Creamy Dark Chocolate and Banana Muffins (and they're Whole Grain!) (Monday Muffins)

My spouse took this photo.  I think it rocks.  He does, too.

I have a confession to make:  I don't get bananas in my farm share here in Ohio.  I know I started this blog to share how I use seasonal produce--usually from our CSA farm share--to feed the family year 'round.  Sometimes, however, I get good deals on produce that is not part of any farm share I've ever known.  Like 49 cent pints of blueberries in July.  Or speckled bananas for 27 cents a pound.  Because I'm feeding my family from this seasonal abundance, I like to blog about it, too.

There, I'm glad I got that off my chest.  My CSA farm share will be starting up next week, so I'll be sharing more and more farm share recipes in the coming months.  But this is too good not to share.

I think bananas are one of nature's perfect foods.  We planted a banana tree behind our home in Hawaii, and it grew fast and furious despite neglected soil.  Then it flowered a gigantic flower and soon baby bananas appeared.  We never ate any bananas from that tree--apparently someone else was watching the growth and development of our banana bunches as well, because once they got about big enough to harvest, the stem would disappear without a trace.  I guess someone else needed them more than we did.  Just like the local fauna appear to need the blueberries and peaches and strawberries in our backyard here . . . though we managed to snag 13 raspberries last year.

I love that bananas don't fully ripen until after you cut them off the tree.  Not like all the basil threatening to go to seed when you're not ready to make pesto, or the zucchini growing from 4 inches to 18 inches when you turned your back to weed the tomato bed.  When I get a good deal on speckled bananas, I save some on the counter for immediate use and freeze the rest.

And just how easy is it to freeze a banana?  Carefully pick it up by the stem, open your freezer, and set it inside.  Then carefully close the freezer--you're done!  Sure, the skin turns dark brown on a frozen banana, but that same skin did a rockin' awesome job protecting the fruit inside while it was on the tree and that protection continues in your freezer.  I usually set a frozen banana on the counter for 15-20 minutes before easily scraping off the peel with a paring knife.  Forgetting about the banana for an hour means you can just cut off one tip and squish the banana into whatever you're preparing.  Yum, that's a lovely image.

Now that you've snagged bananas when they are perfectly good for baking and cheaper, and stored them properly until you're ready to use them, let's make a muffin.  This recipe is a variation of my favorite soaked oatmeal muffin.  It's best to start it the night before, but letting the oats and buttermilk soak for just an hour is nearly as good.  See NOTE below.

Pickled Pepper and Pepperoni Pizza (Pizza Night!)

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers and placed them properly on a pizza."   --my daughter

I love pickled peppers on submarine sandwiches.  They add just a little pop of zing which really perks up even the plainest meal.  It never occurred to me to put peppers on a pizza, however.  I can credit that to Jodi at the thrift shop where I spend money volunteer.  I really don't know if the banana peppers on the pizza we ordered were pickled or not.  I just knew after having a single bite that I had to try my pickled peppers on a pepperoni pizza.

The members of my family are not huge hot pepper eaters, and when a hot pepper plant is producing, it's going crazy.  In most of the farm shares I've joined, we either got no hot peppers or a pint a week.  I used to use a few fresh farm share hot peppers in salsa and donate the rest of the week's haul to the food bank.  Then I tried pickling my own hot peppers.  My spouse took a jar in to work, and I was rewarded with even more hot peppers to pickle!

This summer, when your garden, your CSA farm share, or your spouse's coworker give you even a quart of hot peppers, I recommend checking out Food in Jars.  Marisa's blog really de-mystified small batch canning and encouraged me to try just a give it a try and see how it went.  I used to check the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving out of my local library until I found it red-stickered at a Target clearance end cap.  Score!

Back to the pickled peppers for tonight's pizza.  If you haven't put up pickled peppers, pick up a jar at the store--or maybe there's one on the door of your fridge?  Go see!

Because I loved that pepperoni and pepper pizza, I figured I'd try and make it at home.  I kept it simple with respect to the dough, sauce, and cheese.  This time, at least.  I just let the pickled peppers give that little pop of zing which did really perk up the slice.  A perky poppy pickled pepper and pepperoni pizza.

Five Food Photography Lessons I Learned/Sunny Hello Dolly Bars

Subtitle:  What I've been doing for the past 30 days

Sub-Subtitle:  There is a recipe, too, so if you just want to know how to make these yummy treats scroll down to the end since I'm going to be chatty for a while

taken on the floor of my mother-in-law's dining room

If you, like my mom and a few friends, have been reading this blog since I started last fall you may notice something different in today's post--the pictures. (And dessert, that's a rare thing, too).  Today the choice of recipe is less about using the abundance from my CSA farm share and more about a journey of self-improvement I started on April Fool's Day.

If you're going to improve something about yourself, why not start on April Fool's?

In March, my friend Alanna sent me a link for an upcoming 30 Days to Better Food Photography challenge. Since it started after a visit from my folks' and ended before my spouse's departure, I decided to go for it.  And it was free, so I had nothing to lose by signing up.

I should pause here and comment that in our family my spouse is the photographer.  When he's away I am capable of recording our family's events, but I don't envision the photographs then take them like he does.  See that photo across the banner?  His.  Where I see a droopy sunflower that needs to be thrown out onto the compost heap, he sees a photo opportunity, grabs the camera, and snaps away.

Even though my spouse is the photographer, unless you see me in the photo and/or I mention otherwise, I've taken the photos on this blog.  When I asked him once to take photos he got all George Costanza* on me and shouted "worlds collide".  Okay then.  I would dream up the recipes, make the food, take the photos, and write the post.   I'd then hand the camera to my spouse who would get my pictures into the computer via some mysterious magical process that made the photos I'd taken look as good as he could make them.  Since he's deploying soon I knew that mysterious process would fall to me, and that brings me to my first lesson learned.

dishes don't have to be white for food photos

Lesson 1:  People learn better when they are motivated and the timing is right.