Banana Macadamia Nut Muffins

Recipe courtesy of Bon Apetit Magazine at the end of this post.

We are moving soon. Moving again sends me spiraling. When I start to let the "I Cant's" creep into my mind, I remind myself that "I Can" and that "I Have." I remember moves past. I remember the things that were easy, and the things that were awful. And I remember God's hand in it all. It is the only way I keep bright in the foreground and bitter in the backdrop. And, on Sunday, the Banana Macadamia Nut muffins were more than muffins. They reminded me of a move to Hawaii made with apprehension with rewards of many blessings. I needed to be reminded.

It helped that our baby has suddenly, without notice, ended a banana breakfast ritual. He recently declared a banana strike. That is how I ended up with plenty of ripe bananas. It was also the end of just effortlessly preparing half of his breakfast. Truly this was a momentary grumbling point. I am over it now.

Following the Bon Appetit Magazine recipe, I mashed 3 bananas. My bananas were not smooth like baby food puree. They had a bit of chunkiness to them. The recipe called for all things to be mixed by hand, so I assumed this was sufficient.

 

And when I added the sugars, eggs, and melted butter to the 3 bananas, I knew the reviews that declared these to be moist muffins were dead accurate.

 

Then I hand blended the wet ingredients I cannot even begin to express how appetizing bananas blended with sugars and pooled with melted butter and vanilla smells. Oh.My.Word. This was my favorite moment preparing the ingredients right here. The lumpiness of the bananas turned a bit smoother.

 

I did not chop the macadamia nuts very finely. I don't like digging for nuts when a recipe calls for them. I like them to be robust and present. The nuts on the right have not been chopped. The group on the left was the final result.

I toasted the macadamia nuts and chopped them before placing them in the batter. I almost did not toast them. It seemed silly if I they were going to bake in the oven anyway. But was I wrong! If you have ever wafted the smell of toasted macadamia nuts....oh heaven! Oh how I missed living in Hawaii when I pulled these out of the toaster oven.

 

I reserved the last of the nuts to top the batter. I may or may not have been a bit giddy at this point! The rich smell of the batter with the heaven of those toasted nuts...I almost did not want to part with the batter because I may have tasted it a time or two.

Finally, after 25 minutes I opened my oven and my family came running!

Banana Macadamia Nut Muffins
Courtesy Bon Apetit Magazine

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 1/4 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 large)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup unsalted macadamia nuts, toasted, chopped

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease twelve muffin cups or line with muffin papers. Sift first 4 ingredients into large bowl. Combine bananas, both sugars, butter, milk and egg in medium bowl. Mix into dry ingredients. Fold in half of nuts. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle tops of muffins with remaining macadamia nuts. Bake until muffins are golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer muffins to rack and cool.

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Banana-Macadamia-Nut-Muffins-2050#ixzz1Eli1H1Km

Confessions Before the Contribution

 Today I posted this also at Half-Baked Beauties.

When Half-Baked Beauties evolved, I was a new mom for the third time. My baby was just a few weeks old, born in September 2009 in San Diego. At the time, I longed for old friends, the walking kind of friends to be present in my life, as I had with my eldest in Virginia, and my middle son in Hawaii. But while I had family in California, I did not really have friends with whom Dr. Romance and I had a Together History. I was lamenting this just before B. dropped me an email to join this blog.

I could not keep up with every formula in the book. I was potty training a toddler, breastfeeding a newborn, settling into a new home after a move, and my eldest started Kindergarten. For the times I felt constrained to my house because of all of my mommy duties, I never missed any of your posts. I knew many of you in real life, and some of you I just knew as friends of friends. But during the months that people contributed here, I felt like I was connecting with old friends. And to be real, I was not constrained to my house. I had just started attending two small groups through church, in addition to the breastfeeding, potty training, house adjusting, and starting kindergarten.

And now our family is yet again in a time of transition. In the summer of 2010 we drove cross country to Massachusetts. My Dr. Romance has a one year assignment here. We anticipate our next move, yet to be announced, in the summer of 2011 to a new city, and a new home.

I have died little deaths with our moves. My attitude has always been, and will always be, I will go where you go, I will live in a hut in Africa. Still, I die little deaths of things that will never be. I keep them to myself. I dare not share them with my children, because I know my attitude sets the tone for our home. So I struggle with this whole concept of "home" and what my children will remember about "home." I die the death that they will not live in "the house they grew up in," that they will not have a neighborhood kid that has been their best friend since they were five, and on and on the list goes in my head. You can imagine.

I cannot say I do not like to move. I cannot say I love it. But I cannot say I mind. We have lived in amazing places over the course of our marriage. My kids have had some amazing life experiences, for their small ages of 6, 3, and 1. I could tell you all about them, but it might sound a a bit puffed up. Just know I am telling the truth.

So how then, do I build a home, when this whole idea of home is so transient and somewhat unpredictable for us? This book has gotten me to ponder such thoughts.

When I reflect on my own childhood, on the moments that were celebrated, on the memories I conjure up when I remember "home," I do not think back to a specific friend. I do not think of the house I grew up in, or that I lived in the same town from birth until I left for college. I remember long dinner discussions about days at school. I remember several side dishes to a rich meal. I remember my parents making albondiga soup. I remember burn marks on wooden spoons that stirred the avocado green skillet and vegetables chopped on the built-into-the-counter wooden cutting board. I remember my mother's moist chocolate cakes and oatmeal raisin cookies. I remember spring coming, and my dad in the back yard shaping our trees with his shears, and my mom sending me out to announce dinner was ready. I remember brownies made from scratch, and lasagna layered with love.

My kids are struggling with this concept of "home." Yes, we still own our home in San Diego. Yes it is ours but people are renting it, and yes, they are paying us to borrow it. No, we cannot swim in the pool in the backyard when we are home for Christmas vacation. Yes, it is still ours. Yes, when I say we are going "home" from Costco I mean the house we are renting in Massachusetts. No, you cannot jump on the couches because this is not our "home."

So how then, do I build a home for them?

Our now rented home in San Diego is large with multiple eating areas. Often my kids ate meals at the over sized island, longer than most dinner tables. This was mostly for my own need to multitask while they ate. But when we moved to Massachusetts, our 1928 Craftsman home only has one area for dining. This house is not even half the square feet of my home in California. But this new dining area has forced us to eat with one and only one option. We must all eat together staring into each other's eyeballs. It is a beautiful thing. I will never let my kids eat at a granite over sized island again. Well, so I say...

Building our family "home" when home is transient

This book I am reading now talks about Jesus and his thanksgiving at the Last Supper. But what strikes me is that there was a Last "Supper." There was a meal. Jesus knew time was short before he was betrayed. The next day he would go to the cross. He did not sit the disciples at an over sized center island, multitasking his last 24 hours. He sat with his friends intimately, around a table. He looked into their eyes. He dined with them. He spoke with them. He encouraged them. He shared his concerns, his heart, his expectations. There was safety around that meal.

This was my childhood "home." We sat around a dinner table many nights up until I left for college. It is the home I want for my sons. It is what I can give them right now. Together, Dr. Romance and I are demonstrating love, of listening to narratives of the day's events, and breathing safety around a dinner table. We talk about days gone by of babies, now years ago, of bite sized miracles and fountains of blessings in our every days. Everyone is there, all five of us, doing the very same things together. We are talking, laughing, giving thanks, and identifying blessings. We speak of important decisions, we ask questions, we make plans. We raise eyebrows, speak our minds, and offer apologies.  

Our "home," with meals here as the back drop for what is not transient, what is constant, what I will carry with me from this edifice into the next. Because those edifices are not "homes" on their own.


These thoughts motivated me to rise early yesterday and bake Banana Macadamia Nut muffins. I was remembering life on Oahu. I remembered how much I felt at home there. I was so caught up in the muffins, I had not even thought what else I would serve for breakfast. So in a rush job before church, I threw together mushroom and shrimp omelets after baking the muffins, and preparing my sugar cookie dough (another project). I had pre-sliced the mushrooms a few nights before, and the cilantro lime shrimp was from Costco. I served the plates and I shook my head because I had not thought through the pairing of my banana nut muffins and cilantro lime shrimp omelets. It was not exactly right. It was not perfect. But I am imperfect. And maybe my family knows that all too well. Regardless, my family was blessed. They loved it all around the breakfast table.

So now that I have confessed how I could not keep up as a contributor here, come back anyway and I will post my Banana Macadamia Nut muffin experience. I hope other contributors come back, too with their own recipes.

The Back Seat Winner

The Hubs and I  have won at many things. We are winners.

But there was a chance our son might lose, that he might not be a winner this year. He has won twice in two prior states in the Awana Grand Prix. We prepped him the whole way to the race, just in case. We made our claims of love for him, of our joy that he is our son. He was so quiet, his six year old head pressed into the gray leather headrest. We repeated ourselves a few times. Still just a quiet "uh-huh" from the rear of the minivan, barely heard over his two younger brothers between us.

We arrived at the competition and trailed the family to the basement. Dr. Romance was armed with his paparazzi camera. (I will have to take a picture of his telephoto monstrosity for you.) Definitely we arrived in a basement of winners. We packed in with 100 other tense folks. Some stood poised with axle lube and babied their cars. Others buzzed around adding weights. Dr. Romance and I gave each other a glance with raised eyebrows. These folks were intense for sure. I looked away quickly, too nervous to read his eyes.

But our sweet son, our first born, our first born just as I am first born, just as Dr. Romance is first born,  

yet so unlike us in so many ways, 

had no pit in his stomach. We are strong waves. He is a calm ocean. He unpacked his car quietly, unshaken by the table judges, and the hovering helicopter adults in the room. He is so unassuming, so compliant. He yielded his car to be judged for design. He knew that his design was simple. He did not expect that trophy, amongst the princess slipper, iPod, or Wii remote .

He was battling for speed, battling in the most demure and reserved way. 

He lined up his car on the track. He was chosen for the first heat, where he would race four times, once in each lane.

He lined up his car 41 inches in the air, somewhere around his first grade chin.

Thirty feet straight down the race track, his yellow bullet clearly smoked the pack. But just two inches shy of the finish line, his car toppled to the side. It did not cross the finish line. It did not count. He received no score. A piece of tape that cradled a shiny quarter to the underbelly of his car started to drag, started to uncurl, and toppled the car. Though Son1 attempted to blow dry the glued quarter that would exactly weight his car to the five ounce limit, it did not dry. Thus the tape.

The entire crowd AHHHHHED when his car shot out from the pack.There was no competition. A horrified 100 voices ohhhhhed when the yellow cannonball of a car fell off the red track.

And our first grader retrieved his car with no reaction, no readable emotion, and ambled thirty feet back to the ramp that measured just to his chin. Dr. Romance checked the car once over, and handed it back to Son1.

He continued his task, not phased by the hundred onlookers. That is him, every single day.

(Those hairy arms belong to a supervising adult, not to our family.)

And he watched only his car. He watched it complete three more lanes of competition. And he was done. We now waited for all of the other heats of cars in his division to finish their races. We were unsure he would advance to the semi-finals.

Dr. Romance and I sat back. We watched the over-lubrication of cars, the legal tinkering of weight, the balancing of wheels. We analyzed the competition. We repeated to one another that we were proud of him, that he is a winner. And yes, we ran the numbers and the averages on his competition, trying to predict his fate. We are math people.

The semi-finals were announced. He made it! I was squealing a high school squeal as silently as I could. I jumped up and down with my feet firmly planted on the ground, eyeing my oblivious 17 month old. I faked my disinterest to those hundred voices. But there is a proud 3 year old sports caster that let all onlookers know his brother advanced to the semi-finals, and finally to the Final Four.

And though his yellow car blew past all cars in every heat, he offered humility. Before the awards ceremony we knew he was a winner, but we had known that before we left the house.

And when his name was called, and when he collected his trophy, he made no noise.

On Measuring Valentine's Day

I wonder how to measure a complete and successful Valentine's Day. How do you measure if it was good enough?

Before the babies came, Valentine's Day was measured at work. Who had the long stem roses delivered? Who had the fanciest dinner reservations? Who had the most booty and swag, and the largest and most balloons? That was how love was measured.

Now I have three boys and I am home on Valentine's Day. For the last three years we celebrated around a meal with an arsenal of boy-rated fancies, and boy-themed cards, and boy-inclined shiny-s and large over done red plunder. It was a sight to see. But not this year. Dr. Romance had a night class that canceled a fancy family dinner. Instead, we settled for a quick breakfast meal. Mornings already are rushed with Dr. Romance heading to Harvard, and the two older boys heading to two different schools. So that old Valentine's measuring stick came out. I wondered if this mama's Valentine's Day was good enough.

I wondered as I packed heart shaped lunch sandwiches. I wondered as I set out paper packaged dinosaur heart plates for breakfast. I wondered as I cut hearts from frozen waffles. A guilt wave surged over such a hasty breakfast. Frozen waffles seemed so common.

I stopped wondering when I pulled out the whipped cream, because whipped cream makes you forget all kinds of stuff. And my love, Dr. Romance, presented me secret sophisticated strawberry sauce he bought in California for such a time as this. We drew initials on the waffles, because every superhero loves his initial monogrammed on everything, like the big S for Superman. And the two of us working together, assembling three boys' waffle plates, could not be measured.

I giggled when Dr. Romance handed me my breakfast plate. He was cooking behind me. I don't know how to measure a man that presses Wilton cutters over my cheesy eggs.

We gathered the baby's plate. He did not measure himself as leftovers.

I don't know why I worry. Those boys measured breakfast as special. They measured with laughter. To them, I was good enough. I gathered the plates, and the eldest wandered into the kitchen. "Close your eyes, Mommy. We have a surprise for youuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I closed my eyes, fully expecting a Valentine's card, stuffed with a gift card. I opened my eyes, and was a bit confused by the red velvety tower until I saw the logo on the card.

I first saw Sugardaddy's on Throwdown. Seventeen months ago I held my newborn in my arms and drooled over their Tahitian Blondies. I settled the baby, and then fell asleep on the couch before the show ended. Dr. Romance surprised me a day later with them on my doorstep. They are not for the every day. Frozen Valentine's waffles cannot even touch this stuff.

But even greater joy came from his words in my card. They measured me.

 

And that little card, with those little words, were enough. If those lightly scrawled words were enough, how could my frozen waffles not be enough?

Because there is more. With wisdom and genius, the evening class was canceled at the last minute. I almost cringed when Dr. Romance, in all of his elation, proposed we order Thai food for dinner. This was definitely not my idea of a Valentine's dinner. I don't crave Thai food. But Dr. Romance does, and so do my kids. So I silenced those inner thoughts and picked up dinner with my eldest. As he nearly skipped down the sidewalk with joy to the Thai restaurant, I took a breath, and smiled. I looped my arm through his. "C'mon, you're my date," I said. Once home, we unpacked dinner, pulled out the Valentine's Day cards that arrived from afar, and read the many ways we are loved.

No fanfare. No gift bags of swag. No red explosions filling our dining room.

But this Farmer Valentine's Day? It was more than enough.

One Day You Will Not Be With the Band

There are days I take your pictures with my eyes. I want to blow up those moments, make enlargements of those frames, and wrap my arms around you. I want to squeeze those pictures behind picture frame glass to my chest and never let you go. Sometimes I tease you and tell you I never want you to grow up, and we giggle and laugh, because we know that is impossible and Crazy Talk. That day will come.

One day you will not be with the band.

One day you will not sit together in a circle, not with drumstick pencils, not making your music.

One day you will stand on your own, away from the safety of our family.

That very thought has shaken me to prayer for you. You will walk to your own beats. Some days the music will be loud and full of life. Some days it will be slow and hum drum.

And for all of those days, I pray that God brings you friends that will walk with you. I pray you find iron that will sharpen you. I pray for wounds from friends, those that you trust, and not kisses from enemies. I pray that when you fall, there will be someone to help you up. I pray you will find friends that will love you at all times.

Over ten years ago, we made the walking kind of friends. We have cried with these friends through birth, death, love, and loss. They are lifers.

This weekend I cried for three straight days for walking friends. I have cried tears with intensity of love. I care very deeply for them.

I stared at Dr. Romance, and I choked out, "I cannot imagine having to give a baby back."

And as he scrubbed the dirty dinner pots in the sink while I rocked the computer chair back and forth he said, "I think you can. That is why you are crying. Are you going to be okay?"

And I am okay. Because our friends shared their lives, because they shared their pain, and they shared God's triumph. And because their baby is one step closer to home!

They walk. They share.  

And I am in awe that the very God that has performed a Jim-dandy in their lives can perform Jim-dandies in our lives, too. Their God is my God, and WOW.

And for you, my three sons, I want those friendships for you. I want you to know the longstanding ones. I want you to walk with trustworthy friends when you are no longer with the band. I want you to walk with those your whole lives. So I am praying for those friendships, even now.

So today I continue the list and count the ways He loves:




#8 for boys that drum feverishly in a brother band

#9 My Dr. Romance that considers my work "our work"

#10 for boys that LOVE this home, our family, our jokes

#11 friends that are lifers, friends that are walkers

#12 the baby that is one step closer to home from Uganda to her forever Vitafamiliae

#13 that God uses the work of thieves for his good, to perform a modern day miracle


#14 that God uses even a Ugandan judge to show MERCY