I was flipping through all of my cookbooks on Sunday to find a new banana bread recipe and found this recipe by Bakerella in the Home Baked Comfort cookbook. When I was looking on Bakerealla’s website, I didn’t find the exact same recipe but found this Mini Maple Pancake Muffin recipe, which is basically the recipe with chocolate chips instead of banana.

As a side note, I didn’t make these until 9 pm on Monday night and I had them out of the oven cooling and things cleaned up before 10 pm, so if you are looking for a quick and easy breakfast treat… this is it! Also, the recipe calls for buttermilk but I didn’t have any in the house (who does?) so I used whole milk.

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup whole milk
1 large egg
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 very ripe, large banana or 2 medium sized

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously grease 24 mini muffin cups with non stick spray or grease with butter.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, stir together the milk, egg, 2 tablespoons maple syrup, and the butter until just combined. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Stir in the mashed banana.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Bake until the muffins are puffed and golden, 10-12 minutes. Let the muffins slightly in the pan on a wire rack, then unmold onto the rack. Serve the day of or the next day.

p.s. add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips to the muffins to make them a bit more interesting.

This weekend’s rainy Saturday provided me with the opportunity to start the “brown cow” pattern from Susan B. Anderson’s Spud and Chloe on the Farm.  I’m already finished with the body, just have to fill it with stuffing and the rest should come together over the next couple of nights.  So far it has been a great project to work on and not just because it is an easy knit, but because every time I pick it up, I think of this scene from Friends… oh how I love Joey.

I didn’t have much time to put today’s post together, so I thought I would do a little “re-posting.” Etsy’s Featured Seller for today is Better Off Wed, which not only showcases really neat cake toppers but also has some great tips for couples and hopeful Etsy sellers. Hope you all are having a lovely hump day!

I’m leaving for St.Paul, MN in about 30 minutes to spend a springtime weekend with my sister-in-law, niece and a few other family members! I think we are going to go to the farmers market, do a little shoe shopping and see my cousin’s new house. What are you doing this weekend? Also, if you are in a bit of a time crunch and don’t have time to make something for Mother’s Day, you should check out my Stella & Dot website, where select styles are 25% off!

If you aren’t having a traditional ceremony, like where everyone walks down the aisle, but certain guests will still have special roles, like making a speech or the parents of the couple, what do you do? Typically the men wear boutonnieres and the ladies in the wedding party carry bouquets but why not have a “unisex” boutonniere that everyone with a part in the wedding can wear? Like the herbal boutonnieres that are pictured above.

You could even have theme drinks based on the wedding parties herbs, like mojitos. Or and this may be a bit much, but you could give each “wedding party” member a starter plant that matches their boutonniere or a recipe that includes the vegetable from the plant and the dried herb they are wearing. Very personalized and pretty practical. Go here for the diy plant favors and here for the diy wedding boutonnieres.

Once Maddy was born and I knew she was a beautiful little girl, I came back home and started to knit her a baby blanket fit for a little lady. I had about 12 skeins of Amy Butler’s Organic DK, so instead of letting them sit on my shelf any longer because let’s face it I was not going to finish that sweater vest that I’ve been “working” on for over a year, I cast-on to make my version of Stitch and Bitch’s Big Bad Baby Blanket.

If you’ve knit the B.B.B.B pattern before you may not see what I changed up but if you look closely I only knit 10 rows in seed stitch and only did a border of 5 seed stitches. I didn’t alter anything else but I think that it helped make the blanket look a little larger from past versions that I’ve made.

And I love how it turned out and the yarn being made of 50% Wool, 50% Cotton made this blanket so soft and so warm, I think going to pick up a few more skeins to make her a summer sweater. Do you remember your first baby blanket?

print by Ein Bier, bitter

Some of you may already know this, but I’ve decided to leave Chicago and move back to Wisconsin for the summer and hopefully put down roots in Minneapolis this Fall. And today, even though my workplace knew about it, I put in my letter of resignation, so I thought I’d let you all know, too. If you’re wondering what I plan to do when I pack up and leave mid-July and settle into my parents’ house in Eau Claire… I have no idea. I’ll be working on my friend’s wedding till the first weekend of August, hanging out with all of my family and friends, making a lot of ice cream, teaching yoga and knitting somewhere around town and hopefully knitting a few commissioned pieces. I’m super sad to be leaving all of my Chicago friends who have become my family, but I am really excited for the next chapter in my life. Thank you for all your (hopefully) positive energy!

Guest post by Sue Min, my roommate and friend

Here’s my best attempt at describing this recipe.

White Bean Hummus (adapted from Smallbar’s menu…that I noticed while watching a soccer game)

1 can cannellini beans
1-2 sticks of fresh mint
1 clove garlic
1/2 lemon
feta cheese (preferably cow, but sheep works ok)
salt and pepper (optional and to taste)

Cut off about 1/3 of the block of feta. Cube this section of cheese (it blends more easily in the food processor)
Dice mint leaves.

 
Dice clove of garlic and combine with beans in a food processor.

 
Blend for a moment.

 
Add a bit of the cubed feta and diced mint leaves.

 
Again, after blending this for a moment or two, add the rest of the feta then add lemon juice from the 1/2 lemon (watch out for seeds)

 
Blend a bit more and taste to see if you need more mint and/or salt and pepper (This is really up to a person’s personal tastes. I don’t add any salt or pepper)

**Fresh mint from local vertical farm: 312 Aquaponics

I haven’t decided what I’ll make my mother for Mother’s day but I’ve done a little searching for ideas and found a few great how-to post for crafts to make mom for mother’s day, check out The Best of The Purl Bee Mother’s Day Projects, Crocheted Washcloths  and Liberty Handkerchief Set. Do you have any ideas on what to make mom for mother’s day?

On Sunday I had a coffee and music filled morning which inspired me to make my second batch of oven-roasted cherry tomatoes. Since I’ve made them before I felt a little bit more comfortable with the baking time but I now know that 60 minutes is a bit too long and 45 minutes is a bit too short, so next batch will be 50-55 minutes.

Recipe adapted from 101 Cookbooks

1 pint basket cherry tomatoes, stemmed
1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon natural cane sugar or maple syrup
Fine-grain sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with the rack in the top third of the oven.

Slice each tomato in half and place in a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, sugar and a scant 1/2 teaspoon salt. Pour the mixture over the tomatoes and gently toss until everything is well coated and pour onto baking dish or rimmed baking sheet.

Arrange the tomatoes cut-side up roast for 45 to 60 minutes,(similar to cookies I would put a timmer on for half the time and rotate the pan) until the tomatoes shrink a bit and start to caramelize around the edges. Picture above is at the halfway point.

You can use the immediately and toss with pasta or quinoa. If not you need to let the tomatoes cool, then scrape them into a clean glass jar along with any olive oil that was left in the dis and then one more splash for good measure. They will keep for one week in the refrigerator.