I am in a local co-op and get lots of fresh fruit and veggies.  One of my struggles (believe it or not) is how many bananas to get.  Sounds like a silly thing but if I get too few, we fly right through them but if I get too many, I feel as if I am adding bananas to every meal!  So, this past time, with too many bananas in hand, I elected to make some banana muffins and they turned out amazing so I thought I would share my recipe with you!

Ingredients -

1.5 cups of all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt (I use kosher)

3 bananas (for baking, bananas should be a little on the ‘older’ side – you don’t want green bananas to cook with)

3/4 cup of granulated sugar (I use organic sugar cane)

1 egg

1/3 cup of melted butter

Directions -

Preheat oven to 375.  Grease or put cupcake papers in a dozen muffin tray.  Mix the first four ingredients and set aside.  In a bigger bowl, mix bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter.  Slowly add dry mixed ingredients to wet ingredients.  When all ingredients are throughly mixed, pour into the muffin tray.  Bake for 18 – 20 minutes – once muffins start to brown on the top, they are done.  Let cool about an hour and enjoy!  Happy eating!!

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

I love these – and they’re easy to make!  It would make a sweet treat for Valentine’s Day or any day

You’ll need:

Strawberries

Chocolate (either Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate or chocolate melts found at your local craft store)

That’s it!

To Make:

Then, you’ll wash and dry the strawberries.  If you are just dipping by hand, leave the stems.  I prefer to use a skewer stick for dipping, and I usually choose to remove the stems.

Place chocolate in a double boiler or heat safe bowl in a saucepan of simmering water to melt.  To keep it from burning, you’ll want to remove it from the stove when it is almost melted and continue to stir until it is completely smooth.

I cheat.  I prefer the chocolate melts (like the kind to make candies with) and it is easy to melt them in the microwave.  I heat in a coffee mug for 1 minute, stir, then heat for 30 seconds, stir, and repeat the 30 seconds until melted depending on how much chocolate I’m using.  It usually takes about 2 minutes.  Much quicker than the stove method, but it can burn just as easily so don’t overheat.

Simply dip your strawberries in the chocolate, either by the stems, or using a skewer stick (or a toothpick in a pinch).  If dipping by hand, simply lay on wax paper and allow chocolate to harden.  The skewer stick will allow you to cover more of the strawberry in chocolate, and give you a more even chocolate coating.  I use a tall water glass to stand the skewers in while the chocolate dries.

If you want to add a decorative touch, melt some white chocolate and drizzle over the strawberries.

Store in the refrigerator until you’re ready to serve

ENJOY!

This Tasteful Tuesday post is brought to you by Weelicious.com.  Thank you to Catherine for sharing this wonderful recipe with our readers!

I’m one of those people who loves everything about Valentine’s Day (you may be saying, “blech” right now, but I do). Well, I’m not particularly fond of how commercial the holiday has become, but I do love all the hugs, kisses, homemade cards and, of course, sweet treats! While you can easily buy your Valentine a bag of sweet tarts with cute sayings printed on them, why not go to the store, buy fresh ingredients and then make something special with your kids instead? This year, Kenya, Chloe and I have decided to make Raspberry Cream Cheese Heart Tarts for daddy (I hope he doesn’t read this post before the 14th) to show him just how much we love him. After all, isn’t food the fastest way to a daddy’s heart?

Putting a spin on Pop Tarts, one of my childhood favorites, I came up with the idea of these homemade Heart Tarts. Filled with fresh raspberries and a pink icing that’s made with the juice from the raspberries instead of food coloring, if Pop Tarts had actually been made this way, my mom would have probably allowed me to eat them more often as a kid.

Kenya and I shot a little video of us making this recipe which I’m posting this Friday, but in case you can’t wait that long, I’ve printed how to prepare them below. It’s an unbelievably easy and deliciously fun way to share the love. Just wait till you try them — I bet you won’t be saying “blech” anymore!

Raspberry Cream Cheese Heart Tarts (Makes 10-11 Heart Tarts)

1/2 Cup Raspberries
1/4 Cup Whipped Cream Cheese
1 Tbsp Honey
1 Double Pie Crust Recipe or 1 14 oz Pre-Made Pie Crust*
Water
1 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
10 Raspberries for Icing or 2 Tbsp Juiced Raspberries
1 Tbsp Milk or Water

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place the raspberries, cream cheese and honey in a bowl. Using the back of a fork, mash the raspberries with the cream cheese, leaving some pieces of raspberry intact.
3. Roll the pie crust 1/4 inch thick and using a heart shaped cookie cutter (my heart cookie cutter is about the size of my fist), cut out hearts (or, if you are using packaged pie crust just unroll and cut out hearts).
4. Place one heart on a lightly floured work surface and place 2 tsp of the cream cheese mixture in the very center, leaving a 1/4″ border around the cut-out.
5. Lightly dip your index finger into a cup of water and “brush” the border with the water (this will allow the two sides of the heart to adhere to one another).
6. Top with another heart and take the tines of a fork and gently press down along the edges to adhere (making sure the cream cheese mixture stays inside the heart pocket). With a toothpick, poke some holes in the top of the heart to remove any air pockets.**
7. Place on a parchment or Silpat lined baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until golden.
8. While the hearts are baking, take 10 raspberries, place in a strainer and press down with the back of a spoon to release raspberry juice into a bowl — should be about 2 tbsp of juice depending on how juicy the raspberries are.
9. Whisk in the milk and slowly pour in the powdered sugar to make icing.
10. When cool, take a spoon and spread the raspberry icing over the hearts.
11. Serve.

* You can use prepared Pie Crusts too such as Pillsbury or your favorite brand
** To Freeze: place hearts on a cookie sheet and freeze for one hour. Remove hearts and place in a ziploc bag, label and freeze up to 3 months. When ready follow steps 7-11, adding an extra 3 minutes to the baking time.

Catherine McCord, a model, mom of two and founder of acclaimed food blogWeelicious.com, makes cooking accessible for everyday people with easy and nutritious recipes using fresh, but minimal ingredients. With a new recipe or food story debuting daily, Weelicious is meant for parents to use as an inspirational feeding guide for their families, with recipes that appeal to a range of ages – from infants starting on solid foods to school kids and adults. Catherine has made appearances on various national shows including Today Show, Good Morning America, The Doctors and her work has been published in Parents, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Lucky, People.com, Babble.com, and more.

Those of you that know me well, know I am all about sustainable meat.  I only buy my meat locally from farms where I can actually SEE the animals.  My beef choice always goes to Murdock Farms (if you are local, you MUST check them out and tell Melissa I sent ya! ).  Anyway, I have a ton of beef right now and was looking for some new things to do with it, so we made steak burritos tonight for dinner.

I stole a recipe off allrecipes.com but, in true fun, kitcheny style, I had to make it my own because I didn’t have some of the ingredients.  Most steak taco recipes call for a flat iron steak or a flank steak but I happened to grab a sirloin out of the freezer so that’s what I used.  And now, without further adu, here is my steak taco marinade.

Marinade -

3/4 cup of orange juice (I had no OJ on hand but I did have a box of clemintines so I used their juice for the recipe)

1/3 cup of lime juice (I didn’t have any on hand so I used the stuff in a bottle)

1/2 cup of lemon juice (I used about four lemons)

1/2 cup of soy sauce

1 tablespoon of chili powder

1 tablespoon of paprika

1 tablespoon of white pepper (could use black if you don’t have white on hand)

4 cloves of garlic minced

1 teaspoon of finely chopped chipotle pepper in adobo (we bought a can a while ago, pureed it and froze it – so when I saw this in a recipe, I was able to pull it out of the freezer and nuke a teaspoon – I highly recommend doing this)

1 tablespoon of ground cumin

1 teaspoon of dried oregano

1 teaspoon of dried cilantro

1/2 cup of olive oil

Additional ingredients -

Rice

Black Beans

Shredded Cheese

Burrito (or taco) shells

1 lb of steak

Mix all ingredients except oil.  Once all ingredients are mixed, wisk in olive oil to ensure it is well blended.  Set aside one cup.  Marinade steak in remaining sauce for at least 4 hours (the longer, the better) and flip the steak at least one time to ensure both sides are well coated.

When ready to cook, start rice on one burner, and cook beans on low on another.  Cook meat on a skillet on high heat for two minutes on each side.  This will sear the meat and lock in the juices.  Turn the heat down to low and cook to desired doneness (I like mine pretty close to well done so I did five additional minutes on each side).  Once to the desired doneness, take it off the heat and let the meat rest.  Then heat your shells either in the oven or if using soft shells, you can heat them in a pan on the stovetop.

We have everyone make their own so you can add the desired amount of steak, rice, beans, extra marinade, and cheese.  This was definitely a  favorite in our house!