New Recipe

I had some leftover ham and a can of pineapple chunks, so I looked for a recipe that used both of them. I ended up with a multitude of results from simple to way too complicated (I don't mind cooking, but I'm not interested in anything with twenty ingredients and three pages of steps to follow.) Eventually I found a very simple recipe and almost followed it.

It was basically ham, green onions, and pineapple chunks. The sauce was pineapple juice, cider vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, and corn starch.

I didn't have any green onions, so I used the bit of red onion I had in the fridge. 

I didn't have enough pineapple juice but I just adjusted the amounts on the sauce and had less of it. That worked well, actually, because the picture in the recipe had a lot of sauce and I was just as happy with less sauce.

I didn't have enough pineapple (as with the juice, it's simply that I only had one small tin of pineapple), but that was okay because I had most of a small bag of matchstick carrots that I added.

I don't have any cider vinegar; instead, I used some red wine vinegar.

That's only 4 changes (and one was just a reduction in the amount of sauce so it barely counts). I think it still counts as the same recipe!

At any rate, I made some rice to go with it and it turned out to be a very good meal. I have enough leftovers for tomorrow and three individual meal-sized containers in the freezer. It's definitely something I will make again when I have leftover ham.

Banana Muffins

Today is not insanely hot and I'm not working, a rare combination in the summer. I'm taking advantage of this mix to make muffins. I don't often cook in the summer because the oven heats up my apartment too much, so today is nice.

For your cooking pleasure, I present my banana muffin recipe:

3 bananas (well, 3-ish; if you have 4, by all means use all four, especially if they're small)
1 egg
1/3 cup oil
a small container of yogurt (the size you pack in lunches) or the rough equivalent*
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cup flour

Mash up the bananas, add the egg, oil, yogurt, and sugar, and mix well. Add the baking soda and flour** and mix just until everything is wet and mushy; do not over-mix.

Fill your muffin cups and bake at 350 for around 30 minutes (maybe a bit less, maybe a bit more; it depends on your oven). You should get 12 muffins.

*About the yogurt: it's optional. The original recipe didn't call for yogurt, but one day I was making muffins and discovered that I didn't have any eggs. I searched on-line for a solution and discovered that yogurt can replace eggs when making muffins (although not for everything), so I threw in a small container of vanilla yogurt. I liked the texture, so now I add it all the time, even when I have eggs. The muffins are moister and the vanilla flavor is nice. You can leave out the yogurt or try different flavors.

**Okay, true baking confession time: I know I'm supposed to mix the dry ingredients separately and then add them. I don't. I add the baking soda and get it all mixed in, and then I add the flour. I see no reason to dirty another bowl for baking soda and flour.