Banana Bread Muffins

     Earlier in the week at work, I was a part of the Healthy Weight Collaborative Conference for the state of Delaware. Because it was a conference regarding obesity and healthy living, the breakfast and lunch spread had lots of fruit. Due to bad weather less people than expected showed up which left us with, among other things, twenty bananas. I took about eight of them with the thoughts of making banana bread. The key to good banana bread is really ripe bananas. I prefer to let them to get completely brown on the outside. When you peel them they should be mostly soft and darkened. Unfortunately, even as I write this, the bananas are not quite to that state but I decided to go ahead make banana bread muffins Saturday night to eat for breakfast the next morning. The recipe is actually mother’s recipe, which I won't be giving out, and the only one I’ll use.

     While these were really good, I wish I had eaten one Saturday night because I, like most people, like the hardened top of the muffin. By the next morning the tops had become soft but it wasn't a huge deal. My only problem with them was they were a tad on the dry side, something that never happens when I make a full loaf. A light spread of butter took care of the dryness and added a creamy texture in the process. Thankfully, I have six more bananas getting darker as the days go by. By the middle of the week I’ll be making a couple full loaves.

Rating: Yummy – Muffins were good but loaves are better

Meatball Cookies

     For Easter we made "meatball cookies" as Christine's family likes to call them. No they aren't made of meatballs and they aren't shaped like meatballs either. The recipe is calls for a basic Italian cookie and this is where meatball comes in. Like myself, her family are equal opportunity offenders. The actual name for these cookies should be birds' nest cookies.
     The topping is where you need to start because the coconut needs time to dry out. For this step all you need is coconut and green food coloring. Mix the two together and spread out on some aluminum foil until dry. The green coconut represents the nest part of the birds' nest. Jelly beans that have been cut in half lengthwise go on top to represent the eggs. We found some speckled jelly beans that looked very similar to actual birds' eggs. We used three jelly bean halves per cookie which gives a nice bit of sweetness to each bite.
     To keep the egg filled nest on top of the cookie, we made butter cream frosting from scratch. I didn't realized how few ingredients go into butter cream frosting but the majority of it is confectioners' sugar. Milk, vanilla, and butter are mixed in until it starts to firm up enough to spread. Spreading the frosting on each little cookie is the most time consuming part of the whole process.
     The base for the nest and eggs is a basic Italian cookie made up of flour, sugar, vanilla, baking soda, and butter. Mix these until combined enough to spoon onto cookie sheets. You have to watch these bake because they can burn very easily. They should only be about the size of a half dollar when they are done.
Rating: Fair - I felt that they needed something more because the cookie was too basic. Everyone seemed to enjoy them though