Strawberry Banana Muffins

The other day Hazel and I made some muffins. We had some ripe bananas and Hazel decided we needed to add strawberries to them. So we came up with strawberry banana muffins, which I must add were delicious. We adapted the basic muffin recipe from our Better Homes and Garden Cook Book.

• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (we used white whole wheat because it is what we had)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup oat bran
• 1/3 cup flax seed meal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 beaten egg
• 3/4 cup nonfat milk
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 3 ripe bananas mashed
• 1 cup frozen strawberries, thawed a bit and sliced in food processor

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large mixing bowl combine the dry ingredients.
2. In a medium bowl combine egg, milk and oil. 
3. Add liquid ingredients and banana to the dry ingredients.
4. Add strawberries and mix well.
5. Scoop into prepared muffin pan. (Either lined with cupcake liners or greased.)
6. Bake for 20 minutes and then turn onto rack to cool.
7. Enjoy!

Hazel decided it was Ducky's birthday and the muffin could be his birthday cake, so we had to put candles in one. Luckily after that she got side tracked. I think she may have liked these more than our blueberry banana muffins we usually make.

Muffins, Muffins--Using up bananas and pumpkin

Today we had some overripe bananas and some canned pumpkin my mother sent home with me. We decided to make two kinds of muffins. This would be perfect for anyone having a party or a bake sale. We also used a large carrot and a large zucchini grated up.

Banana Muffins & Pumpkin Muffins
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup almond meal (if making for bake sale may want to use flour instead due to allergies)
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup flax seed meal
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
dashes of ground cloves
2 eggs
1/2 - 1 cup of canned pumpkin
2-3 overripe bananas mashed or pureed
1 large carrot & 1 large zucchini pureed together
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 3/4 cups milk (I use non-fat)
1 cup applesauce (unsweetened)
1/2 - 1 cup sliced almonds or chopped nuts (optional)

To make both at once, you will need four mixing bowls. In the two largest ones add half of each of the dry ingredients (1 c flour, 1/4 c almond meal, 1/2 c oatmeal, 1/2 c flax seed meal, 2 t baking powder, 1 t cinnamon, 1/2 t nutmeg, dash or two of ground cloves) and mix. Set both bowls aside. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In next two bowls beat an egg in each. Then add the pumpkin to one and the banana to the other. Add half of the carrot-zucchini mixture to each bowl and 1 Tablespoon of oil and 1/2 cup of applesauce to each. I found the pumpkin was a bit dry and needed 1 cup of milk and the banana only needed 3/4 cup of milk. Mix this all together. Then add each bowl to one of the dry ingredient bowls and mix. You can mix in the almonds or nuts if you are using them.

Spray 24 muffin cups with cooking spray (paper liners often stick since there is not much oil in these recipes, so if you want liners use foil ones). Scoop each batter into 12 of them. We made 12 of each.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes and let cool. Enjoy!!

Banana & Oatmeal Scones

Once again we had some overripe bananas to use. I went looking for a new recipe to try and came up with this one for Banana and Oatmeal Scones at Food.com. For the most part we stuck to this recipe with a few additions after reading the comments.

First mix two cups whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup of ground almond meal, 1/4 cup (slightly less) sugar, one tablespoon baking powder, one teaspoon cream of tartar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, one teaspoon cinnamon, and one and a quarter cups of old-fashioned oatmeal. Hazel did most of the measuring (but she didn't want to be the banana masher this time so I did it).

Second blend 2 mashed bananas, 1/2 cup of melted butter, and 1/3 cup of milk (we used fat free).

Then add in dry ingredients and 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts. In the end I used my hands to mix this a bit. It was very dry and I would add liquid next time--either another banana and/or some more milk. 

Turn out onto a floured surface and cut in half. Form each half into a 7 to 8 inch circle. Cut each into eight wedges and place on sprayed baking sheet.

Bake at 425 for about 10 minutes until golden brown. Let cool and then enjoy. We enjoyed them with some strawberry jam!

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Our Tuesday: Cooking, Nature and Play

This morning Hazel announced she wanted pancakes for breakfast. In other words, she wanted to cook. So we made some. We had some very ripe bananas that I wanted to do something with so I gave three of them to Hazel to mash. Then I gave her an egg to beat. We mixed with the egg, the bananas, a pureed carrot, 1 cup of skim milk, and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Next we mixed the dry ingredients in a separate bowl: 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/3 cup ground almond meal, 1/3 cup chopped walnuts, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/2 cup oatmeal. Then we poured the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and threw in a cup of blueberries. Mixed it well and then cooked the pancakes.

Hazel even helped scoop a couple into the pan, though she is very afraid of the hot stove. She really enjoys cooking with me.

Then we headed to Drumlin Farm for our last class this spring. Today we focused on all the senses for the end. This included popping popcorn since all five senses are used: hear it pop, smell it, touch it, see it and taste it. The kids enjoyed eating it. Then the class visitor was brought out. It was an opossum! The opossum is the only marsupial in North America and fifty years ago you would not find them this far north, but they have migrated with their food.

Our instructor, Alex, told us all about opossums. They only have babies inside of them for two weeks and then they are born the size of a bean. The babies then go into a pouch on the mother's stomach and live there until they are big enough. Their nipples are located inside the pouch (this is also true of kangaroos).

They also cannot hang by their tail. Their tails are not that strong. They do use them for balance and help, but they climb and hang by their claws. You can see in the picture below how big their claws are.

This opossum was in some sort of a fight and has a flattened and injured nose, which is why she lives at the Mass Audubon. They also had an opossum skin to pass around for the kids (and moms) to feel how soft they were. We also think she could smell the popcorn we popped. She kept trying to climb the plexiglass and sniff.

Instead of a craft today we got to go on the hay ride. Hazel enjoys this even if she won't smile for a picture. She also wanted to wear her binoculars we made earlier in the class. She came out with them on and said she was wearing them so she could see things better today. After this we took a walk to the top of the drumlin. We had never been there before and had a good time. On our way back we saw the model long house they made during the summer camp last year. The kids loved it.

It reminded me of the fort we want to make for Hazel. Of course this is much bigger than what we are planning. For those who do not know, the long house was the housing of the Iroquois and many of the tribes in New England. (One tribe in Massachusetts is the Wampanoag.) It would be covered with bark or wood and 20-30 people would live in it. They have a really neat complete long house at Plimouth Plantation.

Then we walked by a pond to look for crayfish. We did not see any, but saw a bouncing bug and a neat silver maple growing in the pond.

The kids had fun sitting by the water. They found bugs and just liked watching the water.

Then it was time to say goodbye. A few of us exchanged contact information so we can try to get together this summer. It was really a nice group of kids and moms. We will miss our weekly trips to Drumlin Farm, but will go back again.

After lunch we ran a few errands and then got one of our high school babysitters to play with Hazel so I could have a break and I am using it to write this, but at least this is relaxing.

Banana Muffins

We had some ripe bananas so we made some banana muffins. It is a relatively easy recipe. I changed it from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

Mix:
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup ground almond meal flour
1 cup oatmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 chopped/ground walnuts

Hazel mixed the dry ingredients while on the phone with my sister! I had to hold the bowl for her.

In a different bowl beat an egg and then mix in:
1 cup nonfat milk
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cups grated/pureed carrots
2 overripe bananas mashed

Hazel stopped helping at this point but came back to help scoop into the pan. Mix the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. The batter is a bit thick. Then spray a muffin pan and preheat oven to 400. Scoop into muffin pan. Then bake for 20 minutes. Cool for a bit before eating.

Enjoy!!

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Baking Muffins & Growing Magic Beans Part 1

This weekend Hazel and I baked some banana muffins and we planted magic beans. First our muffin recipe. I adapted this recipe from Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious. As last week, I am trying to include more nuts, whole grains, fruit and vegetables in our diets.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar (brown or white)
1/2 cup almond butter
2 medium carrots pureed (you may want to add a bit of water to puree them raw or you can cook them)
2 medium very ripe bananas mashed (Hazel is my masher!)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 egg
1/2 cup flax seed meal
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup of ground walnuts and almonds (I ground mine in the blender more to hide the walnuts from Hazel)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350 and spray a muffin pan with a cooking spray (do not use paper liners or the muffins will stick to them).

Mix sugar, almond butter, carrots, bananas, egg and applesauce in large bowl.

Mix the remainder of the ingredients in a smaller bowl.

Add dry ingredients to liquid ingredients and mix well. Then scoop into muffin pan. This is the first time Hazel successfully helped scoop them. I can see her improving each time we bake together and with age!

Bake for 20-25 minutes (the recipe said 15-20 but I found mine took closer to 25 and still were a bit moist). Then cool on a rack and eat warm or cool. Yield 12 muffins.

Now on to our magic beans!! For the first part of this project (the part I'm sharing here) I got the idea from StrongStart which was featured on Sharing Saturday #14. Over the weekend we planted some magic beans. I had to go out and buy more jelly beans because my dear husband got into the magic beans that I set aside without realizing they were for a project.

Magic Beans Planted (Left: Magic beans = jelly beans) (Right: I will share another time)

So I put some garden dirt into an egg container and we planted one of each color of jelly beans. I added the two later after I bought more magic beans. Then we put them by the window. In a couple of days we had this:

Hazel decided we were growing candles at this point. We drew in her garden journal. I drew a picture and wrote candles and then she added to it. I had labeled the page Magic Beans and added the date. Later in the day we had:

I put a jelly bean on each lollipop stick for this phase. At this point Hazel guessed lollipops, which of course is what we are growing. The next morning she woke up to this:

If you try this, make sure you wet the soil and pack it around the sticks to get the lollipops to stand. She was so excited this morning. She wanted to pick all of them and have one after lunch each day and we had to call Daddy at work to tell him about it.

Checking out her lollipops that she grew!

Overall this was a fun gardening activity to try especially with the cold wet weather we are having and having our yard sprayed for ticks so we can't go on the grass for 3 days. This definitely entertained her for a few days.

Oh, and I bought a copy of Jack and the Beanstalk today which I'm going to read to her soon. Hope all is well with you!!


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Banana Walnut Blueberry Pancakes & First Class

This morning Hazel wanted to make pancakes for breakfast. I played with our recipe a bit to make it healthier. Since we had some nice ripe bananas we decided to make banana pancakes. I have been reading How to Disease-Proof Your Child by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. I haven't gotten very far, but it is interesting and he really pushes the nuts and seeds as well as fruits and vegetables. In particular he talks about walnuts and flax seeds. I bought some walnuts and gave some to Hazel but she didn't like them, so I put some in the blender and added them to the pancakes.

My banana masher

We mixed together 1/2 cup of flax seed meal, 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, 2 teaspoons of baking soda,  1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and about 1/2 cup of ground walnuts.

Around this time we sprayed the griddle pan with a butter cooking spray and warmed the pan. Then we beat an egg and added one cup of milk, one tablespoon olive oil and the mashed bananas (2 pretty ripe bananas).  Then we added this mixture to the dry ingredients and mixed it together. Then we stirred in one cup of frozen blueberries. Now it was time to cook.

And finally time to eat. We had them with some maple syrup!

After breakfast we needed to get ready for our first class at the Mass Audubon Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. Every time we have tried to get into their toddler class it has been full. This last time April's was full but they put us in the May one, so off we went. Hazel loved it!

Looking for frogs at the vernal pool

Today's theme was frogs. The instructor showed the kids two frogs--a leopard frog and a wood frog in the Nature Center. Then we walked to the vernal pool or the frog pond. She had found some tadpoles earlier this morning and left them to show the kids on our way. She also had some salamander eggs to show them. Unfortunately, it was cold and wet out today so the frogs were not out nor were the turtles. We will have to bring Daddy here on a sunny warm day so we can see them. (One of our goals of taking the class here was to get to know this place better so we can go as a family more.) The instructor found a pond cricket and a slug, but Hazel wanted to keep walking and not stop to look. The one rule the instructor had was whenever the kids saw a trail marker post they had to stop and wait for everyone. I stayed up with Hazel since she was often by the post. Apparently the instructor got the slug to stick out its eyes. I don't know how, but I would have loved to see it.

Could a fairy live in this old tree with the other tree winding around it?

While Hazel was getting impatient we decided to look for fairy houses or places fairies could live. We found an interesting fallen tree that had another tree wrapping around it. We decided it would be perfect for a fairy. The rest of the class was looking at a spider web except for the boy who went from one post to the next without looking at anything. Then the instructor showed the kids where the deer had been eating and one of the girls found a deer print. At this point Hazel needed a bathroom so we went ahead to use it.

Walking by the meadow

On our way to the bathroom we walked by a meadow with blue bird boxes. Then after the bathroom we went into the Nature Center to join the class for a craft. She had a frog puzzle out of paper for the kids to do. Each kid got a glue stick and puzzle. Here is Hazel's.

After class, we went out for some jumping in puddles and one of the boys showed Hazel the water bubbler. After some playing with it and experimenting and a little help from me, Hazel figured out how to drink from it.

Don't you love the look of satisfaction on her face! Her shirt is completely wet, but oh, well. Then one of the girls asked if they wanted to play hide and seek and off the kids were. Then they splashed in the puddles and then it was tag. Needless to say it was a fun morning.

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