Muffins 'N Stuff

More recipes!
This week I made whole wheat banana muffins. They were a big hit at home and at Marc's clinic. By popular demand, I am posting the recipe so all can enjoy the muffiny awesomeness. The original recipe came from Food.com.
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 TBS wheat germ (optional)
2/3 cups canola oil
1 cup honey
4 eggs
2 cups mashed bananas
1/2 cup hot water
Sift together the dry ingredients, beat honey, oil and eggs until blended. Add bananas and mix thoroughly. Add dry ingredients and hot water; mix well. Bake at 325 for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
A few notes about it. To make it lower fat, you can replace 1/2 the oil with applesauce. The recipe actually made about 30 regular sized muffins. I used 5 mashed bananas and added a little vanilla and cinnamon. Also, my muffins took about 25 minutes to bake, not 15. I made a few with walnuts and they were super tasty as well. :)

Another hit this week was wheat pizza crust. It wasn't whole wheat, BUT my boys rated it equal to the all white pizza crust I usually make. Marc was not as big of a fan, but what are you gonna do? I liked it just fine.
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups white flour
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 TBS yeast
1 TBS olive oil (I added an additional TBS of olive oil)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt

1. In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over the top, and let stand for about 10 minutes, until foamy.
2. Stir the olive oil and salt into the yeast mixture, then mix in the whole wheat flour and 1 cup of the all-purpose flour until dough starts to come together. Tip dough out onto a surface floured with the remaining all-purpose flour, and knead until all of the flour has been absorbed, and the ball of dough becomes smooth, about 10 minutes. Place dough in an oiled bowl, and turn to coat the surface. Cover loosely with a towel, and let stand in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

This recipe made 2 10-12" rounds. I baked it on my pizza stone at 475 for about 10 minutes.

Pizza crust shown here topped with pesto, chicken, and tomatoes.

Last one for this week: Cheesy Cauliflower

So, other than the fact that this recipe involves cauliflower, I can't claim that it is healthy. However, it is far and away my family's favorite way to eat cauliflower. It was introduced to us by a friend in Baltimore whose family has it for the holidays every year. It is easy and delicious. We'll be having some more this week since Marc is a huge cauliflower fan and we ended up with 12 lbs of cauliflower thanks to his enthusiasm. Most of it has now been blanched and frozen. To his credit, he did help me chop it all up for the freezing process.

Here is my friend's recipe:

Put the head of cauliflower in a microwavable dish with ¼ cup water. Cover the container with a glass lid. Heat it for approximately 9 minutes.

Mix into another bowl, ½ cup of mayonnaise, 1tsp of chopped onion flakes, and 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard.

Put the mix on top of the cauliflower when it comes out of the microwave. Then, sprinkle the top with cheddar cheese (amount to your preference)

Put the cauliflower, mix, and cheese back in the microwave with the glass lid and cook for 1 ½ - 2 minutes.

The only alterations we make are to use yellow mustard and less of it but we are not dijon mustard fans in general. Enjoy!