whole wheat banana date muffins with honey

 

This week has been crazy with cooking and baking projects! I've got my final project coming up for my photography class and, big surprise, I chose to photograph food. Coming up, I have some pretty exciting things in the Unhip Squirrel arsenal - a chickpea curry, some cupcakes, a ridiculous chocolate cake (it's baking as we speak - exciting does not even begin to describe this), some fun cookies... I can't wait to share it all with you. 

Whole wheat banana date muffins are not part of my project. I made them because for my curry, I needed to buy dates and the only size available was HUGE (Thank you, Metro! ugh). So I had plenty of dates that needed using, and the result were these muffins. Stand by for more datey things. I've got plenty left.

healthy harvest muffins

 

 So, it's already been established that I suffer from stupid-huge cookie syndrome. I also have chronic stupid-huge muffin disorder. Whenever I bake muffins, I fill the muffin cups improperly and end up with maximum 11 instead of 12 muffins. I think I just remember things (food items, specifically?) as being bigger than they actually are. Case in point, when I was circling the grocery store scouting for muffin ingredients, I saw regular muffin liners and balked at their small size. Instead, I bought those labeled géant, convinced that they were the correct size for my muffin tin, even though the medium size was coloured in pink, yellow and blue, which I remembered from the last time I bought muffin liners. Of course, the géant liners were in fact géant and rose above the cups of my muffin tin.

And I ended up with 10 muffins. 10 moist, beautiful muffins, warm with spices and bursting with nutritiousness. When you pull these muffins apart, they're flecked with the bright orange and green of the carrot and zucchini - it adds a bit of visual interest and texture to your standard brown muffin. The bittersweet cranberries top off these muffins perfectly.

lemon cranberry muffins

This has been a good weekend. It was full of haircuts, pitchers of sangria, barbeques, movie theatres and friends.  It did have its low points - I did a pretty sick load of dirty dishes, but I quickly rewarded myself with fruit salad and homemade muffins. Yum!

This batter is so versatile. I've used it as a loaf, in muffins... even as the cake base for a trifle. It's light, wonderful and not overly sweet. The muffins aren't too filling, but that's okay... you can eat three of them. I won't look.

marmalade bran muffins

Do you remember the first cookbook you ever bought? I do. It was Company's Coming: Muffins & More by Jean Paré. I bought it at the grocery store. Realistically speaking, I think it was actually my mom who bought it for me, given that I was still in high school and bad at saving my allowance. Safeway must have had some kind of deal with the Company's Coming series, because there was always a rack with about a dozen of their cheesy titles. Perhaps that rack is still there.

From the frighteningly dated picture of the author on the back (sorry, Jean - there are awful photos of me out there, too) to the "witticisms" scattered throughout the book (such as, "don't let your dog eat garlic or his bark really will be worse than his bite"), this cookbook is a laugh and a half. That being said, it has some great muffin and loaf recipes, just keep your eyes peeled for ingredients like glazed mixed fruit that nobody has liked since 1985.

buttermilk mixed berry muffins

I am a morning person. After spending my teenage years (and my early 20s) sleeping until the afternoon (yes, after noon), I am finally one of those people that non-morning-people hate. I am peppy, cheerful and excited to take on the day. My boundless morning energy has me washing dishes, sweeping floors and doing other such housework. With my lack of grace - or, as Adam says, my lack of proprioceptive sense - it is a nice gesture to placate the late sleeper in the house with baked goods to make up for all the crashing around. These muffins make a wonderful peace offering.  Not only are they fruity and delicious, but they contain three out of four food groups. What more could you want?