This recipe began as the Best-Ever Banana Muffins – and the name truly does not disappoint. They are the muffins that made me consider dropping everything, buying a stash of vintage floral aprons, getting a 50′s haircut, and opening a bakery… maybe I’ll still do that.

To shake things up a bit (you know, walk on the wild side), I once decided to bake the batter as a loaf instead of muffins. And, what did I get? The best banana bread ever!

Light and tender, never dense, this recipe produces muffins and loaves that are perfectly moist and full of banana flavor. Add a handful of chocolate chips and we are entering a new sphere of banana deliciousness. You’ve really gotta try it for yourself.
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Over the Christmas holidays, my sweetie took me on an exciting trip to the big city, NYC. We walked and walked and walked, and we ate and ate and ate, (and we froze and froze and froze). I made the mistake of bringing only my Vancouver-weather rubber boots to stomp around in. Did you know that uninsulated rubber boots act as individual foot refrigerators in cold weather, the way they trap and recirculate damp, frigid air? So because of my silly choice of footwear, we froze. And because we froze, we ate – for every few blocks we walked, we had to stop in somewhere to warm up. We found all kinds of little hole-in-the wall shops and cafes where we were happy to munch on cupcakes, rice pudding, cardamom coffee, dosas, thin-crust pizzas… As far as problems go, this one was rather favorable, the freezing necessitating the eating – my tummy was happy enough to more than make up for my toes’ misery.

One of my favorite places we stumbled into to thaw our extremities was a little tea house called Alice’s Tea Cup in the upper west side. The entrance was just like a descent into the rabbit hole, and the inside was magically decorated with twinkly lights, keyhole windows, stained glass, and antiques. They had a multiple-page menu of teas and a selection of sweets to accompany them, including a variety of fresh scones with cream and fruit preserves. I hungrily devoured a warm strawberry-chocolate scone, piled with sweet whipped cream. And it was so scrumptious that it has been on my mind ever since.

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The pumpkin-storm hovered over the food blogosphere for a long time. It started around here at the beginning of October, for our Canadian thanksgiving, gained momentum through Halloween and the American harvest holiday, and was still just going at full speed for Christmas. Pumpkin scones, breads, cookies were ubiquitous. Pumpkin pies, cupckakes and cheesecakes? Omnipresent. The festive veg even wriggled its way into less expected hosts, such as chili and brownies and curry and white chocolate blondies and bread pudding and whoopie pies… Phew! But for some reason, I just wasn’t feeling it.

Maybe it was just me being defiant and expressing my non-acquiescence to what everyone else was doing. But for whatever reason, I kept my palate entirely clear of the autumn favorite. However, now that the squash and co. storm is over, I find myself really lusting after a good, moist pumpkin muffin – in all its sweet, spicy, comforting, glory. So here I am in January, humbly seeking out recipes for everyone’s favorite October vegetable (the one that I snootily shunned during proper gourd-centric months). Continue Reading »