Mendolonium

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 large very ripe soft darkly speckled bananas
• 1/4 cup plain yogurt
• 2 large eggs
• 6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Line a muffin pan with paper muffin cups or grease lightly.
3. Combine first five ingredients together in large bowl; set aside.
4. Mix  bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter, and vanilla with a mixer until relatively well combined.
5. Mix the dry ingredients from step 3 into the wet ingredients until combined.  Note that batter should look thick and chunky.
6. Fill muffin cups approximately 2/3 full with batter.
7. Bake until tops of muffins are golden brown and center of the muffin springs back when pressed lightly.

We had a friend over this weekend and she was lamenting the fact that her daughter had decided to become a vegetarian yet seemed to reject most vegetarian sources of protein.  I know this problem well.  We’ve been a vegetarian family since long before the kids were born and none of them have ever had any meat.  While I don’t buy into our protein obsessed culture I also don’t think that man (or child) can survive on fruit alone.  True to his difficult little form Thomas has always been a discerning picky eater.  Thomas claims that he doesn’t like eggs, beans, or nuts.  And he’s allergic to soy.  Thank goodness he started to eat cheese and yogurt around his third birthday!  Now, we are fairly strict when it comes to eating, we do not play short order cook.  Dinner is what is served and no complaints stronger than an “I don’t care for this” or  “No, thank you” are allowed.  We never force our children to eat anything but we will not cook them something special or “kid friendly” either.  Certain children have gone to bed hungry on many occasions because they have refused to eat dinner.  That said, I am not a complete asshole – I do want my children to eat and I want them to enjoy food.   As anyone with children knows, kids love to snack.  We, of course, have ubiquitous fruit available for snacking but fruit just isn’t enough.  That’s where muffins come in.  We eat a ridiculous amount of muffins – on the order of two dozen a week.  Muffins are magic – they have the appealing shape of a cupcake or when we’re feeling fancy – a dinosaur.  Muffins freeze well and are portable.  Best of all there are all sorts of otherwise rejected foods that my children will eat happily in muffin form.  I don’t hide the fact of the offending foods existence in the muffin but rather use it as way to try to convince my children that they actually do like the food in question.   I also adore the muffin.  I am NOT a morning person, to say the least, and I don’t like eating in the morning.  Yet, if I don’t eat I turn into a most unpleasant person to be around.  Muffins are my solution.  I take a couple of muffins out of the freezer the night before and eat them for “breakfast” the following morning.  My favorite muffins, of late, are orange-zucchini-hazelnut.  With our garden we have a huge abundance of zucchini.  I shred, quite literally, gallons of zucchini each summer and freeze it in 1 cup increments.  I then use that zucchini all year long in muffins, breads, and soups.  Cheap…and delicious.

Orange-Zucchini-Hazelnut Muffins (or you might prefer to think of them as:  Vitamin C!  Fiber!  Protein! Muffins)

*Makes approximately 18 muffins – we usually make a triple batch and freeze most of the muffins for later.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup orange juice
• zest of one orange
• 1 cup shredded/grated zucchini
• 1 egg
• 4 Tablespoons butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup hazelnut meal
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 (yes, that hot, muffins and cupcakes should be baked rather hot).
2. Place muffin cups (if using) in a muffin pan.  Otherwise, lightly grease the muffin pan.
3. Mix together first five ingredients (wet ingredients).  Set aside.
4. Mix together last five ingredients (dry ingredients).  Set aside.
5. Mix wet ingredients into dry.  Do not over mix.  All the dry ingredients should be wet, but the batter should still be a bit lumpy.
6. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with batter.
7. Bake until golden brown on top and center of muffin “springs back” when pressed lightly in the center

Note:  To make life easy and avoid the extra fat from greasing, I do use paper muffin cups. I buy these by the case.  After the muffin is consumed the paper cup is compostable!  Win.

 After the events of Sunday night I needed something strong to calm me down.  And nothing makes me feel better than cooking.  A friend (Thanks Luke!) brought some delicious, fragrant early season strawberries to Anna’s party and we didn’t end up eating all of them so on Monday Theodore and I made the first strawberry jam of the season.  It was a “natural” jam (no added pectin) and used a sauce made from apples and a lemon for natural pectin (pectin is what makes jam “jell”).  I was concerned that the recipe was going to be a waste of strawberries when cooking the apple-lemon mixture – it turns out apples and lemons cooked together don’t smell appealing.  But after mixing everything together I ended up with a beautiful jam.  The jam is also a reduced sugar recipe yet the citric acid from the lemon brings out the strawberry flavor such that the jam tastes incredibly sweet – like strawberry candy.  The 10 half-pints we made are happiness in a jar.  Then we had some vegetables languishing in the fridge and some leftover celery and carrot sticks from the party that looked a little sad so they became a couple of gallons of vegetable stock.  There were twice baked potatoes (serious comfort food) and bean burgers and grilled cheese with minestrone soup for our dinners.  And yesterday Theo and I made lemon-blueberry muffins:  24 mini muffins and 8 dinosaur shaped muffins.   (Aside:  My mother in law gave us the dino pan and while I thought it was quite cute, I was also very skeptical about how it would work in reality.  I envisioned little bits of dinosaur muffins stuck to the inside of the pan and boys crying about how their triceratops were missing a horn.  I am pleased to say that I was wrong and that I simply spray the pan with pan spray before filling and the muffins come out perfectly.  I am going to have to get more of these fun pans – you can pretty much get my kids to eat any fruit or vegetable if it is in a fun shaped muffin.)  Everyone in the family loves these muffins and we bake them every few weeks – freezing many of them to pop in the boys’ lunches or thaw for 20 seconds in the microwave for a quick breakfast or snack.  They are not low-fat by any means but I am rather fond of fat and it’s comforting properties.

Lemon-Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup whole grain flour (I like kamut flour but regular whole wheat is fine too)
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1.5 cups blueberries (fresh, frozen, or canned and drained)

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Mix the butter, milk, eggs, sugars, and vanilla together in a bowl and set aside.
3. Mix the flours, salt, and baking powder together and set aside.
4. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry, being careful not to over mix.  The batter should all be moist, but still lumpy.
5. Gently fold in the blueberries and the lemon zest.
6. Bake for 12-18 minutes (depending on the muffin size) until the tops are a light golden brown and the center of the muffin springs back when lightly pressed.

Note:  Any muffin or bread can be kept quite fresh for future eating by wrapping tightly in plastic wrap and then putting in a ziploc bag.  I wrap each muffin individually and then put them all together in one ziploc bag in the freezer, pulling one or two muffins out as needed.

To end our rough week on a good note I declared last night movie, spaghetti, and girl scout cookie ice cream sundae night.  I don’t happen to find the Land Before Time #1,000 to be the most engaging movie so I pulled out my laptop and began planning our menus for next week’s dinners (Mini Tostadas, Leek/Broccoli/Asiago Risotto + Arugula Salad, Kale Pie + Roasted Cauliflower, Pumpkin Mac & Cheese with Apple Sage “Sausage”).   It was quite nice to all curl up together under a blanket in the living room and nosh; a much needed break from the greater concerns of life.  We just might have to make it a weekly tradition.  What do you do to feel better when life threatens to bring you down?

Source: Gina Mendolo

Ingredients:

• 8 Tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 medium bananas, ripe and mashed

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease a 9″ x 5″ x 3″ loaf pan or 6 mini loaf pans.
3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy,
4. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Mix in flour, baking soda, and salt.
6. Fold in vanilla and bananas.
7. Pour mixture into pan and bake for approximately 50 minutes (shorter if using mini loaf pans) until cake tester comes out clean.