LadyGypsy.net – the blog of Kimberly Dowd of New Jersey

Crappy work week = comfort food jones.

I met Maris at BlogHer. She writes In Good Taste which is all about food. While I love food, I’m not good at making food, so I read food blogs with a mix of jealousy and hunger.

Earlier this week, Maris posted a recipe for banana chocolate chip muffins and I thought, hey…I can do that!

And look!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin

Muffins!

A few changes I made:

• I did not make her healthy substitutions, because I didn’t have apple sauce or wheat flour.
• My 3 bananas provided me with a little less than 2 cups of mashed bananas.
• I don’t have a muffin pan so I used a silicone cupcake pan. This recipe yielded 18 mini muffins.
• I hate my silicone cupcake pan because things take longer to bake in it. So I baked them for 25 minutes.

An added benefit: It’s 30 degrees with 20 mph winds tonight, so the oven is helping warm the apartment!

Thanks, Maris!

About five or six years ago, I decided I wanted a breadmaker. But I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on it because everybody I knew who ever owned a breadmaker used it once or twice before it was put away forever. So I purchased one from a yard sale for $10. The original owner only used it once.

I have no idea why because to me it’s the easiest thing in the world to measure ingredients into the bread pan, push a few buttons and walk away. Three hours later, fresh bread! With real ingredients and no high-fructose glop, MSG, or lead.

That old breadmaker met its maker (ha!) this spring. So I spent some of my bread on a new one.

For some “Little House on the Prairie” reason, I do the bread machine does my baking on Sundays. It just seems like a nice way to start the week. I’ve baked white bread, wheat bread, Easter Bread, pumpkin bread and now…

Cinnamon bread! This is the second loaf I’ve done using this recipe and it smells and tastes like a dream. I toast a slice of it for breakfast every morning.

So next time you see a barely used bread maker at a yard sale, snag it!