Sounds tropical

Being stuck with a large black plantain and half a can of coconut milk from dinner one night, I sat down to think of what I could make. It isn't hard to make a dish with those two ingredients, but nothing I found when I did a search looked appetizing to me at the moment. So I thought (this next part is very scholarly), plaintains....bananas. Bananas....banana muffins! I decided I wanted to make plantain muffins and add in the coconut milk somehow. This was sounding very yummy to me already. So I went to my mom's house to get her banana muffin recipe, the one I grew up on and the only one I will ever make. I pretty much just stuck with the recipe, except subbing plantains for the bananas, coconut extract for some of the vanilla, and half of the butter for coconut milk.

Coconut Plaintain Muffins

• 2 large eggs


• 1/4 cup softened butter


• 1/4 cup coconut milk


• ½ tsp salt


• ½ tsp vanilla extract


• ½ tsp coconut extract


• 1 large black plantain


• 1 tsp baking soda


• 1 cup sugar


• 1 ½ cup white flour

The steps to this banana muffin recipe are another reason I love it so much!

Step 1: Mix everything together (you don't even have to mash the plantain first if you don't want to).

Step 2: Pour into 12 prepared muffin tins and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Step 3: Enjoy :)

P.S. These were better than regular ol' banana bread anyday!

We'll call this my pear phase

I go through phases with my food, especially with fruit. Let's say I really like oranges. For the next few weeks I will buy and eat nothing but oranges. Then I will get so sick of them that I won't even want to look at oranges for weeks! Then I will slowly lose my disgust and will incorporate oranges back into a normal part of my diet. Or start the vivious cycle over again...

A few months back my food of choice for my phase was the lovely pear. There is nothing I love more than a ripe, juicy pear. And at one point I might as well have been single handedly supporting all the pear farmers in America.

When I started to lose my interest in pears, I realized that I had so many and I needed to use them up. So I went to allrecipes.com and typed in "pear." One thing that caught my eye was pear bread. I had never heard of that. Banana bread I had eaten, zucchini bread I have eaten, but no pear bread. So I went with what looked like a good recipe, Pear Bread I. Click the title for the original recipe, below is the recipe with a couple changes. I normally don't like to make changes the first time I make a recipe (mainly because I don't like reviewers who change the recipe around and then give it a bad rating) but I figured my changes didn't change it too much (plus I wasn't reviewing it on the website).

Pear Bread

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tblsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup applesauce
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups peeled shredded pears (I used two large pears)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• dash of nutmeg (still not sure why I did that...)

In a large mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Make a well in the center of the bowl.

In a separate bowl combine the oil, eggs, sugar, grated pears, and vanilla. Blend well. Add to well of dry ingredients. Stir until just moistened.

Spoon batter into 2 greased and floured 8x5x3 inch loaf pans. (I actually used one loaf pan, unsure of the exact size, and two mini loaf pans)
Bake in a preheated 325 degree F (165 degrees C) oven for one hour and 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack before removing from the loaf pans. (time varies, watch closely after about an hour)

I really liked this bread. Many reviewers thought this was too "cakey," but to me it was perfect and better than I expected. It was moist with just the right amount of sweetness. Overall the pear taste was very subtle, but every now and again I would bite into a shredded piece of pear and get a burst of flavor.