Healthier Banana Muffins (A Recipe Makeover)

A couple weeks ago bananas were on sale for $0.10 each, so I bought about 40 of them. I figured whatever we didn’t eat I could freeze for smoothies or baking. Last night I made a large batch of banana muffins to use up some of them up since I’d already filled a gallon sized freezer bag with peeled, very ripe bananas. 

I used Esther Nelson’s recipe from Allrecipes.com for Banana Sour Cream Bread, but since I am calorie-counting (trying to loose that baby weight!), I made several tweaks to make them healthier and removed 40% of the calories!  

You can see that adding almond meal in place of some of the flour did add some calories, but I thought of it as somewhat of a substitute for the walnuts as well. I love using almond meal--almonds are so good for you, and the almond meal makes everything so moist!

The recipe says that it makes 32 servings at 263 calories each. I ended up with around 40 muffins at 125 calories each. 

I wasn’t sure how they would taste because I've noticed that whole wheat baked goods often require more sweetener than those with white flour. In fact, I almost added more sugar at the last minute. But, I held off, thinking I could always find a way to dress them up if they ended up needing it. And I'm glad I did! They're good--not too sweet, but they don’t taste like cardboard either. 


If you want to make them healthier like this but want to offer others who are less health-conscious a way to dress them up, you can serve them with peanut butter or honey to spread on top!

Cozy Autumn Acorn Squash and Brown Rice (A Recipe)

The more I cook, the more I realize something about myself: I love season-inspired menus. Grilled veggies, smoothies, and sorbet in the summer. Chili, soups and roasts in the winter. And all things pumpkin in the fall! And since I love pumpkin, when I saw acorn squash on sale for $0.49/lb, I picked up a couple, brought them home, and ended up with the following concoction that our family really enjoyed. I hope you do too!

Ingredients

2 small acorn squash, washed thoroughly 

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 1/2 cups brown rice

3 cups chicken or vegetable broth

2 cups pulled chicken*

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion

1 tart apple

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon sage

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg  

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Prepare squash (taken from A Veggie Venture)

• Preheat oven to 400 F.
• Lightly coat entire squash in olive oil and place directly on top rack in oven. 
• Place a foil-lined baking sheet on lower rack to catch any juices from the squash
• Cook for 50-90 minutes, until squash is soft (it should cut like room-temperature butter). Since my squash were on the smaller side, they only took about 50 minutes.
• Allow squash to cool before cutting open to avoid burns, especially from steam.
• Remove skin and seeds and cube or mash as preferred.

Prepare brown rice according to package directions using broth instead of water. 

Prepare pulled chicken: warm chicken through

*This recipe assumes you have pulled chicken on hand. After reading a section in Everyday with Rachel Ray, which gave 5 make-ahead-and-freeze ingredients to be used in 20 meals, I’ve become quite keen on making large batches of stuff and freezing meal-size portions for later use. I’ll share more details on that in a later post! 

Make the Dish

• In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. 
• Add chopped onions and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring.
• Lower the heat to medium-low and add chopped apples and seasoning.
• Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are beginning to caramelize (about 10 minutes).

• Add rice, pulled chicken and squash to the and onion apple mixture until heated through.

• Garnish with fresh sage or mint. Serve with steamed vegetables and a crusty bread.