Banana Muffins with a Crunch

I feel obligated to share only the most tasty muffin recipe that has ever graced my oven.  I'd love to be able to take credit for it but the true culinary genius behind the recipe is the loverly Ina Garten of The Barefoot Contessa...she is wonderful.  Her original recipe can be found here.

To be honest, I've never actually tried the original recipe.  I have this incurable urge to toy with recipes even if I haven't tried them before. You can imagine how fabulously horrible some of my experiments turn out.  I stumbled upon the recipe on the site Allrecipes.com and used the comments left by other bakers and a few of my own tweaks (to make it healthier, of course).  This is the final product: (for now...until I get bored and decide to change it :)

Banana Muffins with a Crunch

2 cups  all-purpose flour

1 cup  whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups  white sugar

2 tsp  baking powder

1 tsp  baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup  wheat bran

1 cup  melted butter, cooled

2 eggs, lightly beaten

3/4 cup  milk

2 tsp  vanilla

2 bananas, mashed

1 banana, chopped (opt)

1 cup  granola or quick oats

1 cup  chopped walnuts or pecans

1 cup shredded coconut

Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add wheat bran and stir to combine. Mix in melted butter.  In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, milk, vanilla and mashed bananas.  Add to other ingredients and stir.  Fold in chopped banana, granola, nuts and coconut.  Fill lined muffin cups three-quarters full  and bake for 25 minutes at 350F.

As I'm typing this out I can't help but think that I gotta sneak some chocolate chips in next time.  Let's be honest....there really isn't too many things that aren't made better by chocolate. Mmmmm nope...definitely not.  Oh and I'd like to try using applesauce in place of the melted butter.  I've heard it works really well but I've never tried.

Excuse the terrible photo.  Some day, over the rainbow, I dream of being rich and owning a really nice camera.....until then, my little free one will have to do.

If anyone tries my tasty little recipe with applesauce, pretty please let me know how it works out and how much you used? Love!

Lessons in Paint and Paper

My love and I bought our first house about a year ago now.  I'm sure amidst all the wonderful things, someone somewhere dropped the hint about how much work/painful/energy-sucking homes were.

Naturally, I disregarded those hints.

This is our home.... Yes.....it is teal.  It actually matches our garden hose quite nicely.  I have really great plans to paint it....I promise....one day...hopefully.  Those are a few of my fabulous in-laws who have just finished ripping out alllllllll the dead ugly shrubs that ran across the front of the house....yech. Thank God for in-laws.....for real...I mean it.

Next up is the living room

 So the fireplace wall...yup...wallpaper.  Not just one layer.  TWO. Not so bad you say?  Well FYI it took FOUR of us (thank you loving parents) hourrrrrrrrrrs to get it all off.  This was the least amout of paper of all the rooms in the house...but I'll save that for a later date.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     (Tuckered Right Out)                                                                           (He loves me!)

Hubby smashed that ugly valence out and with no previous experience ....we painted our very own living room.

It's a step in the right direction I'd say. :) 'Specially for our VERY first room reno.  One day I'll have my very own furniture .....no more hand-me-downs.....I envision a slate grey L-shaped couch.   The TV will have to stay for now too....notice the stickers. Remnants of hubby's batchelor-hood.  That's what that is.  You win some, you lose some I guess.  I lost this one.  And the skull flag that is our bedroom curtain. I'll show you some other time.

Gettin' Started

The inaugeral post.

Eek

A bit about me I guess.

I love to learn. I also love to tell people about the things I am learning.  Thus this blog is born!
Follow my blog to find out who I am, what I'm passionate about and all the things that are racing around in my head at any given moment.  It's bound to be an adventure!

Cammy