Banana blueberry quinoa muffins

Using up all of the bananas is sometimes a challenge.  Curt will only eat them if there is not a speck of brown – I’m not quite that particular, but they can’t be much more ripe before the mushiness gets to me.

I made this recipe last weekend, substituting dried cranberries for the raisins.  It worked really well, and the muffins were tasty and very filling – a good workday breakfast for sure.  So when I noticed some rapidly blackening bananas on our counter, I wanted to use them in the recipe.

I ended up changing a few things from the original so the proportions wouldn’t be terribly off – here is the recipe I ended up making:

1 C quinoa, rinsed

0.25 C canola oil

2 C all-purpose flour, plus more for pan

0.75 C packed brown sugar

1.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 exceptionally ripe bananas, mashed

0.75 C milk (I used 1%)

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup fresh blueberries, dusted with a TB of flour

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan, bring quinoa, a pinch of salt, and 1 C water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer; stir, cover, and cook until water has been absorbed and quinoa is tender, 11 to 13 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, grease a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray or oil; dust with flour, tapping out excess.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cooked quinoa.
4. In a small bowl, mix together oil, banana, milk, egg, and vanilla. Add milk mixture to flour mixture, and stir just until combined.  Add blueberries to batter and very gently stir so as not to break the berries and dye the whole batch purple.
5. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups – I found that each muffin cup takes about a third of a cup of batter.  I also added some blue caster sugar, because there are not enough blue foods in the world.
6. Bake until toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool muffins in pan, 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container up to 5 days.

They are both pretty and delicious.

Also, we got a new camera.  I am in looooooove.

Grill inauguration

Last night was our first real grill-out of the year.  We had:

-Pork tenderloin, brined in salt water and lemon juice, then rubbed with salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, and olive oil.

-Potatoes seasoned with paprika, garlic, shallots, oregano, salt & pepper, and olive oil and cooked in a foil packet.

-Asparagus with butter and salt & pepper, also cooked in a foil packet.

No pictures – we just enjoyed being out on the deck and REALLY grilling again.

Happy spring, everyone!