January 16, 2019
Hi All!
"You don't have to be a four-star chef to eat like a gourmet"
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Penne for your thoughts? I've seen plenty of plastic straw alternatives for cutting down on waste like paper, stainless steel and silicone but Food Network magazine recently did an article about ditching plastic for pasta too? Pretty darn clever with the perciatelli noodle, pronounced 'pear-chuh-TELL-lee' and sometimes called bucatini which is just basically looks like looks spaghetti only fatter and with a hole running through the center just like a straw.
Friendly to Mammma Earth but I would feel like I was wasting food there too? I haven't tried this yet but when I do reach for a straw I still really like my stainless steel straws and my kids like these too....
4-pack stainess steel drinking straws
I hear we've finally got a big batch of snow coming to the Midwest and I've got to say I'm looking forward to it! One of the things I've always enjoyed about living here is the changing of the seasons and getting a little of everthing, however lately it seems to blur together. Kiddos and I are itching to get out skiing together with Hubby and the sleds are sitting 'at the ready' too. You know what that means? I'll need to have plenty of hot cocoa on standby too. You can grab a great recipe I use often right out of the archives here:
HOMEMADE HOT COCOA
You know what? Even if it is 80 degrees where you are I bet you would still enjoy this one too! Since I do like my cocoa oh about 'lava hot' I typically use a smaller mug and just refill often. I sure do like muffins with my cocoa snack too and since I have an abundance of bananas here's my scrumptious BANANA MUFFINS recipe with crumb topping and must-have muffin baking tips too.
Enjoy!
Marzee
Email Marzee
BANANA MUFFINS
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/8 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease 10 muffin cups.
In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking
powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas,
sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into
the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into
prepared muffin cups. In a small bowl, mix together brown
sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture
resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into
center of a muffin comes out clean.
Yield: 10 muffins
Category: Breads
~*~*~*~*~* MARZEE's CORNER *~*~*~*~*~
MUFFIN TIPS:
* End up with empty cups in your pan? If you've greased them,
fill the empty ones half full with water. It keeps the grease
from burning and all the cups will bake more evenly.
* When muffins are done, take them out of the muffin pan
immediately so they don't get soggy. If you need to, loosen
them with a table knife, then lift them out. If a recipe has
you leave the muffins in the pan for a few minutes after
baking, those muffins are more fragile and need to set up
a bit so you can remove them easily.
* Use shiny muffin pans for golden and tender muffin crusts.
* For nicely shaped muffins with rounded tops and no edges with
ledges, most recipes have you grease only the bottoms of the
muffin cups.
* The batter should be lumpy after you stir the dry ingredients
into the wet ingredients. If you mix the batter too much,
muffins can be tough with "peaked" tops and holes or tunnels
inside.