muffins in mtl!

bonjour from montreal! la belle province!!

when it comes to cooking, i am definitely a baker, so naturally, all my overripe (and underripe for that matter) bananas go into banana bread! whenever i spy a browning banana i throw it into the freezer for later use. i find, however, that when i re-visit these frozen fruits, they've often times turned completely brown and to a frozen mush in the freezer...don't be afraid! thaw those puppies out and squeeeeeeeeeeze them into you mixing bowl, they're already mashed!! i have found, however, that bananas of the frozen type never seem to pack as much flavor and i generally add extra.

for this recipe, i only had 2 bananas and none in the freezer, what's a girl to do!? i modified my goto banana bread recipe, reducing ingredients and adding roasted almonds and coconut to produce 10 muffins! breads and muffins are great modifiers in that you can add and subtract fruits and nuts to your liking.

coconut almond banana muffins:

1 cup flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

4 tbs softened butter

2 ripe bananas

1 egg

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup nuts

1/4 cup coconut

preheat oven to 350F

sift dry ingredients.

mix wet ingredients.

add dry to wet, then add coconut and almonds.

scoop into muffin cups and top w/a little bit of coconut

bake in preheated oven 20 min and voila!

The Cock's in the Kitchen

Paul and I thought this was pretty funny:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_male_crow_called



Q "what is a male crow called"


A "male crows are called cocks"


Anyways, our good friends Steph and Jeff Spicer just moved into their first house out on the west island of Montreal and we finally got to go check it out! Upon seeing the diesel new grill on the back porch, Paul immediately suggested grilling (the grill master was in)


He marinated kebabs made with huge chunks of sweet onion, green and red pepper and chicken with his sassy homemade teriyaki marinade and grilled them to perfection.







Teriyaki Marinade


1 bunch of green onions, minced, whites only
3 large crushed garlic cloves
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup honey
Another interesting technique, compliments of Mr. Jeff Spicer, is scoring halved zucchinis. Take a small to medium sized zucchini and cut it in half length-wise. Next, take a sharp knife and score the flat side in a criss-cross pattern. Jeff adds salt next and lets them sit for a few minutes, to get the juices flowing, then olive oil and season to taste. You can throw these puppies on the grill and let them roast away. They only need to be grilled face down.


And perhaps my favorite of the night, trout sausage, or as I called them, trousage. I must admit I was skeptical at first, but they turned out to be quite delicious. They were simply a mix of fresh trout, parsley and chive, made into a sausage, but they were flakey and delicious and I will definitely pick them up if ever again I get the chance.