Showing posts with label june. Show all posts
Showing posts with label june. Show all posts
Saturday, February 14, 2015
June Secret Recipe Club Featuring Cinnamon Banana Muffins
Hi, friends! Im back home in San Antonio (and the summer temps) after a weeklong vacation in Portland and the surrounding area. We saw so many wonderful sites, had a great visit with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and sampled some of the areas best food and wine!! Ill be sharing a two-part blog series about my trip this Wednesday and Friday. But first? Its time for one of my favorite monthly blog events: Secret Recipe Club!! My assigned blog this month is The Pink Apron. What a fun blog...so full of amazing recipes to choose from. Kelly is my kind of gal! She lives in Chicago, one of my most favorite cities to visit...and she loves artisan cheese. I think she would be a great foodie friend to grab a margarita at Frontera Grill the next time were in Chicago!!
With vacation looming on the horizon, I was looking for something quick and easy to make this month. I had two VERY ripe bananas in my kitchen, so her Cinnamon Banana Muffins immediately caught my eye!! Then, I came across some super-cute muffin liners with monkeys and bananas later that day. I took it as a sign...so I ran home and whipped up a batch of these yummy muffins to take to the office the next morning. They were simple to whip up, and my kitchen smelled wonderful while they baked. The only changes I made to the recipe were to add some Vietnamese cinnamon and some vanilla bean paste to the batter...and I used white chocolate chips and some chopped pecans instead of the suggested cinnamon chips. I looked in two stores and couldnt find the cinnamon chips, so I opted to use white chocolate instead. The nuts were a last-minute inspiration when I found them in my baking stash.
Cinnamon Banana Muffins
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With vacation looming on the horizon, I was looking for something quick and easy to make this month. I had two VERY ripe bananas in my kitchen, so her Cinnamon Banana Muffins immediately caught my eye!! Then, I came across some super-cute muffin liners with monkeys and bananas later that day. I took it as a sign...so I ran home and whipped up a batch of these yummy muffins to take to the office the next morning. They were simple to whip up, and my kitchen smelled wonderful while they baked. The only changes I made to the recipe were to add some Vietnamese cinnamon and some vanilla bean paste to the batter...and I used white chocolate chips and some chopped pecans instead of the suggested cinnamon chips. I looked in two stores and couldnt find the cinnamon chips, so I opted to use white chocolate instead. The nuts were a last-minute inspiration when I found them in my baking stash.
Cinnamon Banana Muffins
adapted from The Pink Apron
Step 1: Preheat oven to 350. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper liners and set aside. Add the following ingredients to a mixing bowl: 1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (the more ripe, the better!), 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup canola oil, 1/4 cup skim milk, 1 tsp. vanilla bean paste (or vanilla), and 1 large egg. Whisk well to combine. Set aside.
Step 2: In a second bowl, combine the following ingredients: 1 1/2 cups cake flour, 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. Vietnamese cinnamon, and 1 tsp. salt. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the reserved wet ingredients. Stir just to combine, then gently fold in 1 cup white chocolate chips and 1/2 cup pecans.
Step 3: Add the batter to the muffin liners, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let the muffins cool for 15 minutes before placing on a serving platter and digging in!
These muffins are really good...the texture is dense and moist, and the intense banana flavor really shines through!! The pockets of melted white chocolate and crunchy nuts were really nice accents. I took these to work, and my co-workers gave them a big thumbs up. I really loved the whimsical papers...the bananas and monkeys let everyone know exactly what they were about to eat. Im not monkeying around when I say I hope youll give these muffins a try very soon! While youre at it, make sure to check out all the great Group C SRC offerings that are being shared today!!
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Friday, February 6, 2015
June Foodie Pen Pal Reveal
It’s the end of another month...which means it’s also time for another fun Foodie Pen Pal reveal! This is such a great monthly event that was started by Lindsay at The Lean Green Bean. Come on...what’s not to like about receiving a box full of yummy food that’s been hand-picked for you by a fellow food lover?!?!? This month, I received a fantastic box of goodies from Calee. This is one lucky gal...she lives and works in Napa Valley. If you haven’t been there before, trust me: this place is pretty much heaven on earth. We were lucky enough to spend a few days in Napa in 2009...and views like this had us tempted to quit our day jobs and seek out work as professional wine tasters!
When we arrived home from our Oregon trip, a big box of goodies was waiting for me. A present sure makes coming home from a lovely vacation so much easier!! Being a kid at heart, I tore into the box immediately! Take a look at all of the fun goodies that were inside:
Theres individual packets of flavored nut butters, an 18 Rabbits bar, spicy pickled garlic, smoked chipotles, some very spicy habanera sea salt, VERY yummy homemade granola bars, and...? She also sent me a bottle of her homemade vanilla extract...which smelled absolutely heavenly. I immediately grabbed a bite of the granola to sample -- it is SO good! The bar made an excellent breakfast one morning with some yogurt, and that spicy salt really upped the heat level in some grilled chicken that I made one evening! I immediatly started thinking about how I could showcase her homemade vanilla in a fun recipe for y’all.
I knew that I had found something unique and special when a Facebook friend posted a picture and link to a recipe for Vanilla Ice from the blog Oh My Veggies. Vanilla-flavored ice cubes that won’t water down your favorite drink...but will enhance it instead? That’s totally genius, as is the name (...ice ice, baby...)! You can get the recipe for these intensely vanilla ice cubes by visiting Kiersten at Oh My Veggies. I added my vanilla ice cubes to glasses of chai-flavored tea for a refreshing Friday evening pick-me-up. As the cubes melted into the iced tea, it added a creamy vanilla flavor to spicy chai. Trust me, folks: you REALLY want to make a batch of these off-the-charts ice cubes ASAP...you can thank me later!
If you want to join the Foodie Pen Pal fun for July and receive your very own totally cool food box, here’s the scoop:
If you want to join the Foodie Pen Pal fun for July and receive your very own totally cool food box, here’s the scoop:
-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents. Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents. Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa.
If you’re interested in participating for July, please CLICK HERE to fill out the participation form and read the terms and conditions. You must submit your information by July 4th as pairings will be emailed on July 5th!
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