Banana Blueberry Coconut Muffins

I have been eaten out of house and muffin.

Somehow, we've managed to eat 24 muffins in the last 24 hours.

So, I found my self making muffins again this afternoon.

Today's muffins needed to have banana in them because of an over ripe bunch I had to use up.

These are much less sweet than yesterday's Blueberry Lemon Muffins and use whole wheat flour.

Originally, this recipe calls for coconut oil but melted butter works too.

By all means, use coconut oil, if you can, it will give them even more rich coconut flavour.

If you double the recipe, like I did, you will get 24 muffins or 12 large and 24 mini. (Reduce heat to 325 and cook for 15 minutes for mini muffins.)


Banana Blueberry Coconut Muffins
(adapted slightly from cookieandkate.com)


3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (I used rye)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
zest of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup virgin coconut oil or butter, melted
1 cup ripe banana, mashed
1/4 cup honey
1 large egg, preferably at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, divided
1 tablespoon turbinado (raw) sugar

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Grease a muffin tin or line the tin with muffin liners (I also spray liners with no stick spray).

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. Stir in 1/2 cup shredded coconut.

In a separate, medium bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, mashed banana, honey, egg and vanilla.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
Stir in berries.

Divide batter among prepared muffin cups, then sprinkle the muffin tops with the remaining 1/4 cup coconut (about 1 to 2 teaspoons each). Top with a very light sprinkle of raw sugar.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Mini Blueberry Lemon Crunch Muffins

If you're wondering whether these muffins are good or not...

Check out Jimmy's face.

This is how he looks when he's really enjoying food.

The whole family loves these.

These are ridiculously fast and easy to make and they'll only dirty one bowl.

Mini Blueberry Lemon Crunch Muffins

adapted slightly from allrecipes.com

Makes 24 mini or 12 large

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used a combo of AP and whole wheat pastry flour)

3/4 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder
1 lemon, zested

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1/3 cup milk

1 cup fresh blueberries, wild works best because they're smaller

1/4 cup white sugar

2 Tbsp cup all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp butter, cubed

3/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease mini muffin cups or line with muffin liners.

Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and zest.

Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. 

Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon. 

Work together with finger tips, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.

Bake 15-20 minutes for mini and 20-25 for large muffins, or until done.

Blueberry Spinach Juice

I'm really enjoying this juice combo after exercising these days.

Lots of soy milk, blueberries, and yogurt, a bit of almond butter and a huge handful of spinach.

It's pretty simple and doesn't have my usual overload of banana.

I love banana but I wanted to switch it up a bit.

Blueberry Spinach Juice

1 1/2 C Soy Milk or whatever milk you drink
1/2 C yogurt
1/2 C blueberries
pinch cinnamon
1 heaping Tbsp almond butter
large handful spinach
2-3 ice cubes (optional)

Blend.

Guest Post by Clara Stowe: Granola Parfaits

Mom suggested that we make parfaits for our snack.

So, I started making mine.

When I was almost finished making mine, I started making one for Mom.

They tasted awesome!

Mom and I had to add more granola while we were eating them.

Now I'm going to tell you how to make them!

I hope you like them as much as we did.

~Clara

Fruit and Granola Yogurt Parfaits

~your favourite granola (For mine, I used a peanut butter granola that my mom makes for me.  For my mom's I used her granola with nuts and cherries.)
~your favourite yogurt (Mine: Strawberry Rhubarb. Mom's: Vanilla)
~sliced strawberries
~fresh and/or frozen blueberries
~strawberry or mint leaves for garnish

Fill about 1/3 of the jar with yogurt, then fill 1/3 of the jar with granola, then another 1/3 of the jar yogurt again.
Then put on your sliced strawberries. (Just do one layer of strawberries.)
Then do one layer of blueberries.
(I put a small circle of frozen blueberries on the top of mine.)
You use the yogurt like glue so everything stays.

Garnish.

Blueberry Crumb Bars

You'll want to make these for a large group of people.

Otherwise you will be tempted to eat the whole tray.

A lemony shortbread crust with jammy blueberry filling.

These will not take you long to make.

In fact, I made a batch in the time it took Clara to read Nate the Great aloud.

Blueberry Crumb Bars

From Smittenkitchen.com

About 36 squares

1 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup cold unsalted butter (2 sticks or 8 ounces)

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon salt

Zest and juice of one lemon

4 cups fresh blueberries

1/2 cup white sugar

4 teaspoons cornstarch

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9×13 inch pan.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, and baking powder. Mix in salt and lemon zest. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.

3. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. (This took an extra 10 to 15 minutes in my oven.) Cool completely before cutting into squares.

Blueberry Date Juice

(Photo by Renee)

Renee and I were making this cake, and trying to figure out how dates grow.

Do they grown on a tree or on a bush or on a plant like a strawberry? Finally we googled it and discovered that they do, indeed, grow on trees, a little like a coconut does.

We then stumbled upon this recipe for a blueberry date juice.

After a morning of baking and cooking we were ready for a snack.

Throw bananas, milk, blueberries and dates in the blender and you get this bright violet juice that is creamy and sweet and filling.

Blueberry Date Juice

(livelighter.org)

2 Bananas

1Cup Milk

2Cups blueberries (frozen)

8 dates, pitted

1-2 Tbsp protein powder (optional)

Mix together in a mixer until smooth.

Blueberry Raspberry Crumble

This is probably one of my favourite desserts because it's fast, portable delicious and everyone loves it. I doubled some of the ingredients and added others to make this recipe feed crumble to more people (or feed some people more crumble).

Blueberry Raspberry Crumble

(adapted from an ina Garten recipe)

Fruit

6-8C raspberries and blueberries

3t lemon zest

3T lemon juice

2/3 C sugar

1/3 C flour

Crumble

2 C flour

2/3C sugar

1/2 C brown sugar

1 t kosher salt

1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 C oats

1/2lb butter

1. Preheat oven to 350. Set out a deep 9x13 baking pan.

2. Mix fruit, zest, juice, sugar and flour in baking dish.

3. For the topping: combine flour, sugars, salt, cinnamon, oats and butter in an electric mixer with paddle attachment on low speed until butter is the size of small peas.

4. Pour over fruit distributing evenly.

5. Bake 40 mins or until top is golden and fruit is bubbly.

6. Serve warm with ice cream.