Strawberry Banana Muffins

Our Bountiful Basket had strawberries and bananas and I wanted to find a recipe where I could use these in one recipe. A strawberry/banana smoothie was an obvious (and tasty) choice but I wanted to see what else I could find.
I found a wonderful recipe for Strawberry banana muffins at for the love of cooking blogspot.

Ingredients:
½ cup of butter, softened
¾ cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
3 overripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups of flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
10-12 fresh strawberries diced
1/2 cup of chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees then coat a muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs, bananas, and vanilla then continue beating until well combined.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together, mix well. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and stir until just combined. Add most of the diced strawberries and most of the chocolate chips then gently mix them into the batter.

Spoon the batter evenly into each muffin tin. Place the remaining strawberries and chocolate chips on top of each muffin.

Place into the oven and bake 18-20 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Once cooled, we ate them without any butter. They were delicious!

This Week's Basket

Here's the basket we got on Saturday....I am SO LOVING Bountiful Baskets!!! I've had so much fun finding tasty, healthy recipes.

The stumper this week? Cucumbers! I know, I know! Put them in a salad, right? Not so much. I found a recipe for cucumber sandwich, which we will make in a few days. And then there's the celery, which I've given to Eric (and will give some to my mom) because, I'll at least eat cucumbers, but I really HATE celery.

This week I'm making: Banana Strawberry Muffins (with last week's overripe bananas and this week's strawberries) & Green bean salad w/Maple Dijon Vinaigrette.

Friday Night Videos

Not as much a fan of the song, as I am of the dance/zombie theme: (the song isn't so bad, I guess)

Remember that Haboob in Arizona a few weeks ago (there were two, right?)...interesting video of that haboob:

Augmented reality cinema:

Funny dog loves his pool:
I had to end with that video because it's so funny!

Kale Chips

I mentioned that I didn't know what to do with kale when it came in my harvest basket. I looked up recipes and found one that had pretty good reviews so I tried it. I found the recipe at allrecipes.com.

Ingredients
1 bunch kale
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 pinch sea salt, to taste

Directions
1. Preheat an oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
2. Cut away inner ribs from each kale leaf and discard; tear the leaves into pieces of uniform size. (I made my pieces about the size of a small potato chip.) Wash torn kale pieces and spin dry in a salad spinner or dry with paper towels until they're very dry.
3. Put the kale pieces into a large resealable bag (or use a bowl if you don't mind getting your hands oily). Add about half the olive oil; seal and squeeze the bag so the oil gets distributed evenly on the kale pieces. Add the remaining oil and squeeze the bag more, until all kale pieces are evenly coated with oil and slightly 'massaged.' Sprinkle the vinegar over the kale leaves, reseal the bag, and shake to spread the vinegar evenly over the leaves. Spread the leaves evenly onto a baking sheet.
4. Roast in the preheated oven until mostly crisp, about 35 minutes. Season with salt and serve immediately.

The first time I made the chips, I had the oven at 250 degrees and baked them for 30 minutes. They came out perfectly crisp and I thought they were so tasty. I didn't think I would like them, and I thought I would have one or two and that would be it. I ended up eating a ton of them and loved them!
The second time I made the chips, I followed the directions and baked them at 300 degrees. They burned. Eric still liked them, though.

I will make them again, for sure. Kale is SO healthy for you. According to Web MD, kale is one of the healthiest vegetables on the planet. Check out the article here the talks about all that you get from eating kale.

Harvest Basket

Saturday, we picked up our 2nd basket from Bountiful baskets. I have been loving the addition of fruits and veggies to our home and diet. I have had a blast finding and trying new recipes.
Here's this week's basket: I will use all these fruits and veggies. Eric dug right into the black berries, which were perfectly ripe. This basket included two large bundles of kale! Kale! What am I going to do with kale!? (I will find something, right?) And there is a unique melon that I am eager to taste.

Last week I didn't know what to do with the figs that came in the basket, so here's what I did. I made a wonderful appetizer: Figs with Goat Cheese, Pecans and Bacon.

Ingredients
6 figs, halved
6 ounces goat cheese
1/2 cup toasted, chopped pecans
3 slices bacon, cut in half

Directions:
Preheat the broiler.
Stuff fig halves with goat cheese. Press pecans into the cheese. Wrap each stuffed fig half with half a slice of bacon, securing with toothpicks.
Arrange on a medium baking sheet. Broil 5 minutes, or until bacon is evenly brown and crisp and goat cheese is bubbly and lightly browned.

*the only problem I encountered was that the bacon, if uncooked, took too long to cook in this manner and the figs got burned. So I purchased precooked bacon, and then it got over cooked. Next time I will use the precooked bacon, but move the top rack down one level and hope it comes out perfect.

Either way, the figs were marvelous!!! Yum!