Friday Foodie - Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

I hate having to throw food away. Sometimes the guilt at having let food spoil brings me to sending up a quick but heartfelt, “I’m sorry!” to the Lord as I chuck it into the trash.

Take bananas, for instance. I love them and I fully intend to eat them when I’m carefully choosing a bunch in the grocery store – just the right balance of yellow with a barely fading green shade along the edges. But instead, many times they end up looking like this:

Yep, you have them, too, I know it.  They're probably lurking in your kitchen right now.  But wait!  There's no need for apologies. Enter…the banana muffin. Or to be more precise, the Chocolate Chip Banana Muffin. A little culinary miracle from rotting food to moist, banana deliciousness.

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 large ripe bananas, mashed

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 20 muffin cups. Beat together butter and sugar at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in bananas until smooth.

2. In another bowl, stir together flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
3. Alternately stir flour mixture, then buttermilk into banana mixture until dry ingredients are just moistened. Stir in vanilla and chocolate chips. Do not overmix batter. It shouldn’t be completely smooth.

4. Spoon batter into prepared pans, filling 2/3 full. Bake until lightly golden, 15-18 minutes.

And in a short 30 minutes we go from ripe bananas, (and redeeming our good steward status) to this:

Enjoy my bloggy friends!