Tropical Muffins

Recently I was leafing through one of those fundraising cookbooks with recipes contributed from various people. You know the kind. Then I stumbled across a fun variation of banana bread. After tweaking it to reduce the sugar by half, using coconut oil instead of vegetable oil, and dropping some ingredients, we now have a banana pineapple coconut muffin that has everyone going back for more. You might try adding some shredded, unsweetened coconut for some additional crunch.

 

Tropical Banana Muffins

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup cane sugar (or less)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup coconut oil, softened
• 1 (8-oz.) can crushed pineapple, drained and blotted dry (save the juice for other uses!)
• 2 cups (about 3 - 4) mashed ripe bananas
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare muffin tin with papers. (If you have a non-stick muffin tin, you can probably get away with not using anything and putting the batter directly in the forms. The coconut oil does a fair job of greasing the tin on its own.)
2. Mix together in a large mixing bowl the flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon. Make a fist in the center.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together until smooth the mashed bananas, sugar, eggs, and coconut oil. Add the crushed pineapple and vanilla.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones. Mix together with a rubber spatula until combined.
5. Working with a tablespoon and teaspoon, fill the muffin cups. Bake for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees, or until a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean, rotating the muffin tin halfway through the baking time.

Before you get started, make sure to drain the pineapple; keep the juice for smoothies (or mixed drinks?).

Use a rubber spatula to mix ingredients until just combined but still lumpy.

Artichoke Power Green Salad

Recently I decided to recreate one of my favorite salads from the Bellingham Coop. This combined with some warm, crusty bread out of the oven makes for a delicious dinner. Added bonus: the kids decided that they were caterpillars and deemed the greens caterpillar food (progress!). Since this salad is pretty much made to taste, I will give you a rough description of the amounts you will need - feel free to add or reduce depending on what you like best.

Since I almost always have a bag of Power Greens in the fridge, I use this as my base. You can use any combination of spinach, kale, and/or chard. The original salad uses kale, red onion, and white vinegar. I prefer the milder taste of the shallot to red onion, and honestly, when I made this, I only had red wine vinegar in cupboard. Another alternative would be to use fresh lemon juice instead of the vinegar, and then olive oil rather than a vegetable oil, in order to give it a more Mediterranean flavor.

Artichoke Power Green Salad

• 3 - 4 cups greens (spinach, kale, chard or any combination of these)
• 1 can artichoke hearts, drained, rinsed, and quartered
• 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 cup Kalamata olives, drained and chopped
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
• red wine vinegar and canola oil to taste
• salt and pepper to taste

Toss all of the ingredients, and you are ready to go!

Tossed and ready to serve

Berlin Saturday Morning

One highlight of my week when living in Berlin was visiting the enormous outdoor market at Winterfeldtmarkt in Berlin-Schöneberg, then continuing along the row of boutiques and cafés along Goltzstraße, on Saturday morning. It was a feast for the eyes. I would soak in the colors, the fragrances, the sounds, and as often as not, bump into a friend doing the same and stop for a cup of coffee. It was an opportunity to fill my senses with beauty. A couple of times, I set out with my dad's old Nikon camera and took pictures of what a saw. Here are some of my favorite shots.

Soup Weather

After a glorious week of snow, the rain has arrived. Rainy weather pretty much equals soup weather for me. The other day, there were beautiful butternut squashes at the market, and I could not resist! I love the colors when preparing the soup.

You will probably notice that my fallback cookbook is the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, and that is the inspiration for this recipe for a creamy butternut squash soup. The main difference is that I use vegetable broth rather than chicken broth. When I haven't made my own, I really like the vegetable broth or bouillon from the brand Rapunzel.

After cooking the soup, I remove it from the heat and puree it using an immersion blender. Then, I add the cream. You could leave out the cream if you would like a lighter soup.

We really enjoyed a bowl of this along with the Morning Glory muffins.

Butternut Squash Soup (vegetarian)

If you would like to make a vegan version, simply substitue vegetable oil for the butter, and leave out the cream at the end.

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 large onion, minced
• 1 large butternut squash, cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
• 5 cups vegetable broth or bouillon (I generally use Rapunzel brand)
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• Pinch nutmeg
• 1/2 cup cream
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large Dutch oven; then add the onion and cook about 5 minutes. Add the squash, broth, thyme, and nutmeg. Simmer covered until the squash is tender, about 25 minutes.
2. Remove the thyme from the soup, remove the soup from the heat, and puree until smooth. (You can use a blender or a food processor for this step; I think that the immersion blender works fine and leaves a bit of texture.)
3. Add cream and return soup to the stove. Depending upon how big your butternut squash was, the soup might be a bit thick - if so, just add broth or water. You can season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with nutmeg, or a bit of cayenne to spice it up.

Making Lists

Saturday I completed this week's shopping. When I got home, I made a list of all of the recipes I can make with everything on hand. (Keep in mind that I live on an island, so stockpiling is permitted and encouraged.) It is helping me to stay focused and creative, especially in the moments when I have little motivation to cook.

Morning Glory

This morning, I set out to make morning glory muffins - without the raisins and nuts because of wanting the children to actually eat them. Then I got creative with the remaining ingredients and substituted coconut oil for butter (1:1). Sugar is reduced, as is the number of eggs. I also opted for unsweetened coconut. Everyone loved the results, and I hope you do, too!

Non-Dairy Morning Glory Muffins

•  2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 carrots, peeled and grated (about 2 cups)
• 1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained and blotted dry (I keep the extra pineapple juice and add it to smoothies)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1.  Place oven rack in middle position, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line muffin tin with papers. 
2. Whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together until thoroughly mixed the sugar, eggs, coconut oil, and vanilla extract. 
4. Gently mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones using a rubber spatula. Fold the carrots, pineapple, and coconut into the mixture.
5. Working with 2 tablespoons, fill the muffin cups. This will yield 12 large muffins. 
6. Bake until golden, and an inserted toothpick comes out clean, approximately 25 to 30 minutes.
7. Cool muffins on a wire rack.

Another cooking blog?

If you know me, you know that I love cooking and baking, and bringing people together over a meal. Years ago when I set out as a communications trainer and coach, I came up with the idea of a "Coaching Kitchen". This idea has been slumbering since 2010, and I have finally decided to get started. I do not yet know where the journey will take me, but I would like to share my thoughts - and adventures in the kitchen - with you in the meantime. Please join me, add your thoughts, stories, questions!