What to do with all those left-over bananas....

In our house, we always have left over bananas. They get brown and no one wants to eat them anymore. Then we freeze them and they disappear.....

I have a solution. Banana muffins and granola bars (granola bars?...just wait.) Now I am taking full advantage of having a kitchen this summer, when I go back to MSU I will sadly only have a microwave and refrigerator (muffins in the microwave? maybe). Anyway, I would definitely make these granola bars on a weekend home to bring back to school for a snack. They are super healthy with no added oil or sugar (I know... believe it). Much healthier than any packaged version with tons of nuts and dried to fruit to keep me full between meals. These are so much better than mindless snacking on chips or crackers or even going to the cafeteria for a 4th meal. Okay here we go.

Homemade Granola Bars
Adapted from So Good and Tasty
Makes: 8

Ingredients: 
2 ripe bananas
1/2 cup nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew, walnut, sunflower), preferably all natural
1/2 cup roughly chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts, pistachio, cashew, pecan, macadamia)
1/4 cup seeds (sunflower, sesame, poppy, chia)
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup dried fruit (cranberry, cherry, mango, raisin, strawberry, blueberry)
1/4 cup chocolate chips or cocao nibs (optional but recommended :)
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions: 

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line an 8x8 baking dish with parchment paper.

Step 2: For me, the second step was to make the nut butter. I don't eat peanut butter, I think I am slightly allergic (my throat gets itchy, weird I know). I could probably suck it up, but I don't like it. So if you are a peanut butter eater, go for it and skip this step. All natural is better if you want to keep the added sugar and oil low. There is also almond butter and sunflower butter out there, but it was too expensive for me to want to buy and there is not a huge all natural selection at Meijer. So I made my own. Walnuts in the bulk food section were on sale so I went for those. I just ground them up in the food processor until it was looking like nut butter and all sticking together. Just walnuts, in the food processor. I put 1.5 cups in there and I had left over that I am going to use for a sandwich tomorrow (walnut butter and jelly anyone?).

Step 3: Now it is time to mash your bananas. I did it on a cutting board with a fork. 2 bananas.

Step 4: Combine everything! Rolled oats, chopped nuts, seeds, dried fruit, cinnamon, chocolate chips (if you are using them), and nut butter. So, like I said Meijer does not have a huge all natural selection. My walnuts for the butter were not roasted or salted. For my chopped nuts I used pistachios, these were also in bulk in the shells but they were salted (it really didn't take me too long to shell half a cup, don't worry). Use WHATEVER you like, I wanted to get something that was not roasted (again to keep the added oil low) so pistachios it was. But I love them so I think I would add them again. I used raisins for my fruit, an old standby. They have no added sugar and are easy to find/ cheap enough. I would like to dry my own fruit and add that in here too. Then I used 60% cacao chips. Dark chocolate is so delicious and it does have the antioxidants in there. Plus the 60% has way less sugar and I like the bitter edge. 

Step 5: The batter will be wet, but it will bake. Spread evenly in the baking dish. Bake 20-25 minutes until the top is slightly brown and they give a bit when you push in on them. Allow to cool completely before you cut them into bars, this is important!! Keep them tightly wrapped in a container or in the fridge (if they last that long). I wrapped mine in plastic wrap. 

Yum, enjoy! 

Now, lets move on to the muffins. This recipe is very loosely based on Betty Crocker's Banana Bread. In her recipe she uses sugar, butter and eggs. I cut all of that stuff out to make super healthy muffins. The yogurt takes the place of the eggs and sugar. I used a vanilla variety which has sugar in it already. The yogurt also acts as a binding (instead of the eggs). Muffins are commonly mistaken for a breakfast food. Betty's muffins are not breakfast, they are frostless cupcakes. But this updated version would fit in nicely for breakfast with a glass of skim milk and piece of fruit.

Whole Wheat Banana Muffins 
Loosely Based on Betty Crocker Banana Nut Bread
Makes: 12 Muffins 

Ingredients: 
4 bananas
1/4 cup low fat vanilla yogurt
1 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
raisins, choc. chips, or nuts (optional)

Directions: 
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a muffin tin, or spray with non stick cooking spray.
Step 2: Mash up the bananas. You should be a pro at this by now :)
Step 3: This step is optional. If you do not like chunks of banana in your muffins you can blend the banana and yogurt. I did not do this though.
Step 4: Add the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Combine until throughly mixed and moist. You can add the mix-ins here if you are making all the same kind of muffins, I add mine later.

Step 5: Spoon into the muffin tin. I use two spoons. This is when I added the mix-ins. I had 3 regular, 6 with dark chocolate and 3 with raisins. Bake for 18-25 minutes.

Enjoy your healthy treats! :) 

Yeah....he helped. :)