brownies
Friendship Bars
Bailey’s Cheesecake Bars with Chocolate Crust

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