Chobani Banana Almond Muffins

So we’ve made it to Friday – woot!  I actually have Monday off and next Friday off for Good Friday, so next week will be a nice 3 day work week – gotta love when that happens!

Doesn’t everyone wake up an hour before having to leave work and decide to make muffins?  Yep, that was me.  7:00 a.m.  I usually have an iced coffee in the morning with the coffee from the day before before making a new pot.  I reached into the fridge for the coffee creamer, saw a Chobani staring at me and decided “I have time to make muffins!”

I adapted the recipe from Chobani’s just a bit, because I didn’t have whole wheat flour, I only used two bananas, and I subbed in olive oil for the oil, and reduced that to 1/3 of a cup, not half a cup. And I added a pinch of coarse sugar and slivered almonds on top.   Their original recipe made 18 muffins, I used a regular muffin tin and only got 12.  So I thought the calories would be about 160 each since I used less oil and bananas, but since I got 6 less muffins, they were each 219 calories.  Oops – I told my co-workers they were 160 calories!

Chobani Banana Almond Muffins

• 219 calories, 7 fat, 49 sodium, 34 carbs, 1.4 fiber and 4.6 protein

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 bananas
• 1 cup brown sugar, not packed
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds
• 1 container Lemon Chobani (or banana or vanilla would work)
• 2 tablespoons coarse sugar

Heat oven to 350.  Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and mix well.  Mix the bananas, brown sugar, olive oil and egg together.  Combine the two.  I just used a fork to mix the two together.

Spray muffin tin with Pam, divide batter into a 12 muffin tin pan.  Sprinkle the sugar and almonds over each muffin and press into batter.  Bake for 18-23 minutes.  Mine took exactly 18 minutes and they were perfect.  The topping gave it an added crunch and they were almost cake like – so fluffy on the inside.

If you have a birthday coming up, or you need the perfect gift for the cook in your life, splurge and buy Williams-Sonoma’s Goldtouch muffin pan.  They have a whole line of Goldtouch products that are amazing.  While the price tag is high – $30 – it has a lifetime guarantee – if it starts to chip or anything, they will replace it for free.  Nothing ever sticks!

One of my bosses took me out to lunch yesterday for my birthday.  It was a new to me restaurant just minutes from our office called Stone Eagle Tavern.  Their menu was huge!  Guess what is on their appetizer menu??  Reuben Egg Rolls!

But what caught my eye?  The turkey burger.  And not just any turkey burger, but a turkey breast burger!

Wisconsin turkey burger – white turkey breast, charbroiled and topped with Brie, avocado with a side of cranberry sauce, on a soft pretzel roll.  YOLO!

Let’s just take a second to stare at the perfectly creamy avocado and the melty brie cheese.  I told my boss “I probably will only eat half of this!”  Well, I ate the whole thing.  The fries were those skinny ones, which are fine when you first get them, but they get cold fast.  I didn’t care – this was the perfect combination – the schmear of cranberry sauce was the perfect balance to the brie, and guess what?  The burger was so juicy!  Hands down the best turkey burger I’ve ever had.

When I got back to the office, I texted Tony:

I just went to a great restaurant and had the turkey burger!”

Tony:  You cannot judge a restaurant by eating a horrible Turkey burger.

Me: But it was the best turkey burger I have ever had.

Tony: That’s like saying that’s the best time I was ever shot.”

Mind you, it’s probably been about 20 years since Tony has even eaten a turkey burger, and they have come a long way.  I may even recreate this one at home!

Guess what?  I labeled something that I put in the freezer!

Sadly, I didn’t date it, so I can’t link back to the original recipe (well, I didn’t look very hard) but this was delicious.  The meat was super flavorful.  We each had about a 4 ounce portion, with white rice and rice vinegar cucumbers on the side.

So it’s 16 degrees right now.  WTH?!  And Winter Storm Virgil might bring us some snow this weekend.  Gah – so over winter!  And guess what I got at work yesterday in the mail?

Yep – a pre-season sale to order our office Christmas cards! 

Wow, I wrote fast today – I still have 25 minutes to get ready and out the door – I could almost go back to bed for 10 minutes!

Happy Friday – make it a great day!