What's Cooking

I'm a self-proclaimed chef. I'm the daughter of an actual chef - seriously, did you guys know that my mom had an affair with Emeril and that's why I have the dark hair and eyes that everyone else in my family lacks? Okay, kidding, though when I was born my uncle accused my mom of infidelity because I seriously looked nothing like my family. Don't worry, therapy and DNA testing has proved this wrong. Again, kidding, therapy never helped.

But, back to the chef thing ... my mom owned a bakery, The Gingerbread House, when we were kids. It was in Richmond Rosenberg, Texas, which, at the time, was nothing but country. There were horses in the back and we fed them sugar cubes and did very pastoral-type things. No, not cow tipping, but lots of ant squishing.

My mom's food was and is incredible. I joke that she can make a pb&j taste like it came from a five-star restaurant. In my mid 20s, I spent many months standing beside my mom in the kitchen of my childhood home. I learned the key to her amazing food - butter, and lots of it. And her delicate spicing and knowing exactly how much salt and pepper should go into anything. The woman is a genius.

Fast forward a few years, I meet P. and we fall in love, and we cook. All the time. We love cooking together, trying new recipes. I unfortunately let my control freak flag fly in the kitchen, so it's not as much fun for him, but I'm trying to work at it.

(Ed’s note: No comment).

All that is a roundabout way to introduce you to a feature of my blog called “What's cooking.” I'm going to post a new recipe and my take on said recipe (I very rarely follow a recipe) and more importantly P's reaction. He is an amazing taste-tester.

So, for the first post, I bring you ... drum roll ... banana coconut muffins. Coconut is a new obsession of mine. I thought I hated it until last summer I tried toasted coconut ice cream at Kilwin's Ice Cream Parlor in Petoskey. Let's just say I'm a changed woman and coconut is now my go-to menu item.

Without further ado, I bring you Banana Coconut Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 very ripe bananas, mashed (3/4 cup)
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup sweetened flaked coconut
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 2 tbs coconut milk

How I changed the recipe - I added cardamom and coconut milk to the recipe. I think this made the recipe.

Preheat the oven to 375. Mix bananas, sugar, egg, vanilla, butter and coconut milk in a mixer. Then fold in the sifted flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Last, fold in a 1/2 cup of coconut. Used lined muffin tins, sprinkle with remaining coconut and bake for 25 minutes. Let it cool for five before you burn your mouth off tasting the deliciousness. Good luck with that wait. I still can't say the word Yes without is sounding like Yeth thanks to my patience that only let me wait 2 minutes to try them.

Tips:

I mashed the bananas up. I do this with banana bread too so that you don't have to over mix the batter to get all the banana mashed up.

Also, I suggest that your sous chef look like this:



Here is the finished product, batch one. Batch two included putting coconut on the tops of the muffins and letting that get all toasty. I suggest this but watch that the coconut doesn't burn.

Finally, if someone could figure out how to get rid of this problem

...

P. has suggested an Alice from the Brady Bunch type houseguest. We'll see.

P's response: "Damn I'm glad I married you woman. Now get back in that kitchen and get me a beer." (Ed's note: Not really. Just the first part).