Banana peanut butter and jelly muffins

I'm sitting in a hospital room while a very close friend of mine is recovering from surgery. She had an accident while riding her bike earlier today and needed surgery for a broken ankle. Her first surgery ever. While waiting, I started looking through my files of photos and noticed this photo. I made this a few weeks ago - on a whim. Another friend was over at our home helping us decorate little V's room with vinyl clings. The room looks even more adorable and the wait is even harder (wow, how many topics can I cover in one paragraph!). After we were done decorating the room, I decided to try these muffins. We ate them hot from the oven and they were yummy!!

I started off with this recipe and decided to add a little jelly to the middle. It tasted like our breakfast - peanut butter on whole wheat bread, with jelly and bananas!! Of course, I reduced the sugar in the recipe - I reduce the sugar in most of my recipes. And I changed the recipe to muffins. So, I filled half the muffin tin with dough, added a spoonful of jelly and then topped it with more dough.

I loved being able to use the peanut flour for another recipe. And it tasted like there was peanut butter in there, not just peanut flour! Sad that Trader Joe's has discontinued it. I wonder why....

Enjoy!!

Brussel Sprouts, Roasted!

Raise your hands if you hated brussel sprouts at some point in your life! I have heard that most people did not like them. I can't remember ever eating this vegetable growing up in India, but I am sure if I did, I did not enjoy it either. My mother never roasted anything.
Last year, over Thanksgiving, our cousin made a very tasty roasted Brussel Sprout dish. One batch with bacon and the other without. I don't think much of the dish actually reached the dinner table. It was mostly eaten with oohs and aahs as part of the 'tasting' by everyone! I tried to recreate that dish (without bacon, of course). I served it with the pasta featured here.


This is really really simple version of roasted brussel sprouts. There are so many things that can be done to make it fancier.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cut sprouts in half and place in a baking pan. Add chopped garlic cloves (4)
Separately, mix 2 T olive oil with salt and pepper to taste.
Coat vegetables and garlic with olive oil mix.
Bake for 20 minutes. Flip the sprouts and bake for 10-15 more minutes.

V likes them browned, so I baked them for 35-40 minutes.
These were such a hit that I tried a modification that I found here with 'honey' dijon mustard. It was too mustard-y and tangy for me. But, V adds mustard to most everything and he really liked it. I made a quick mixed rice with broccoli, day-old rice, cajun spice and some morning star grillers and served both with Trader Joe's Three Pepper Salsa - a favorite around here!!

Mujadarah

My potter-audiologist friend is trying to be gluten-free (they are already a vegetarian family). I was thinking about my food habits and realized that other than breakfast (peanut butter and jelly most mornings), our other meals often don't have any wheat or gluten.
I ate Mujadarah at a local Middle Eastern restaurant (Blue Nile). It was a good meal. But, it felt really oily. I saw this recipe a few months ago and wanted to try it.
When I decided to try it, I was not sure what we would think. It seemed too simple. Not spicy enough. Not enough spices. I did not know what I would think of it. V loves caramelized onions. I'm not sure that I enjoy them quite so much as he does. But, I liked them a LOT in this recipe. And I LOVED the recipe. It was simple but really tasty.
I used medium-grained white rice, not Basmati. I also used green lentils rather than sprouted brown lentils.
Definitely something I will make again!!