Thank you Auntie Dani!

Just when we really needed some new breakfast ideas and just when we had an abundance of ripe bananas Auntie Dani came through with a delicious healthy whole food banana muffin recipe. Usually my kids don’t get too excited about all the various healthy muffins I try to get in their bodies in the morning but these healthy banana muffins have chocolate chips in them so it was a no brainer for them. These are made with whole wheat flour and just a bit of brown sugar. Thank you Auntie!

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Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins—from King Arthur Flour: Whole Grain Baking

Ingredients:
½ c unsalted butter
½ c packed light brown or dark brown sugar
¾ t baking soda
½ t salt
½ t cinnamon
¼ t nutmeg
1 t vanilla extract
1 ½ c (about 3 large) mashed ripe bananas
¼ c honey
2 eggs
2 c whole wheat flour
½ c choco chips

Preheat oven to 350*

Line muffin pan with muffin cups, lightly grease them with veg spray.

Beat together butter, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla until smooth. Add bananas, honey, and eggs and blend until smooth. Slowly add the flour and choco chips.

Spoon into muffin cups and let stand at room temperature for 10-minutes. After resting place into oven for about 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool for about 10 minutes in muffin pan, then remove cups from pan and let cool completely on wire rack.

Yields 12- jumbo muffins or 24-medium muffins.

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Oh and if you are wondering why we have so many bananas, I freeze them 3 at a time when they get very ripe. I make breakfast smoothies with the frozen bananas. It looks like we have enough bananas to freeze and to make another batch of these muffins AND a new banana bread recipe Auntie is also sending us.

Snow Day = Baking Day

We had a glorious snow day today. School was cancelled. Even my husband stayed home which is incredibly rare. My kids must have logged 6-8 hours in the snow taking turns on our man-made snow hill by our house. I also played in the snow a bit but I also had the kids help me bake some dinner rolls and sticky buns. I usually have such bad luck with anything that involves yeast (I buy it in bulk regardless of my bad luck and keep it in the fridge) so if I can do this recipe anyone can. My kids mixed in the flour and I split the dough so that all three had their own to play/knead. I didn’t care for thebit of chocolate chips that the recipe called for in the sticky buns but I think the kids loved them. Both the dinner rolls and the sticky buns are so pretty and so simple that I want to make some for everyone I know. Oh and I just LOVE a recipe that gives you freezing instructions. Thank you Martha!

Breakfast Popsicles

An Old Favorite Returns

We often have fruit smoothies for breakfast. I mentioned them before but I will elaborate. Basically I freeze browned bananas (after peeling them) three at a time in a freezer bag. In the blender, I toss in a bag of frozen bananas, a few frozen berries, some yogurt (plain or with fruit), some whey protein powder, and orange juice or whatever fruit juice we have or some milk if none and mix it all together. The kids love these smoothies and haven’t tired of them. When there are leftover smoothie slush I pour the remaining liquid into popsicle molds for later. Then we’ll have popsicles for breakfast on another day. They used to think the popsicles were great but somehow it lost its appeal and we haven’t had the popsicles in nearly a year. Well I broke out the popsicle molds again and we had breakfast popsicles this morning and the kids loved them all over again. I suppose it’s like the toy rotation method, sometimes you have to put it a toy away for a while, get it out again and it’s like brand new.

I just read in Martha's Everyday magazine that you can make similar smoothies with rolled oats. I have not tried that before but will give it a shot next time.

Healthy(ish) Quick Breakfast Ideas

Ok, so I'm looking for some, got any? We have children that do not eat eggs. My husband and I eat eggs every day. I'm hoping that one day our egg habit will rub off on the kids. Until then I will continue to occassionally put egg on their breakfast plate in the hopes it enters their bodies. If it's never on their plate then it has NO chance, right? So here are some of our regular breakfast entrees that I think are somewhat healthy, minus the syrup we put on the pancakes:

1) Pumpkin Pancakes http://www.marthastewart.com/article/pumpkin-pancakes?autonomy_kw=pumpkin%20pancake&rsc=image_1
2) Oatmeal Pancakes http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Oatmeal-Pancakes-II/Detail.aspx
3) "Muscle Pancakes" - loaded with protein http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Oatmeal-Pancake/Detail.aspx
4) Breakfast smoothies - blended frozen bananas, frozen berries, yogurt, OJ & protein powder
5) Banana slices with peanut butter on top
6) Turkey Sausages
7) Granola cereal (homemade, any recipe will do it - nuts & craisins/raisins)
8) Popsicles made out of leftover smoothies frozen in popsicle molds
9) French toast (at least I get eggs in them this way)
10) Oatmeal with a sprinkle of brown sugar & raisins or mashed banana & splash of milk
11) Bran muffins w/ raisins or blueberries http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Low-Fat-Blueberry-Bran-Muffins/Detail.aspx

Lately I've really been at a loss for breakfast so I'm looking to branch out. I'll let you know what I come up with. My preference is to stay away from cold cereals. You can choose a healthy cereal but they are just so expensive.