Impromptu Banana Bread

The secret to banana bread is to measure the amount of mashed banana you have. Since this interesting fellow

somehow magically refused to freeze during his night in the freezer, and then squirted out of its sausage case-like peel the consistency of baby food, I had no choice but to make banana bread immediately. Poor me.

This is why you always keep the recipe handy, with the half and quarter recipes already written out. Or you just memorize it. :)

Granola Bars

Like (almost) everything else, this was an experiment. It was partially successful.

Like experiments, there were multiple conditions--two different methods of trying to make the granola bars stick together. One worked better than the other, but neither worked well. The mix was: 2 c rolled oats, 1/3 c wheat germ, 1/3 c wheat bran, 2 tbsp sunflower seeds, 2 tbsp sliced almonds, 3 tbsp brown sugar, 1.5 tbsp ground flaxseed, 2 tbsp melted butter, 1 tsp vanilla. A trick I learned from the KAF blog is to everything in a different place as a visual check of what you've added so you don't forget anything.

I mixed all this good stuff up and then split the batch in half. One half got a beaten egg white, the other 3 tbsp mashed banana. (This was based on a lack of critical thinking, as usual: I somehow managed to reason that since egg holds stuff together and is also something that adds moisture, something else that holds moisture should also hold things together. Don't ask.) Each half got pressed into a loaf pan. (Below, I think the egg version was the full one.)

After 25? minutes at 350 and 7 minutes to cool in the pan, I turned each out on the cutting board. The egg pan stuck together better than the banana pan, but neither stuck particularly well. I also realized that sunflower seeds don't really belong in granola bars. It's too bad but I've become quite a fan of the processed "food", sugar, oats, and chocolate chip version.

So, who has a granola bar recipe to share that doesn't have loads of sugar for holding everything together?

Experimental (Moosewood) Banana Bread

In retrospect, I don't know why this seemed like a good idea, but I was having a brief spell of actually being able to follow recipes, so I decided to give the Moosewood recipe for banana muffins a shot.

It looked innocent enough to begin with, and actually tasted fairly good.

It was similar to my normal recipe, but had a whole egg, and egg white, and half a cup of yogurt (= sour milk). It turned out to be, predictably, wayyy too moist. I may need to continue the experiment and put it back in the oven.... It still looked innocent, and oats on top are super cute. I loved the cracks in the top of the loaf.

Moral of the story: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Blueberry Banana Muffins

Dear World,
   I know that I am crazy. I have in fact, known this for more than twenty years. You don't have to keep telling me. However, by all means, continue if you wish. I take it as a compliment.
Thanks,
   The Pteph
(Some people have been saying I'm crazy for turning on the oven to bread and muffins in 90-degree weather. How outrageous!)

Tonight's muffin experiment goes perfectly with the recent focus on adventure, for four reasons. First, I have never made muffins I was crazy about. Second, I was following a recipe only loosely and this involved severely messing with the amount of moisture in the recipe. Third, I was using frozen bananas for the first time. It was all sorts of disgusting. (I have never dealt with rock solid bananas. Then they sat in the 90-degree air and turned white as the condensation on the air froze on their peels. One thawed quickly in a bowl and was a mixture of water and mush, sort of like how rotten milk separates into layers. Another thawed too slowly and had to be run under warm water to get the peel off. It slid out of the peel like a continuous tube, interestingly seemingly to be held together in its center.) And finally, the batter looked absolutely disgusting. I took a huge risk and tasted it, hoping it would be good because only good things had been put into it. Thankfully, it was.

Blueberry Banana Muffins
~
½ c wheat germ
½ c wheat bran
½ whole wheat flour
¼ c ground flax seed
¾ c rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1½ tsp cinnamon
~
2 egg whites
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice + ½ skim milk
1/3 c brown sugar
1½ – 2 mashed banana
1 c blended blueberries (blend them with the lemon juice and milk)
~
mix wet and dry until just mixed
bake at 325 for20-25 minutes or until a test comes out clean
(makes six giant muffins)
 ~

The large intestine banana (sorry):

 

P.S. Niftiness, from nutritiondata.com 

(please ignore the sodium; I'm not sure where they got 500 mg from; there's only 1/12 tsp in each muffin...)