Recipe

Sue's Awesome Banana Muffins

Quite a lot of the recipes I make and share come from my wife (Sue). When she made these quick, easy, and mostly healthy Banana Muffins the other day I was blown away. Not only were they delicious, but a fun activity to do with Zach.

IMG_8285.jpg

Ingredients:

  • 3 large ripe bananas

  • 3/4 cup white sugar

  • 1 egg

  • 1/3 cup oil vegetable oil is best

  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

  • 1 tsp baking soda (bi carb soda)

  • 1 tsp baking powder

  • 1/2 tsp salt


Optional Ingredients:

  • Chocolate Chips

  • Blueberries

  • Oats (Steel Cut)

METHOD:

  1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C and line your muffin tin with 12 paper muffin cups.

  2. In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas with a fork until no large pieces remain.     

  3. Add the sugar, egg and oil and mix with a wooden spoon until everything is incorporated.

  4. Measure the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a separate mixing bowl and stir them together with a fork. Once they’re mixed together, dump the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

  5. Using a wooden spoon, carefully mix the wet and the dry ingredients together. The danger here is over-mixing which will result in dense, flat and dry muffins. The best technique for mixing is to scoop underneath the mixture and pull up gently instead of stirring around in a circle (like you’d stir your coffee, for example). Continue mixing this way just until the dry ingredients have been incorporated. It’s fine if there are a few small streaks of flour in the batter; it’s the large pockets of flour you want to make sure are incorporated.

  6. Spoon the batter into 12 lined muffin cups. Try your best to ensure you fill the cups evenly. This will ensure each of the muffins is finished baking at the same time (you don’t want some over-baked and some raw in the middle!)

  7. OPTIONAL: Add in Chocolate Chips / Blueberries to filled muffin cups, stir in/mix with toothpick.

  8. OPTIONAL: Coat / top muffins with sprinkle of oats.

  9. Bake the muffins in the oven at 180 degrees C (350F) for about 16-18min (it could be 22-25 min depending on your oven, but check around the 18min mark) or until they are golden brown.

  10. Let them cool in the tins for about 5 minutes and then turn them out of the tins to let them cool completely on a cooling rack. Or, enjoy one warm from the oven slathered in butter.


Notes:

You can store the muffins in an air tight container for about 4 days, but just make sure they are fully cooled before you store them.


An all chocolate chip batch

An all chocolate chip batch

Antipasto Christmas Wreath

This Christmas my wife made this incredible antipasto Christmas wreath for our family lunch. The idea is so simple, yet so effective that I really think this is my preferred way of eating antipasto now.

1.jpg

The entire wreath is compiled from individual 16cm skewers, which look like….

Individual antipasto skewers.

Individual antipasto skewers.


INGREDIENTS:

There is no strict list, but all of what we got was at Woolies;

  • 16cm skewers.

  • Salami (I like the Garlic & Fennel one)

  • Hot Salami (Sopressa)

  • Prosciutto / Jarmon

  • Baby Bocconcini

  • Little peppers stuffed with feta

  • Pitted Green olives

  • Pitted Black olives

  • Marinated Artichokes

  • Cherry Tomatoes (halved)

  • Basil leaves

  • Cocktail onions

  • Fresh Rosemary Sprigs (Optional / Garnish).

It’s really up to you what you think would be tasty, but what I noted was that having a mix of items - salty, tart, fresh, different meats

3.jpg

METHOD (constructing skewers):

  • This is fairly obvious, but you set up all your ingredients and start shoving them onto skewers.

  • We found that it’s good to place stronger/firmer items at the base and top of the skewer to ensure it all stays constructed (note: it’s usually a green olive or a cherry tomato).

  • You can mix up the combos, we tended to have two meats on eat skewer. Note, this can be made vegetarian/vegan friendly by just selecting appropriate ingredients.

METHOD (constructing the wreath);

  • On a large white square or round platter, carefully place individual skewers in a circle (wreath) shape.

  • We started with a hexagon, and then kept overlapping

  • Garnish with fresh rosemary sprigs


An example of what two different skewers look like

An example of what two different skewers look like


Bonus: You can use these skewers for a great picnic!

We had leftover components after Christmas and brought along the skewers to a picnic.

5.jpg