when good bananas go bad

i buy a ton of bananas. they are always super cheap at BJ's and stenni loves them, plus usually i pack them in the hubby's lunch. but sometimes we can't use them up before they start to turn brown. once they have even a speckle of brown, the hubs won't touch them (even though that's when they're the yummiest, according to the chiquita banana song), and i can only feed the baby so many bananas at a time. so, what to do with all of the extras? well when stenni was teething hard, i used to freeze them and then give them to her (with a watchful eye on her at all times, obvs) and that seemed to help numb her up a bit. also it was super messy, which i know other people hate but i think is awesome for babies. but she's not teething hard right now, so what to do with the 7 or so overripe bananas in my fruit basket? i took 2 and made peanut butter and banana oatmeal, which is even more awesome than it sounds. we eat oatmeal a lot here because it is one of the few foods stenni will consistently eat (the other being apples, peas, and fish sticks. she otherwise doesn't like meat very much but will eat shrimp or salmon sometimes, and other fruits and veggies she sometimes loves, sometimes hates. she's a toddler. this is life.), so we make a ton of variations on the basic oats and water formula. but oatmeal with a bunch of peanut butter and some mashed bananas is one we'll definitely come back to. bonus? toddlers love to mash bananas. i'd give you a recipe, but i don't have one cuz i made it up and didn't measure. but i can say that you should use real oatmeal for this, not the super quick oats, cuz then it won't really be substantial enough and might end up kinda slimy-ish, and that's never really too great. but since i had some bananas left after that, plus i had a super-clingy baby this morning who wouldn't let me put her down for any reason whatsoever, we decided to make my super-awesome, reasonably easy, actually healthy and pretty low-fat banana muffins too. my copy of this recipe is on probably the filthiest, most vanilla and applesauce splattered piece of paper of all time, meaning it is super well-loved and i make it a ton. it was adapted from a recipe on allrecipes.com to make it even healthier, and in my opinion, tastier too. i am sharing this in hopes that you decide to make these yourself, especially if you have a slightly separation-anxiety addled toddler in tow. toddlers, despite the goldfish-like attention span, are very good at stirring, mashing, and turning on the stand mixer, and seem to especially like lining muffin tins with paper liners. plus if this doesn't seem to be helping you can just give the kid a chocolate lollipop like i did and finish baking them yourself while you have a millisecond to walk around without a kid on your hip.
so here you go:

v's super-awesome, reasonably easy, actually healthy and pretty low-fat banana muffins

• 2 eggs or 1/2 cup egg replacer (pasteurized, so you can lick the spoon)
  
• 1/2 sugar of any type (i like to use the organic cane sugar, but these are good with white or brown too)
  
• 3 mashed overripe bananas
  
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1/3 cup nonfat milk
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (you can use 1 cup unbleached white flour and 3/4 cup whole wheat flour if you want)
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• up to 1 teaspoon cinnamon, if you want
  

directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Use paper liners for muffin tins and/or mini-muffin tins.
   
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Gently stir in bananas, applesauce, milk, oil and vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl, use wire whisk to mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir flour mixture into banana mixture, mixing just until blended. Pour batter into prepared tins .
4. Bake in preheated pan until golden and a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean, about 15-20 minutes. Cool completely (or don't. they're super yummy warm. but don't burn yourself and don't feed them to your kids until they cool down).

so what do you use too-ripe bananas for? cuz i've still got a couple, and i want to use these bad boys up. waste not, want not.

possibility of a new project

when i was a senior in college, i did my honors thesis on my one true love: new jersey. i know you might be thinking, dude, really? but it is, first and foremost, the love of my life. i can't really imagine living elsewhere. why would you ever live someplace where you aren't a stone's throw away from the beach, the mountains, farms, world-class entertainment, museums, nyc, and great food (because it seems like anyplace else i've ever been, the food has been lackluster at best)? well i obviously can't answer that question. but anyway, it was on nj: myths and legends, and covered the whole weird nj thing and all kinds of questions about why nj always gets a bad rap. incidentally, most of it seems to come from the sopranos and now they cast of jersey shore, who ruined my favorite vacation spot. but i digress...
anyway, a big portion of my project dealt with william carlos williams, a prolific and profound poet who wrote the classic Paterson, which i had somehow never encountered before then, despite my years as an English major and prolific reader. i had read some of his shorter poetry, but never that particular tome. it made me fall in love. with poetry about nj. not the city paterson in particular. i have a long story about how i was scared for my life at the great falls of paterson because of insufficient signage, but that's a story for another day.
all this to say that the hubs and i are thinking about the possibility of taking on a new writing project together, and in honor of that, i'm sharing my favorite william carlos williams poem of all time. from Poems 1934:

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

make yourself useful and...

bake me something.
starting today, i'm going to try to post a tutorial, recipe, etc. every monday, as part of "make yourself useful mondays." because you should be useful every day, but at least once a week is fine by me too. i can only be so useful for so long. but when it comes to baking, i'm somewhat useful on at least a semi-regular basis.
so a friend of mine LOVES this recipe and went nuts when i brought it to her house for a playdate a few months back (and who wouldn't? it's amazing.trust me). while the kids were playing and throwing food and making assorted baby noises, we almost housed the whole thing. yeah, it's that good. and easy? you betcha. i wouldn't make something too difficult with a bunch of toddlers running around. plus, it's semi-healthy with the oats and apples and whatnot, super-portable, and really good for cold nights (i like it in the fall when i can buy huge bushels of apples and make it in bulk, but any time you can get apples, it'll be spot on. i like it with mutsus/crispins, but use whatever you've got laying around). should you make it tonight? of course you should. plus if you live in the northeast like me, the oven helps heat your house. that's just a little added incentive.

apple crisp:

6 or so apples, cored and sliced. peel them if you like. i don't.
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup flour (use unbleached white or wheat if you've got it)
1 cup sugar
1 cup quick oats
2 T. cinnamon, divided, or 2 T. apple pie spice
1/4 c butter, cut into little piece

1. Preheat your oven to 350.
2. Put apples on the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking dish (or if you want to get fancy, a big pie plate). In a separate bowl, mix melted butter, flour, sugar, oats, and 2 T cinnamon, and form a crumb mixture. Sprinkle over the apples. Dot with the 1/4 c. butter pieces and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon or apple pie spice.
3. Bake 50 minutes or until crumb is lightly browned and apples are tender (or until your house smells so good you can't stand it. just let it cool before you stuff your face).

also, this is my 37th post. my last blog only made it to 37 posts, so i'm pretty psyched that i'm kind of taking this one a little more seriously. well, as seriously as i take most things, which is not very, but still it's something of an improvement.

a new year's eve eve treat:

despite the fact that she is like, the undisputed hipster princess of all time, i love zooey deschanel. she was in a made for the sci-fi (fine, now it's "syfy) channel original movie a few years back called "tin man" which was a "reimagining" of the wizard of oz. the miniseries was ok except for the ending, which was the stupidest, most ridiculous thing i've ever seen on tv or in person or anywhere for that matter (sci-fi movies are known for their terrible effects, but this one went beyond. the story was silly too). but i watched it religiously with a woman at work and we'd chat about it every week. after the last part aired, we never spoke of it again. that notwithstanding, i think that makes ms. deschanel more human, because she's done really awful made-for-tv things that i've watched and loathed, and not just made light, sing-song music that makes hipsters cry into their checkered scarves and campy movies that open to critical acclaim but a poor box office showing. to me, mr. jospeh gordon-levitt will always be tommy from third rock from the sun. however, he is scrumptious going to be in the dark knight rises which lends him some serious geek street cred. and they are both more than adorable in "500 days of summer" which is a movie my husband would never watch but i love because there's music and dancing and it's all just really cute. also it makes me want to go to ikea.
ANYWAY, here's a little ditty that they decided to sing together since they are so pukily-cutely-BFF-like and apparently hang out like friends, which celebrities aren't supposed to do:



go ahead, get nauseated if you need. or like, give yourself a hug and cry gently. you know, whatever works. hope your new year's eve is this adorable.