Today while watching some business leadership videos that the UW puts out, they were interviewing the former CEO of Starbucks. He said:
“There Are No Stressful Situations ONLY Stressful Responses”
I love that. Goes along with my life is 10% of what happens and 90% of how you react to it philosophy. Something we should all be working on to remember.

Boozy Banana Bread

1 cup cake flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup butter, at room temperature
2 eggs, well-beaten
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 ¼ cups mashed ripe bananas
3 TBSP bourbon
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped pecans

Glaze:
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 TBSP corn syrup
1 TBSP bourbon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl, cream butter with an electric mixer (I used a stand mixer). Add well-beaten eggs, sugar and bananas. Beat on medium speed for three minutes. Add lemon juice and bourbon, beat 30 seconds.

Add flour mixture and beat until just combined.

Fold in chocolate chips and chopped pecans.

Pour into pan and bake for 50 minutes to an hour or until a toothpick inserted in top center comes out clean. Loaf should spring back slightly to the touch.

Cool completely on wire rack. Then Glaze. (For knock-out flavor, let sit 24 hours before eating.) Wrap in foil to store.

Glaze:

In a small saucepan on medium-low heat the chocolate chips and corn syrup until melted and smooth. Remove from heat. Add the bourbon and whisk until smooth again. Drizzle over cake.

Adapted from My Baking Addiction

I was watching the news yesterday and they were interviewing a man who wanted to remain anonymous (yet you could see his full face and most of his body…duh). He was down at the May Day protest that were happening in Seattle (we really are just Vancouver wannabes) and they asked him why he was protesting. And he gave the best answer ever “I don’t really know, I just figured I should get down here and get me a flat screen TV before other looters get the good stuff”.

Excellent. Congrats on showing your full face and admitting on TV that you are going to loot. That’s fantastic, your parents must be so proud (but then again, sadly they might). Also congrats on having no idea why you were “protesting” in the first place.

I almost started a riot myself yesterday but I had good reason. See my friend was just in Chicago and she knows I have an unnatural love for Mimi’s Café’s Carrot Raisin Muffin and she brought me some home. Yes, clearly she is awesome. But while she was stuck at the airport for way longer than anyone should be stuck at an airport she spent many an hour in the airport bookstore if you want to call it that. Where she found a book, one of those Restaurant Secrets books, that had the recipe for the muffins. She decided to buy it for me so that I could make them and do a comparison.

So that I did. I chose to do the smaller version of the muffin as the ones from the restaurant are over 600 calories a piece and while I don’t usually mind that many calories…when you eat a few in a day that adds up. So off I baked. They batter smelled good and looked fine. I followed the recipe to a T, minus the fact that I only had golden raisins in the apartment. Out they came of the oven I couldn’t wait. So I ate one hot. And then got sad. Nope, not like the real muffin. Not a bad muffin, just not the muffin I was comparing it to…side by side. The good news is clearly I cannot make these at home and so I will not have to go up a pant size. Bad news is that I cannot make my favorite muffin at home. I should have gone and looted something to make up for it….maybe a Williams and Sonoma.

Like I said these may not be THE muffins but they are a decent muffin all together. The recipe called for browning, which I did use, but I am not going to include it in the recipe as it was optional and pointless I think in the overall scheme of things.

So kids, if you are going to go and commit a crime, please try not to go on TV and tell people you are going to…just a thought.

Mimi’s Café Carrot Raisin Muffin (kind of but not really)

1 cup granulated sugar
¼ cup unsalted butter, at room temp
¼ cup molasses
½ cup plus 1 TBSP vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 TBSP buttermilk
½ tsp. vanilla extract
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup raisins
½ cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350F.

Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Add the molasses and beat another 30 seconds.

Add the oil, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla and mix well for 1 minute, or until smooth and creamy.

Add the dry ingredients (flour, soda, and salt) with the mixer on low and mix until just incorporated.

Fold in carrot shreds, raisins, and walnuts, do you best to evenly distribute them…ha!

Fill half way up a standard size muffin pan and bake for 22-25 minutes.

*I would definitely add some sort of pineapple to these when I make them again, they were missing a sweet element that I feel the other muffins have.
From Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur

Clearly you deserve a better post…but that won’t be today. It’s been a long week around here. People who are close to me know that when someone passes in my life I usually bake bread. Not sure why I just always have. Sadly one of our local hockey family, a guy I have played both with and against, passed away on Wednesday morning. He played a game of hockey and said he wasn’t feeling well but still went to his second game of hockey where he played a few shifts. Told everyone he didn’t feel great and was going home. And at 7am the next morning he had a heart attack and died. Life is short people, spend it with the ones you want to, don’t waste your time on anything that isn’t bringing you joy.

I did manage to make something…these are kind of healthy muffins…well healthy for me. I was going to make a pretzel topping but never got around to it. Like I said, weird week.

Peanut Butter White Chocolate Chip Muffins

½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup peanut butter (your choice…I went with Jif)
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
4 eggs
1 TBSP vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat (see the healthy part)
2 ½ tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt
¾ cup whole milk
1 ½ cups white chocolate chips (I went white so that the dog could have a bite )

Preheat oven to 350F.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat together the oil, peanut butter, and sugars until on medium-high speed for 3 minutes, it should get lighter in color.

Add the eggs and vanilla and beat for 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl.

Add ½ the dry ingredients and with the mixer on low add until just combined. Then add the milk, and mix on low. And then add the remaining dry ingredients until just incorporated.

Fold in the white chocolate chips.

Scoop into muffin tins (with liners), doing the standard 2/3 of the way up. You will get 24 of these bad boys…or at least I did.

Bake for 18-20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Remove muffins when completely cool.

Here’s a picture of me with my new do for the late spring into summer. Thank goodness I have friends who are in the industry to keep me looking lovely for cheap.

And since it is Fur Baby Friday here is CCS enjoying some white wine…I kid, she is a dark beer drinker.

I had mentioned on here a couple post back (the Navy Bean Soup one) that I messed with a former principal but in a totally legit way so as to stay out of trouble (I really am a rule follower). Tons of people emailed asking me to share the story…so here we go:

Many years ago I was teaching at a school with quite possibly the most passive-aggressive vice principal ever. Though in her defense she is also the principal whom I respected the most in the fact that she never played favorites and everyone was treated the same.

She was one of those people who wore a skirt or dress to work every day full with pantyhose and expected every female to do as well. FYI- pantyhose plus 115F weather in Phoenix is not a good combo and I refused to go there unless it was winter. Anyway my first year at that school I had a health issue and would randomly wake up and my right side would be swollen beyond recognition…just the right side. Trying to get dressed when one half of you was twice the size of the other half was difficult to say the least, as were the shoes.

I was having to wear the most dressy looking tennis shoes I could find as my cute teacher shoes were not fitting. She pulled me into her office to tell that unless I had a doctor note I couldn’t wear those shoes anymore. She also implied that it wouldn’t hurt if I wore a skirt or dress from time to time either since I was a woman (FYI- this is an HR nightmare). So off to the doctor I went and back I came with a note that said I could wear what I wanted and could wear what footwear I wanted.

So every day I wore non-skirts and pink combat boots. One day when I woke up and nothing was swollen I decided to wear a dress and some cuter shoes. My V.P. I swear followed me everywhere that day giving me positive feedback about how great I looked and how I should wear a dress every day. To the point where I wanted to go into the cafeteria and get a spork and make runs in her pantyhose.

Me being me decided that if she loved me so much in dresses I would go get some. I had seen some hideous ones at Costco and went back to get some. They were a Laura Ingles Muu-Muu gone bad for $14.99 a piece. They had them in four colors which worked perfect for me as I could wear one each day as Wednesday was spirit day and you could wear jeans and a school t-shirt. So I bought all four colors. The fit was dreadful and made me look 17 months pregnant but once I set out to do something this girl follows through. So every Monday I wore the black dress, Tuesday was gray, Thursday was blue, and Friday was purple.

It certainly made life easier in the morning for getting dressed. Though one time CCS threw up on the dress I was supposed to wear the next day and I had to wear the Thursday dress on Tuesday and the kids were screwed up for the whole day. At the end of the year slide show I would come up on a slide and all the kids would shout “it’s Tuesday” or “it’s Friday”. I burned those dresses at the end of the year. Being true to my word and wearing them for 7 months straight…with combat boots. I went back to dressing completely normal the next year (as my health issue cleared up) and the V.P. never said a word about my appearance ever again. >:)

Speaking of having your mind set on something, these pancakes are a good example. I have seen everyone doing the cinnamon roll pancakes and that is well and good but given the choice between a cinnamon roll or a sticky bun I am going the route of the sticky bun. I had seen people put sticky bun sauce over the pancake but I wanted the pancake actually cooked in it. So there became my challenge. These are half cooked in one pan and then moved to another pan so that the batter side can cook in the gooey sticky bun sauce and have the pecans get into the dough…just like a sticky bun. Luckily for me it worked…beautifully I might add! These were insanely good and best served warm as the sauce does harden as it cools like regular sticky buns. If you are a sticky bun fan…make these.

Sticky Bun Pancakes

1 batch buttermilk pancake batter (I used this one)
1 cup brown sugar, divided into fours
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
4 TBSP honey, divided into 4 TBSP
1 1/2 cup pecans, divided four ways

The sauce recipe is divided into fours because you want a fresh batch of sauce for every couple pancakes you make to ensure that the caramel doesn’t burn.

In a small heavy-bottomed sauté pan, bring the brown sugar, butter and honey to a boil over medium-low heat, stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar. Add pecans. Turn off until ready for pancakes.

Prepare a baking sheet with paper towels down and set aside.

Now this part will seem weird, you are going to get a separate large sauté pan and add some butter to cook the pancakes in. Let butter melt and then pour your pancake batter. I made smaller and thicker pancakes so that they would fit into the small sauté pan once transferred. Once they are cooked on one side move them to the prepared baking sheet cooked side down.

Turn the heat back on the sticky bun sauce and add the half cooked pancake to the pan, batter side down. Let pancake simmer for a couple of minutes until cooked through. You can cut and check and see if you are not sure it is cooked through or not.

Once cooked use a spatula to flip the pancake sticky bun side up. Make a small stack and add the extra sauce and sprinkle some more pecans if desired.

Clean your pan out and make a fresh batch of sauce and start all over again. These are more work than your average pancake….but oh so yummy!!!