bananas Archives - Healthy Green Kitchen

When I was a kid, I spent many a winter and spring break with my maternal grandparents in Arizona. Oh, how I loved those vacations.

I loved the fresh orange juice my grandpa would squeeze for us each morning, playing with my brother at the pool, and shopping with my grandparents. I also loved everything my grandma made us to eat. (My parents owned a pretty fancy restaurant so at home we ate things like confit of duck and scalloped potatoes. At my grandparents we got to eat “normal” food: like tacos and banana cream pie!)

Recently, I was thinking about how much I miss my grandparents. Missing them made me crave banana cream pie something fierce, so I decided to make one.

My grandma made her pie with a store-bought crust and vanilla pudding from a box: I thought it was the most delicious thing ever, but I opted to make mine with whole foods ingredients from scratch. (I used the recipe in Joy of Cooking because that’s where I turn for classic recipes.) My daughter helped me make it by slicing the bananas and placing them “just so”.

The verdict? It was pretty darn delicious and I will definitely be making banana cream pie again! Maybe next time I will change it up a bit, though…see the bottom of this post for some amazing-looking banana cream pie variations from fellow bloggers.

I’m participating in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) which means I’m blogging every day of November, 2013!

I am really particular about my bananas. I love snacking on ones that are just on the verge of ripeness, but once they hit that ripe to slightly overripe phase? Blech: they kind of gross me out. So most of the bananas I buy end up being frozen to put into smoothies, or I let them blacken. Then I make banana bread or muffins.

I have been eyeing a recipe for Coconut Cocoa Banana Muffins over on the lovely blog Food Loves Writing for a while now. Yesterday I was going to make those muffins but then I realized I was out of eggs (yes, even those of us with chickens find ourselves without eggs sometimes!). So I decided to change up the muffins a bit and make them vegan, and to leave out the cocoa and coconut since my family really prefers simple to embellished when it comes to baked goods.

These vegan banana muffins really are exceedingly simple to make, and they are delicious! They have wonderful banana flavor and a dense texture I really like. I used Florida Crystals Demerara Cane Sugar to sweeten them, but you can use any type of granulated sugar, including organic cane sugar or coconut sugar, in yours. I tossed bittersweet, fair-trade chocolate chips into 1/3 of the batter, but accept my apologies for not measuring exactly how much I used (I am a terrible food blogger sometimes!) If you prefer to make these with an egg and butter, they won’t be vegan (but they will be yummy). We’ve been enjoying them with a smear of organic peanut butter on top.

Be sure to check out all of Shanna’s recipes. I frequently drool over her food and her writing! Speaking of her writing, she wrote one of the most beautiful ebooks I have read: it’s called Written Together: A Story of Beginnings, in the Kitchen and Beyond. I read it a few months ago and absolutely loved it…you will love it, too!

Banana Cream Pie

Vegan Banana Muffins