Banana Bran Muffins w/Chocolate Chips and Pecans

Muffins are my favorite thing to bake. They're so easy, they're almost impossible to mess up. They're basically quick bread in individual portions. They're also extremely flexible, so you can experiment and still end up with something edible, and they are fairly healthy, if you choose to make them that way. I suppose you could go the other way and basically make un-iced cupcakes, but I tend toward the healthy so I can eat them quilt-free for breakfast. What did you say? These don't sound healthy? Hello, bran=fiber, dark chocolate=antioxidents, pecans=protein, banana= potassium. So healthy.

I make a lot of muffins, but I don't post all of them because I don't want to become the muffin lady. These muffins, however, were so good I decided they had to see the light of the blog.


The whole wheat flour and wheat bran give these muffins some hearty substance, but the banana and the low-fat sour cream keep them light. With just a small amount of chocolate chips and pecans, they have a lot of flavor without being too much of an indulgence.

Version 1.0 of these little guys was liberally adapted from the back of the Bob's Red Mill wheat bran bag, a recipe for Molasses Bran Muffins. I substituted honey for molasses and mashed bananas for apple sauce. I gave most of the 1.0 batch to my running group Saturday morning. I have no idea what they thought of them because I was still struggling through my treacherously long run when they all left, but I thought they were still a little too dense and dry. My opinion could have been slightly skewed by the fact that I ate my muffin moments after I stopped running, so I was pretty parched, but I decided to change them up some anyway. So last night I made another batch, this time increasing the amount of banana and substituting lowfat sour cream for milk. ::And she sticks the landing.:: Ok, so they're just muffins, but they're my new favorite healthy muffins.


Banana Bran Muffins w/ Chocolate Chips and Pecans
Makes 12 standard muffins

You can double the pecans and leave out the chocolate chips, or substitute other nuts, raisins, or other mix-ins, as long as the total of the mix-ins is 1 cup. You can also make these as a quick bread, but the cooking time would have to be increased slightly, depending on the size of the loave. The best way to judge the doneness is when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

This recipe is easy to cut in half to yield 6 muffins.

Ingredients:
1 cup wheat bran
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips or dark chocolate chopped
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
1 cup low fat sour cream
1/2 cup honey
1.5 cups mashed bananas (3-4 very ripe bananas)
2 tbs. vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line muffin pan with paper liners or spray with nonstick spray.
-Combine both flours, wheat bran, baking soda, and baking powder in a large bowl. Stir in the chocolate chips and pecans.
-In a separate bowl, beat together the sour cream, honey, mashed bananas, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla.
-Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
-Pour mixture into muffin pan and bake for 15 or 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out cleam.

Candied Pecans and Almonds

I decided that my holiday season could start this weekend. I like to wait a little longer than most people to get into the spirit because I don't want to get sick of Christmas music and cookies and the smell of pine (ok, I could never get sick of that last one) before the 25th. My company holiday party was this weekend, so I figured I could start the season at home. Saturday we finally finished cleaning up from Thanksgiving (!), so Sunday we bought a Christmas tree and did a little decorating (I'll post pictures later). On a side note: Several people gave me a hard time about buying a real Christmas tree, but I think I appreciate the smell of the pine more than the ease of pulling a pre-lit tree out of a box. Also, when the tree is as little as ours, it really only takes 5 minutes to put lights on it anyway.

We also did our shopping for the families our apartment building "adopted" for the holidays. We had to buy clothes for an infant and a 3-year-old. We hit up the Baby Gap for some stylish duds-- I think they have better clothes than the adult store!

Sunday night I started my Christmas "baking" so I could send packages to the friends and family we wouldn't be seeing over the holiday season. These candied nuts were a good place to start, the hardest part was cleaning the pans after they were done. Use parchment paper! I ran out and was too lazy to go get some, even though I ended up going out to buy it a few hours later. Bad idea.

I will blog about the rest of the treats going into the packages over the next week. Happy Holidays!

Candied Nuts
Adapted from New York Magazine

Ingredients:
1/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
generous pinch of cayenne pepper
generous pinch of ground ginger
1 egg white
1 tbs. water
1 pound nuts (I did one batch of almonds and one of pecans)

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper
-Combine the sugars and spices in a bowl.
-Wisk together the egg white and water in another bowl.
-Put the nuts in a large mixing bowl. Pour the egg white mixture over the nuts and mix gently until they are all coated with a thing layer of egg white.
-Pour half the sugar mixture over the nuts, stir gently until combine, then pour the rest of the sugar mixture into the bowl, and stir gently until the nuts evenly coated.
-Pour the nuts onto the cookie sheets and using a spatula to spread them. They can be touching, but they should be in one thin layer, not piled on top of each other.
-Put the nuts into the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then take them out and stir them around, using the spatula to spread them into a thin layer again before putting them back in the oven for another 15 minutes, or until the sugar coating starts to look dry.
-Let the nuts cool, then break apart any that are stuck together and store them in an airtight container.

Fennel & Apple Salad w/Pecans

I never got around to posting that leftover turkey potpie recipe, did I? But I have a good excuse. I made it, but I didn't measure anything or take a picture. Then I was going to make it again to write down the measurements and snap a few photos...but then I realized I was so. sick. of. turkey. O well, you are too, right?

Here is something better--a light and beautiful salad with a really interesting combination of flavors. The hint of licorice flavor from the paper-thin slices of fennel plays off the sweet apple, which is also sliced into thin leaves. The simple lemony dressing brings the salad together, and the pecans add the perfect crunchy compliment. This dish includes seasonal ingredients without being heavy, which can sometimes be a challenge this time of year when the fresh produce lends itself more to hearty, heavy foods.

I served this salad with pan-seared halibut, simply seasoned with salt and pepper and served with ginger butter. Nic decided to make his into a sandwich, and I'm so glad he did. The halibut, ginger butter, and fennel and apple salad made a truly delicious fish sandwich, even if it was not particularly photogenic. Nic loved it so much, he called his dad to tell him about it before he even finished eating. (The halibut came from Nic's dad after all of ours went bad in the aforementioned freezer debacle.)

When my mom left a bulb and a half of fennel in my fridge last weekend, I had no idea what I was going to do with, but I'm so glad that she left it. Otherwise, I would have never thought to make this. I grew up eating fennel or finocchio, the Italian word for this vegetable (I didn't know the name for it in English until I was an adult), but only around Christmas time and usually by itself, picked from a plate with celery sticks and black olives.


I got to use my slicer for the first time to create the leafy apple and fennel slices. You could also use a mandolin, but this little guy is cheaper. You can get one at most kitchen stores, this one is from Williams-Sonoma. You might even be able to use a good vegetable peeler, but I haven't tried that. The best part about dinner tonight? The entire meal came together in 20 minutes.

Fennel & Apple Salad
Makes 2 large servings

Ingredients:
1 bulb fennel
1 apple (about the same size as the fennel bulb)
juice from one lemon
1 to 2 tsp. olive oil
1/8 to 1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup roughly chopped pecans

Directions:
- Cut off the root end of the fennel. Using a mandolin or another kitchen gadget, thinly slice the the bulb of the fennel, stopping when you get to the stalks. (These can be reserved for another use.) Use the tool to do the same thing with the apple, turning to slice all sides and stopping before you get to the core.
-In a large bowl combine the fennel and the apple with the lemon juice, olive oil and salt and toss to combine.
-Plate the salad and top with chopped pecans. Garnish with fronds from fennel top.

Pumpkin Cake w/ Apple Streusel

My friend MK loves pumpkin. So I knew that I had to incorporate it into her birthday cake somehow. Luckily, I found this recipe in a cookbook I borrowed from the library recently, The New Whole Grains Cookbook. This has to be brief because I am about to run out the door on my way to Baltimore. I only made a few changes, namely I used three apples instead of four, I used gala apples instead of granny smith, I added pecans to the streusel topping, and instead of 2 tbs. of pumpkin spice I made my own spice mixture. So if you want the original recipe you can make those changes back.

The result was a pumpkiny, spicey, pretty heavy cake. You only need a very small slice. But it taste very much like fall, with the two main in-season baking ingredients both part of this cake.

Pumpkin Cake w/ Apple Streusel
Adapted from The New Whole Grains Cookbook

Ingredients:
3 tbs. + 1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 gala apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
5 tbs. granulated white sugar
1 tsp. + 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. all spice
1/8 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/3 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1/4 cup chopped pecans.

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour a 9" spring form pan (should be at least 3" deep).
-Dice 1/2 cup butter and let it come to room temperature.
-Melt 3 tbs. butter in saute pan, and saute the apples over medium high heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Add 3 tbs. of white sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon to the apples. Toss and cook until the liquid is thick and bubbly.
-Combine flour, brown sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the diced butter and mix until the butter is broken up into little pieces. Measure 2/3 cup of the mixture into a small bowl for streusel.
-Add 2 tbs. white sugar, 3/4 tsp. cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, all spice, cloves, and pecans to streusel topping.
-To the stand mixer bowl, add baking soda, pumpkin, sour cream, and eggs. Beat until smooth and pour into pan.
-Top the batter in the pan with the apples, then with the streusel. (I didn't end up using all of the streusel. I just added until the apples were covered.)
-Bake for 40-5o minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. (Apple and streusel on the skewer doesn't count.)
-Cool and serve.

Apple Cider Bread

In case you missed it, I started baking two weeks ago. Unfortunatly after one successful baked good, I got way too ambitious, and last week I tried to make gluten-free oatmeal chocolate banana mini muffins (sooo many ingredients!) for one of my co-workers who can't eat gluten. They weren't horrible, but they definitely need some "perfecting." They were not good enough to be posted because if anyone made them they would never make one of my recipes again. But the gluten-free baked goods you get in the store must be really horrible, because my co-worker thought these were great in comparison.

I decided I needed to back up and just make something from someone else's recipe. Then I saw this Chai-Spiced Bread on the Sweet Savory Southern blog, and it sounded too good not to try. It went really well with the dinner I made for friends Saturday. One small problem with the recipe. It says to wait two hours for the bread to cool before slicing. That bread was LONG gone before two hours went by.

Well if you can make bread that tastes like a chai latte you should be able to tweak the recipe and make bread that tastes like apple cider right? RIGHT. And it is moist, yummy, not too sweet, and absolutely addicting to eat. I think making the bread with whole wheat flour gives it more substance, and I like the taste better, but you can substitute all purpose flour if you prefer.



Apple Cider Bread
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup apple cider
1/3 cup skim milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. all spice
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
crushed pecans for topping

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9X5" loaf pan with shortening or cooking spray.
-Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in eggs, cider, milk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, cinnamon, all spice, cloves, nutmeg and salt until well combined. Spread in pan and sprinkle top with crushed pecans.
-Cook 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
-Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Then remove from pan.