Chocolate Banana Muffins

I try to do something special for each of the kids to make them feel good and to get at least one day started off well. My oldest son stops at the convenient store once a week for a chocolate muffin.  Every Friday we leave a couple minutes early and he goes in to buy his muffin. $1.68 isn't bad, but I hate that I've been paying for something I could make on my own. Not to mention the fact that no matter what kind I make, it would still be healthier and better for him than that one he buys! So yesterday I asked him if he would like me to make him some so we didn't have to buy them. He was more than willing to let me make him some. He always has faith that I can do it. Even though I have made some stuff that wasn't even dog worthy. Talk about yuck!

So off I went to look for some chocolate muffins that might take the place of his Friday morning breakfast. Didn't take long to find a "healthy" muffin recipe that was chocolate on Pinterest. Usually those two words do NOT go together! I clicked the link and read the blog and looked over the recipe. Looked very good! It was sweetened with honey instead of sugar and had plenty of bananas in it to be qualified as a healthy muffin. Then it only had two tbs of oil! The perfect amount if you ask me. So I went to the grocery store yesterday and got everything I needed to make these muffins and got to work. Well, actually by the time everything was said and done I only had time to mix the batter then it was time to get kids and do our hectic routine of being busy till bedtime. So I covered it with plastic wrap and went. But when I got back I preheated the oven and baked them. I also prepared a not so healthy chocolate muffin recipe I found on allrecipes.com just in case these didn't turn out. Needless to say we have a lot of muffins to eat now!

The one of the left is the "healthy" muffin that I was proud to give to my kids for breakfast this morning. The one on the right is the regular chocolate muffin. Both are good by the way! The picture below this is the inside of them. I switched them around by accident though. SO the left one is the regular and the right one is the healthy. You can see that the healthy muffin has much more of a muffin like texture, but it's still moist and not so dry. The regular one actually has more of a cupcake taste and feel. Just doesn't have icing on it.

So if you want to make these take a look over here at Tutti Dolci to find the recipe! When I made them, I substituted some of the flour with whole wheat. 1/2 a cup to be precise. ;) And if you mash up all your bananas and you find that you are a little bit short, just throw in some unsweetened applesauce to make up the difference and call it good. I had to. LOL You just never know if those 3 small bananas are going to be 1 1/2 cups or not. I had to use about a tbs of applesauce. And if you are like me and just a little shy of 1/3 cup of honey, don't fret, it's still good!

Pan De Polvo

After searching for days I could not find a single recipe that made pan de polvo. A cookie that melts like dust(polvo) in your mouth. Only really tasty! I did find tons of recipes for a Mexican wedding cookie, which might be similar, but it's NOT the same thing! So I decided I would share my recipe.

Warning!!! These cookies are really not good for you. And they are totally addicting! The recipe makes a LOT and don't let their size fool you. These bite size cookies are too good to eat just one. I find myself sneaking in the kitchen to eat one, or two or three, all day long. And before you know it, I've eaten them all!

What you need...
Shortening
Flour
Salt
Ground Cinnamon
Cinnamon Sticks
Anise
Water
Sugar and Cinnamon mixture


First make a tea with the cinnamon sticks and anise seeds. What I do is put two sticks of cinnamon crushed up in about 1 and 1/4 cup of water and add about a teaspoon full of anise. Boil that for a little while to make a tea. I boil mine slowly then let it sit for a while to let the cinnamon flavor come out more. Once it's completely cool in the pan strain out all the cinnamon and anise and place in the fridge to get cold. You want the tea to be very cold for the recipe! It just works better, trust me on this one.

Sift the flour, salt and ground cinnamon into a large bowl. I use a wire whisk to mix it all upand evenly distribute the salt and cinnamon. I have no idea if this is actually necessary, but that's what I do. lol

Measure out your shortening and place into the bowl. This is the messy part... Use your hand to mix it all together really well.

Then add the cinnamon tea to the dough and use your hand to mix it up really well.

The next part is up to you! You can roll out the dough and use little tiny cookie cutters to make shapes. You can just make little balls and flatten them on the cookie sheet. You can use a cookie press... What ever you choose, it will all work out in the end. I like to roll it out and use the little cookie cutters. I love the way they look better. lol And you can make them to suit the season or holiday. Although, these are mostly eaten around the Christmas holidays around here.

Place the shapes(or what ever) on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for about 25 minutes. Time may vary. You want the cookie to be barely even turning brown on the bottom. If you over cook them they kind of taste burned with out looking burned.

As soon as they come out of the oven toss them in the cinnamon and sugar mixture and coat them well. Then set them out to cool completely before storing. As good as these cookies are, they taste way better when they have cooled completely. Even better the next day!


Ingredients
6 cups of flour
2 and 2/3 cups of vegetable shortening
1 teaspoon of salt
1 table spoon of cinnamon
2 sticks of cinnamon
1 teaspoon anise seeds
1 and 1/4 to 1 and 1/2 cups water
Cinnamon and sugar mixture(to desired taste)
*I like a lot of cinnamon in mine that's why I added cinnamon to the dough.

Really Know???

I think my husband and I are done with our relationship but neither one of us knows how to end it. I know he's done trying to meet the needs of others. All, if not most, of his energy goes into work, doing well and moving up. None of it is going into his home life anymore and even the kids see what an ass he is when he drinks(which is every night). Luckily the little ones are usually in bed before he's had more than one or two.
Me... I don't want to let go because this is a life choice that I made and I intend to keep it going. Call it religion or what ever you want. I am a christian and do have christian values, but I made a promise to him and my kids(even the ones that weren't born yet) to be married and stay married for the rest of my life. I told my husband that before we got married and that was the reason that I didn't marry him the first time around. This is one thing that I feel so strongly about! So I keep hope that one day he will want to try again. And one day his desire for me will come back.
Here's the bad part... my desire is gone now. My desire for him I mean. I think that after so much negativity from a person no matter what they look like(which I think my husband is good looking by the way) they can still become undesirable to you. So I've had fantasies about another person. No sex involved, just lust and kisses and hugging and cudeling. It's so hard for me though because that's NOT what I want. It's a contradiction to the values I have clung to all of my life. It's even sneaking into dreams now and it kind of scares me. I think that if this other person were here in town or even wanted to be a part of my life I might fail and go to him. And I just feel really sad knowing that it probably could be a possibility if everything was set in a way that it could even happen. Perhaps, that's why my mind has chosen this person?
I used to feel so good about myself and pretty confident that I wasn't bad looking. Now, not so much. My husband only wants to give me a hug or to lay down with me when he's been drinking(and even then it's still few and far between). I just can't even make myself want to anymore though. That fact alone turns me off.
All of that said... this weekend we are going to celebrate our 9th anniversary. It's actually during the week but I already know he won't try to get off work for it (he might not be able to if he tried anyways) so I'm planning a night and half day with just us(maybe just the day part though depends on if other people can take the kids for us). I'm trying to find people to watch the kids on Saturday night. If not my in-laws will watch them all for us on Sunday. I already have a place for lunch on Sunday for us to go and a place on Saturday for dinner if we can. Then on Sunday I have a movie picked out that he might like to see at the theatre. If I can get him to do more then we may do something after dinner on Saturday night.
Dinner and a movie are all thing that we just fall back on on the time. I don't feel the desire to be more creative than that unfortunately. But I do feel like I need to get him out of the house and out with just us two for a while. That time may decide our fate. I am going with the best attitude and looking forward to a good time at least. But deep down inside I know that he could turn that time into a fight and it will just all be over. I think I just need this, I need to know him again and I need to really see how he is with me. It might, just maybe, make up my mind on us.