After a long derby weekend, we had a PJ day at the Baker House today to catch up and recover a bit.
The younger kids spent the bulk of the morning continuing to listen to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on book CD, while I got some more of the border for my Cassis Shawlette completed. I started this shawl ages ago, frogged it, and just re-started it after making some changes. So far, it’s not the most thrilling knit, but I’ve never made a shawl with this kind of construction before (border knit vertically and then body of the shawl picked up from the long edge), so I wanted to give it a try.
Between house chores and knitting, I got about 4 solid hours of yard work done, pruning grape and fall clean up and the like. I made a video showing some of the work I’ve been doing in the front yard as I get reading to cycle three annual beds over to perennial fruit guilds as part of our mini front yard food forest. You can view it here.
One of the trees I mention briefly in the videos is the the pawpaw. It’s sometimes called the Arkansas banana – it’s native to the Eastern US and is a fruit that I have a great fondness for. While I won’t have pawpaws for a few years if I plant them this fall (they have an extremely short shelf life and are not available commercially). In baked goods, pawpaws and bananas are interchangeable.
Since I had a ripe bananas on the counter and a hankering for pawpaws, I made banana muffins. Not the same, but tasty nonetheless. Here’s my favorite banana muffin recipe, and the one the kids always ask for. We had them for lunch and again for an afternoon snack. The leftovers will keep nicely for breakfast tomorrow.
This recipe uses tahini and spelt flour, both of which have a delicate nutty quality that melds nicely with the banana. If you don’t have spelt flour, you can substitute with whole wheat.
Banana Sesame Muffins
Makes 24 standard muffins
1 Preheat the oven to 400F. Line 24 muffin cups with paper or grease well
2..Combine the following wet ingredients in a non-reactive bowl:
3 chicken eggs or 2 duck eggs, slightly beaten
¾ C whole milk
⅛ C coconut oil + ¼ C tahini melted together and cooled
3 medium bananas, peeled and mashed
1 tsp vanilla extract
¾ C packed cup brown sugar
3. In separate bowl, sift together the following dry ingredients.
½ C spelt flour
scant ¾ C unbleached flour
scant ¼ C cocoa
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
4. Then fold following the add-ins to the dry ingredients:
¼ C sesame seeds
¼ C quick-cook oats OR toasted unsulphured/unsweetened coconut
1 Tbsp hemp hearts
5. Now fold the dry ingredients into the wet, being careful not to over-combine. Batter will be lumpy. When combined, fold in:
¾ C chopped chocolate
In a small bowl, combine: ⅓ C sesame seeds mixed with ½ C turbinado sugar
5. Fill each muffin cup at least 3/4 full of batter, and sprinkle with sesame-sugar mixture to top. Bake at 400F for approx 20-23 minutes or until muffins are browning on top, and set in the middle.
