Sarah's Blueberry Banana Muffins

I noticed this photo on my friend Sarah's Twitter and made a special request for the recipe to share with you all. Sarah is contributing editor (like me) at The Reader, only she manages the art section (quite beautifully I might add). We even co-wrote a story (which you can read here) about an artist whose medium is food. I was in Africa for the exhibition (which was a meal) and Sarah made the bold sacrifice to give up vegetarianism for one night for the sake of art--people, she ate SHEEP BRAIN! Sarah's blog Week Fifty Two focuses on art happenings in the Omaha area and abroad. Or you can support Sarah's day job by visiting the state of Nebraska as a tourist (she's the media relations coordinator for the state tourism board). I just decided last night to make some muffins. I had an overripe banana and some blueberries that I didn't know what to do with. I opened up my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and found a pretty generic recipe for muffins. I changed a few things according to what I had in the fridge--buttermilk instead of milk and agave instead of white sugar. I didn't use muffin cups as I thought the muffins would stick and I just stirred in the fruit without mashing it.

The resulting muffins are subtly sweet and have big chunks of blueberry and banana. They bubbled and browned really nicely. Next time I might also mix some cinnamon in the batter. I'm usually really bad at baking--I've had many, many baking disasters--so I was happy these turned out so well!

Sarah's Blueberry Banana Muffins: 1 3/4 cups flour 1/3 cup agave syrup (find at whole foods) 2 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teapsoon salt (I ground fresh sea salt, around four turns of the grinder) 1 egg, beaten 3/4 cup milk (I used buttermilk) 1/4 cup cooking oil fresh blueberries one ripe banana cinnamon Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease one regular sized muffin pan. Combine flour, agave, salt and baking powder and stir. Then combine oil, buttermilk and egg, and stir with fork. Combine wet ingredients with dry ingredients and stir. Batter will be lumpy. Add blueberries (as many as you like) and slice banana. Stir in slices and berries. Fill each cup to about 3/4 full. Top with cinnamon. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes. Makes 12 yummy muffins.

Banana Bread

Quick breads and soup go together in the Seyler household, and it is a beautiful thing. The two standards breads are banana and a blueberry tea bread that never quite cooked through. And the soup could be anything. Tortellini, split pea soup with ham, chicken noodle. It didn't matter. It was comfort for a gloomy day in pre-spring (much like what's going on in Omaha right now). Banana Bread: from Better Homes and Gardens Baking

2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
dash ground nutmeg
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (4 or 5 bananas)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cooking oil

Pre-heat oven to 350.

In one bowl, mix all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mash up the banana, eggs, sugar and cooking oil until it's only a little lumpy. Add the wet mixture to the dry, stir with a wooden spoon until it's only a little lumpy (if you want nuts, add them here). Do not over-mix. Transfer to greased 9x5x3-inch pan. Bake for 55 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Musings on Costa Rican Food.

Alright alright, it's been almost two months since I got back from my trip to Costa Rica and I'm just now posting photos. Whatever. I'm even further away from actually writing the cover story and the reason why I went to Costa Rica in the first place. When I travel I am usually preoccupied with thoughts of food. I worry about when the next meal will be served, if it'll be too spicy and if I'll like it (which I always do). I guess I like my life's mundane predictability (yes, I eat a sandwich for lunch just about every day). I've gotten better with traveling for Home & Away as the journalists are grossly overfed on organized press trips--not that I'm complaining. And Costa Rica wasn't much different. I must confess that I'm not too familiar with Central American dishes. I mean, I get the Mexican food: enchiladas, mole, burritos, tequila, etc. Unfortunately, I can't lie that I wasn't too impressed with Costa Rican fare. I actually liked the food in Honduras better, even though it may have given me traveler's diarrhea for the first time ever in my life. The baleadas I ordered to the Habitat for Humanity worksite were amazing: a tortilla filled with beans, peppers, rice, eggs and mild goat cheese. In Honduras we ate at restaurants, while for the first couple days in Costa Rica we ate from a buffet. So that's probably the reason why I'm not ranting and raving. But that doesn't mean Jenny and I didn't share a few good meals. We did decide to splurge on a nice meal at Volcano Arenal. The photo above is/was a plate of ceviche. Ceviche (for those who don't know) is what I would call a "salsa" of fish, lime or lemon juice and usually cilantro, some peppers, onion or any sort of variation. The thing that would likely freak my dad out is that the fish is "cooked" by the acid in the lemon or lime juice not by conventional heat. But it lends the ceviche an incredibly fresh flavor. We destroyed the appetizer before I even had time to snap a photo. The remainder of the meal was memorable, but plating wasn't so great (thus no photos). The only bad thing about the restaurant was the absolutely ridiculous music. They were playing Kenny G-instrumental versions of Bette Midler songs in a sorry attempt to create an ambience. Yikes. Below is a photo of me rolling my eyes and wanting to gag myself.

Another thing I was completely fascinated with was this banana factory we stopped at. It happened to be a Del Monte packing "plant," which made me even more excited. I was like, "We eat these bananas! I used to peel those stickers off the fruit and put them on my shirt!" I'm not really sure why this intrigued me, considering I live in the middle of an ocean of corn stretching from Illinois to Eastern Colorado, so farming shouldn't be out of the ordinary. And even more especially since I've been trying not to eat fruit from the nether reaches of the globe. So I'm pretty sure I don't actually eat anything from Del Monte.

Another reason why not to eat these bananas: The factory with in the middle of rows and rows and rows of banana trees. However, our tour guide warned us not to step one foot in the plantation. Why? Because the trees are heavily sprayed with "toxic" chemicals that would make us sick/possibly kill us. Hmm ... But this produce is somehow safe to eat. OK?

I don't know who told me everything would be cheaper in Costa Rica, but they were wrong. Maybe it was because we were staying at resorts so all the cocktails cost what they would in the States and were just as diluted, maybe we just got hosed for being tourists. Our driver stopped for lunch at the place pictured below, and it was only $5 for both our meals. And I thought it was one of the best meals we had the entire trip, complete with fried plantains, mixed rice and fish. The best/strangest part of the meal was the "vanilla juice" we had, recommended by our driver. It tasted like melted ice cream. Yum.

Fortunately, there's more than one reason to visit Costa Rica (i.e. monkeys, turtles, sloths, beaches, volcanoes, etc.)