Mini Chocolate Nanner Muffins

My grandad grew up during the Great Depression. This comes out in weird ways sometimes, like in the form of beer can whirligigs or the old TV he always has lying around just in case. My grandad also grows a lot of his own produce. In his later years, he's started growing produce for sport rather than sustenance. My poor grandma is left trying to figure out how to use everything he grows in the kitchen. And she, also a child of the Great Depression, feels the need to bake, cook, freeze, or jar all of it. Corn, berries, zucchini (so much zucchini), and lately champagne grapes (in Southern Idaho! my grandad is both talented AND crazy). My grandma finds a way to use it all, and I have a cache of creative hand-me-down recipes to prove it. But before I get to those, I'll give you a fruit saving recipe for something you probably already have lying around: rotten bananas.

Mini Chocolate Nanner Muffins

Preheat oven to 400 and beat the following together in a large bowl:
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 cup overly ripe bananas, mushed

Add:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Don't over mix! Let your batter stay lumpy as long as all the dry ingredients are wet.

Evenly split batter into a lined mini muffin pan (you'll have enough batter to fill it at least twice). Once the batter is in, put a Hershey's kiss in each, pressing it into the batter until the edges are covered. I usually leave one muffin in the center of the pan kiss-less, at least the first pan per batch, so that I can do a toothpick test or two.

Bake roughly 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Check the mini muffins often after the 10 minute mark if they're still too wet; they're real small and the line between done and burnt is really thin. Pull the muffins from the pan as soon as you can manage to get them out without burning off your fingerprints and let them cool on a wire rack.

If you don't have a mini muffin pan or you just like your muffins normal-sized, you can mix in 1-1 1/2 cups chocolate chips to the batter instead of the kisses to achieve the right chocolate to banana ratio.

Apology+Blog=Apololog

Dear Readers,
I know you must think I have flippantly decided that no longer is the blogosphere for me; I must say you are wrong in that assumption. The truth is I have been cooking AND eating AND taking pictures of said deliciousness AND writing down the names and ingredients and directions for each recipe AND gathering information to post, but I. just. haven't done. it. I know, friends, I know; I suck it. Big time.

 The last several months have been rough around the edges and have flown by, creating an interesting jumble of events stretched over a couple of months. I spent some time in the unemployment hole, but fortunately that pothole remained a pothole and did not turn into a black hole, sucking away at my soul forever. (Dramatic, arent I?)  I am 100% employed again, with a great organization doing really exciting work, and while I'm sill at that brand-new-and-a-wee-overwhelmed stage, it's okay. That will resolve itself once I get a better grasp of the acronyms and their corresponding words.

My Librarian and I spent the two weeks over the holidays in Southern California. I got to eat citrus and avocado and enjoy the lush, vibrant colors that attacked my vision at the farmers market since it was all seasonal and local! It was incredible - I never thought late December would find me meandering down a palm tree lined street in a hoodie and jeans surrounded by meyer lemons, avocado, grapefruit, organes, satsuma tangerines, persimmons, tomatillos, and much, much more? If there is one thing I will not miss on the East Coast if ever we move it will be the availability of fresh, ripe grapefruit and oranges.

Last week we celebrated our 4th Anniversary with dinner at the brew pub that, although wasn't technically a date, was our first date, even if it was a non-date.It was sweet and quiet, and I think that our actual anniversary falling on a weeknight made it what it was. No wait for our table, no frazzled and fried waitstaff, and while we did go to a restaurant with a brew pub in it, you'd never have known. Our waitress was such a doll; she brought us a free dessert to top our evening off.

So...all that food I cooked and ate over the last few months, all that fresh produce we gorged on in Southern California and more will be coming (this time I PROMISE!) very soon. Spring is almost here (on the East Coast) which means a whole new crop of meals with COLOR! (the root vegetable time of the year always gets me down...). It also means it's time to start anew on our garden with new containers (the two year old plastic storage bins kicked it after being battered by the elements), bulbs, seeds,and more. Stick around; the mouthwatering morsels will make you cry. If you miss it, you'll cry even harder.

The Collected Bounty of the Fall (is occupying my freezer)

October and November were  busy months for us, in terms of reaping the rewards of vegetables and fruit not only thriving during the season, but also in gathering the end of summer fruits and veggies that seemed to maintain a little bit of longevity with our warm and mild September and October.


The kitchen has been hopping with zuchinni, apples, and all variets of squash - summer, butternut, and delicata - eggplant, kale, chard, broccoli and cauliflower.

What could be was grated, diced, cooked, baked, and/or frozen to enjoy as we supplement our winter stock of local roots -

beets, golden turnips, parsnips, jerusalem artichokes, potatoes, scallions, onions, garlic,  and even quince.

 Stay tuned for soups, stews, cakes, cookies, loaves of bread, even a jam (right?!) 

and more of the local deliciousness me and My Librarian have been producing.

Apple and Sage Pork Chops

This photo and recipe come from McCormick, the American food company specializing in spices. My Librarian and I stumbled upon a few of these pre-packaged meal spice packs while cruising through the supermarket one night. Generally the spices we use are fresh, save for a few dry spices we buy at one of the markets, but this recipe card really intrigued us, not least of all because the pork looked absolutely divine. These things come with a recipe card that you can keep handy for future dishes and the pre-measured spices necessary for the dish on said card. We figured what the hell, right?

The package included 1 1/2 teaspoons of Rubbed Sage, 1 teaspoon of Minced Garlic, 1 teaspoon of Thyme, 1/2 teaspoon of ground All-Spice, and 1/2 teaspoon of paprika. There were a few things we would need to add so we made a note of the things we had at home, that which we would need to grab, and headed over to the meat section to select our boneless pork chops.

Later that week, we were ready. Per the instructions, we mixed 1 tablespoon of flour with the entire spice packet and 1 teaspoon of salt in a bowl. The recipe asks you to sprinkle - honey, I don't really sprinkle - so I took each of my 4 pork chops and lightly dredged into the mixture.

In a large skillet, I cooked the pork chops on medium heat until browned on both sides and promptly removed and put them on a plate tented with foil. Next, 1 medium thinly sliced onion was cooked for about 3 minutes (or until tender), followed by 2 thinly sliced red apples. Cook for a few more minutes, stirring occasionally.

Finally, stir in 1/2 cup of apple juice, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, and the rest of the seasoned flour until well mixed. Return the pork chops and any collected juices to the pan and bring it all to a boil. Reduce to low, and simmer for about 5 minutes or until done.

We served with a side of apple mashed potatoes and it was delightful.

Fond Summer Memories: Peaches on the Beach

One of my fondest summer memories involve fresh Jersey peaches and the beach. My grandmother had a house in Ocean City, NJ and during the summer, my father would often spend his weekend visits with my brother and I 'down the shore.'

New Jersey is ripe with farms that offer mouth-watering goods in the warmer months - driving south on the Garden State Parkway you couldn't go more than 1 mile marker without passing homemade signs advertising fresh Jersey corn, peaches, tomatoes, peppers, alongside other varieties of locally grown fruit and vegetables. We would stop at any one (at least one - more often than not we would stop at multiple) of these stands and purchase enough fruit and vegetables to feed a tiny army. My favorite were the peaches. Soft and juicy treasures, warmed by the sun, these gems made my mouth water.  The best way to savor these is on the beach, fresh from a cool dip in the Atlantic.

We'd arrive in Ocean City and bustle into my grandmother's, a whirlwind of hugs, kisses, bags, and groceries. In a few hours time we'd be off the beach a few blocks away, a cooler always alongside the towels and chairs. The peaches would have been sitting in a brown paper bag, warmed by the sun and ripened in the farmer's orchard. Reaching in, you'd pull one of these deliciously plump fruits out of the bag. The warm sweet juice would mix with the salt on your face from the ocean and it would be pure heaven.

About a week ago, I took a day trip to the beach and packed along a few peaches from Kauffman's, a farmer we patronize fairly often. The sun was hot, the water was cold, and when I bit into that peach I smiled.

So dear readers pray tell, what are your fondest summer food memories?

Summer Bounty: Tomatoes

This tomato plant is a wonderful addition to our garden this summer. As with our edibles, we have it on our roof to keep neighbors from picking it at street-level. Given that it's a bit unsteady and a little over 3 feet tall, after bringing it home, I tethered the plant base to a very convenient satellite dish protruding from the side of the building, left by a former tenant. Further reinforcing it are bricks stacked three high surrounding the four sides of the base. The plant has remained despite crazy monsoon-like storms.

Speaking of undesirable weather, the plant has taken a bit of a beating from our unusually steamy summer; with temperatures hovering in the high 90s for pretty much all of July, the leaves did wither a bit, but as you can see the plant is still happily producing fruit, which we have been able to add to salads, salsas, and sauces.