Banana Walnut and Chocolate Chip Muffins

This winter is shaping up to be a real marathon affair. This morning, I knew we'd need  some sweet starts to the mornings this weekend, as there will be MORE SHOVELLING to do. New England is bracing for one more significant snowfall and I am whining already! And just as I whined my way through making these muffins, the mail arrived and I had two small parcels to cheer me up - a postcard written by Sprout Kate regarding a cheery breakfast at the Neue Galerie's cafe and posted on on a lovely painting/card by Egon Schiele and a parcel that contained a book by Tasha Tudor called The Springs of Joy from my dear friend, Diane! No more whining ...just cheerful thoughts of loved ones that cared enough to pass the joy on ...



I figured to pass some of the muffin joy on to my friend Betty,so off I went with a bag containing, banana walnut and chocolate chip muffins and a big container of chicken and vegetable soup and oyster crackers. During these cold, bitter days of mid-winter, it's all about passing the joy around.

Hope you aren't  too riddled with cabin fever! Here's the recipe for these tasty breakfast treats.

Banana Walnut and Chocolate Chip Muffins

Makes 12 regular-sized muffins

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

¾ - 1 cup light brown sugar, well packed

1 tsp. vanilla extract

½ c. canola oil

2 large bananas, smashed

2 c. all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. Kosher salt

¼ tsp. nutmeg

½ c. dark chocolate chips

½ c. chopped walnuts

Making the Muffins:

1. Pre heat the oven to 350° F and put the oven rack in the center groove.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
3. Whip the eggs and brown sugar together. Add the vanilla extract and oil and continue whipping to make a smooth wet batter.
4. Add the bananas and smash them into the wet mixture.
5. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until the dough forms.
6. Turn in the chocolate chips and the walnuts.
7. Line a muffin pan with paper liners or grease the muffin pan well.
8. Spoon the batter into the liners and bake the muffins for about 20 minutes or until they are golden and a cake tester comes clean when  the muffins are poked.

In other news, this winter has been exceptionally good for my creative energy ... my pinwheel quilt is coming along. It is getting bigger by the day. At this point, I'm sewing all the pinwheel blocks into rows and attaching them as I go. It's all about matching seams and corners and ironing things to get smooth finished seams ...

This is going to be a huge quilt ... king-sized with no real outside border. Just hundreds of pinwheels in those 'old mill print calicos that I love. I work a bit every day toward getting the final quilt face done. It looks like next week  I'll have a call to make to my friend who does the machine quilting for me!