Whole Wheat Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

A few days ago I made Banana Pancakes which were really good and my kids loved them. I decided since I still had some bananas left and they had been a hit I would try another banana recipe. I came across Whole Wheat Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins and they sounded good and looked gorgeous! Plus Danya had been asking me to make chocolate chip muffins lately so I figured I would give it a whirl. Of course I don't know how to follow a recipe without changing it so here is what I made:

Whole Wheat Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 C. canola oil
1/4 C. milk
2 Eggs
1 Tbls. Vanilla
1 C. Whole Wheat Flour
1 C. Flour
1/2 C. Silan
1 Tbls. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Ground Flax Seed
1 C. Chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and grease or place liners in a muffin pan. Mash the bananas in a bowl. Add oil, milk, eggs and vanilla. Mix until combined. Add the flours, silan, baking powder, baking soda, salt, flax seed and chocolate chips. Mix until combined but don't over mix. Fill each muffin up about 3/4 full. Bake about 10-15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Place muffins on a cooling rack and allow them to sit for 10-15 minutes before attempting to remove the wrapper. Makes 12 large muffins.


These were absolutely delicious and got rave reviews from the kids and husband.

Do we think these are an acceptable substitute for cereal for breakfast??

Quick, Easy and Moist Meatloaf

Tonight I decided to make meatloaf. It wasn't until I was an adult that I truly appreciated and enjoyed meatloaf. This recipe was adapted from a family recipe. Over the years I have changed all of the ingredients except for the egg. We hope you like this one as much as we do.

Quick, Easy and Moist Meatloaf:

1 Pound ground beef or turkey
1 egg
1/3 C. whole wheat bread crumbs
2 tsp. onion soup mix
1 can tomato sauce
1 tsp. ground flax seed(optional)

Combine all and bake in loaf pan at 350 for an hour.

A note about the tomato sauce. I used the Yachin 260 grams tomato sauce for lasagna

and it was delicious-if you live in Israel I recommend using that one.

Banana Pancake

I had been wanting to try out some Banana Pancakes for a while now but found that I would buy bananas with the intention of making the pancakes and then all the bananas would get eaten. So when there were still bananas left today I seized the opportunity to finally make Banana Pancakes for dinner. I found a recipe for Banana Pancakes and I used it as a foundation for the ones I made.

Here is my version:

1/3 C. Whole Wheat Flour
2/3 C. White Flour
2 Tbls. Splenda
1 tsp. Ground Flax Seed
1 1/4 cup milk
1 egg beaten lightly
1 1/2 Tbls. Canola Oil
2 small bananas mashed

Combine milk, egg, oil and banana. Add flours, flax seed and splenda. Stir until combined. Mixture will be clumpy. Heat a large non-stick pan sprayed with Pam. Pour 1/4 cup of mixture at a time into the pan, allowing room to spread. Cook until small holes appear in the surface, turn pancakes, cook until browned.

When I made this it yielded 7 pancakes. Everyone loved these and all the pancakes are gone. I love that they aren't fried in oil and have no sugar. Plus nobody noticed the added flax which I really try to throw into anything.

Cookies

Today I attempted making my regular blondies with half the fat and sugar. I announced to my husband that half the sugar was replaced with splenda, all the brown sugar was replaced with silan, half the oil(which used to be margarine, but I stopped using that a year ago) was replaced with apple sauce, half the white flour was replaced with whole wheat flour. I then agreed with him that if they came out edible it would be miraculous. Then we tasted them and couldn't believe how good they were. Now I am going to be honest and say that they tasted a little more like chocolate chip cake than chocolate chip blondies however they were so good. 2 of my 3 kids tried them and loved them. I rarely make this cookie recipe into cookies mostly out of laziness however I think they might make soft cookies. I'll give it a try next time.

So here is my healthier version of Nestle Toll House Cookies:

1/4 C. plus 1/8 C. Splenda
1/4 C. plus 1/8 C. Sugar
3/4 C. Silan (Date Syrup)
1/4 C. plus 1/8 C. Apple Sauce
1/4 C. plus 1/8 C. Canola Oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/4 C. White Flour
1 C. Wheat Flour
1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 bag Chocolate Chips

Mix Splenda, sugar, silan, apple sauce, canola oil and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time. Add flours, salt and baking soda. Mix well. Add chocolate chips. Bake in 9x13 pan at 350 for 20-30 minutes(if it wiggles when you shake the pan you need to cook it more). If making cookies bake 8 minutes.

I would also like to add that this is my first time using silan and I was very pleasantly surprised. I am curious to hear how you use silan and at what equivalent. After today's experiment you can expect to see it showing up more in my recipes.

Corn Muffins

In attempt to break my kids out of the sugar cereal routine I have been trying assorted muffins made with ingredients like whole wheat, ground flax seeds, oat meal, apple sauce-the list goes on and on. I think they are all tasty however since my kids are used to very sweet baked goods they don't enjoy the subtle taste. I finally found one that everyone likes. Either these taste sweeter than the ones I have tried in the past or their taste buds are finally adjusting. Either way I am happy to have found one everyone likes-even my husband.

I made a couple changes to the recipe for Tiny Corn Muffins. First off I have no buttermilk but I found this substitute for buttermilk which I always use now. In this case I used a tablespoon and a half of vinegar and added milk until 1 1/2 cups. In place of the 3/4 C. flour I used 1/2 C. whole wheat flour and 1/4 C. white flour. I added 1 Tbls. flax seed because why not and I used honey rather than agave because I am still on the fence about agave-feel free to pass along your thoughts about agave. Lastly I used canola oil rather than vegetable oil. Hmmm-I guess mine were very loosely based on that recipe. To make life easier I will put my edited version here:

Tiny Corn Muffins:

1 3/4 C. Cornmeal
1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 C. White Flour
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 Tbls. Ground Flax Seed
1/4 C. Honey
1 1/2 C. Buttermilk(or 1 1/2 Tbls. vinegar plus milk to equal 1 1/2 C.)
2 Large Eggs
1/4 C. Canola Oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the first 7 dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk the remaining wet ingredients in a separate bowl until thoroughly combined. Pour the cornmeal mixture into the wet ingredients and thoroughly combine with a whisk. Pour into greased or paper lined mini muffin cups. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted inside. Cool and serve.


The original recipe says it makes 24 mini muffins however I came out with a little over 50:

I also lowered the oven temperatur and cooking time as they were very well done at 425 for 15 minutes.

Oven Baked Fries

Tonight I decided to add Oven Baked French Fries to our chicken hot dogs and whole wheat buns.

Oven Baked French Fries:
2 lbs. potatoes, approx. 4 medium potatoes
2 Tbls. canola oil
Salt

Scrub and slice potatoes into matchsticks. Toss potatoes in a bowl with oil and salt to taste. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and spread potatoes in a single layer. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Bake fries for 15 minutes. Turn fries and switch racks. Cook an additional 25 minutes or until browned.

These were a hit. Everyone that likes fries in my house loved these(can you believe I have a child who doesn't like french fries???). I'd like to add sweet potato fries and zucchini fries soon but figured I need to ease into it so I started with something familiar.

Part Whole Wheat Pizza

After last nights chili disaster I decided to move back into the kids comfort zone. I decided to make the same pizza I always make them but making the crust part whole wheat-repeat after me-baby steps. The recipe for pizza dough that I always use is from my 7th grade home economics cooking class. So thank you Mrs. Purtell. I just change the white flour to part whole wheat.

Part Whole Wheat Pizza

1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp.)
3/4 C. warm water
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbls. oil
3/4 C. whole wheat flour
1-1 1/4 C. white flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, salt, oil, whole wheat flour and 1/4 C. white flour. Stir. Slowly add remainder of white flour until moderately stiff. Turn dough onto greased board and kneed until smooth and elastic-approximately 5-10 minutes. Place dough in a bowl sprayed with Pam. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let stand for 15 minutes. Refrigerate for 2-24 hours.
Roll out dough to cookie sheet or pizza stone. Add sauce, shredded cheese and toppings. Bake in preheated oven at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Everyone loved it and nobody had a clue that I changed anything. I guess that is the key-slow, small changes.