Thursday, March 31, 2011

Raised Beds and Banana Muffins


I will be posted more of my vintage postcard collection..hope  you enjoy the beautiful graphics..and please feel free to capture any if you so wish....
Our trip to Encintas was rather disappointing, photowise...mostly just modern condos and such, nothing really interesting....sadly, so much has built up and the old torn down that the cities are just one continuous link of strip malls, condos, and such..if you didn't see a city sign occasionally, you wouldn't know where you were....not like the old days..
The weather has warmed up..it was actually quite warm yesterday, 86 and today its supposed to get warmer...we worked outside, doing some needed weeding..and planted more tomato seeds...

Our neighbor put his raised beds in the front lawn..they have done extensive remodeling of  their home..the room you see had been the garage..they built a second garage on the left in their back yard....so they don't have much garden space in the back....We think it looks nice and they get quite a bit of good vegetables. I noticed  last weekend, that the local Lowes had raised beds in their nursery for sale...reasonably priced also...very similar looking to the above....
This morning, I whipped up these giant banana nut muffins...had some very ripe bananas....these are really yummy!
Jumbo Banana Nut Muffins

1 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1/2 c. softened butter or margarine
1/2 c. sugar (or Splenda)
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. ripe mashed banana
1/4 c. milk
1 t. vanilla
1 c. broken walnuts
preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease (or Pam) nine large muffin cups and edges of cups...
In one bowl, mix together, flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy; beat in eggs. Stir in mashed banana, milk and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and stir just to combine. Stir in walnuts.
Spoon batter into prepared muffin pan or cups. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until done. remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan, finish cooling on rack..these freeze well..

5 comments:

  1. banana muffins - great taste treat - when we had a B&B I'd often have too ripe bananas and would toss them into the freezer until I had time for a big baking day - then would make up banana bread and a banana coffeecake we used often for our visitors.
    I like the look of using raised beds - too much lawn is such a waste of space especially in city lots (we have more than an acre just of yard here in country)

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  2. yes..lawn is great when you have little ones but a waste of space otherwise...better to put it to use..
    with food prices going up and up..I think more people will be doing this..its easy.

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  3. Of course I LOVE that white bunny!!! The muffins look delicious and I like the front yard bed ideas, it adds alot to the landscaping:)Hope you enjoy the day:)

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  4. Mmmm~ those muffins look good, Dani... I may have to make these for Saturday morning!
    Your neighbor's beds are very pretty~ I'm thinking of doing a couple of those this year too. I'm tired of the deer eating my tomatoes before I can get them picked, so I need to put them close to the house.

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  5. Yum, those banana muffins look like a great way to get people out of bed in the morning. I'm sure they'd come running to the kitchen to eat those. I have a sweet treat linky party every weekend on my blog and I'd like to invite you to stop by then and link your muffins up. http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com

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