Cheery And Cheer: Garden Musings and A Recipe For Overripe Bananas

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Garden Musings and A Recipe For Overripe Bananas

Baby cake made from leftover batter - with ganache

It's been overcast and windy with rain on and off the last couple days so we did some yard work while we could. We ran my huge load of yard debris from the yellow house to the landfill and then I set out to my long perennial border I call the sun border here to plant about 20 plants from the yellow house yard that have been saved and will live on. Sea Hollies, phlox, japanese iris, artemesia lactiflora, lamb's ear, and a couple more roses.

Here are a few pictures of a perennial I have grown for years that I have never seen in another's yard and you don't generally find at nurseries and I can't figure out why since it is a wonderful, long blooming and easy to grown perennial - Persicaria. I read about it in a flower catalog and ordered it on blind faith. I am so glad I did, so much that I brought all the ones I had in the Yellow House garden and replanted them here in Rye and ordered more for this new garden. I have three varieties in my yard now; here are two.

Persicaria Microcephala "Red Dragon" with a Cranesbill variety unknown

The Persicaria has the pie shaped leave and tiny white flowers; the crane bill has the tiny purple flowers - both have been blooming the entire summer and right up until today in late October.

Persicaria amplexicaulis Firetail

These species of plants grows to about 3 feet tall and a couple feet wide and like I said in the caption, they bloom all summer and fall, disappear into the ground after you cut them back in early winter, they have no scent, but the dainty flowers look so graceful and lively in the border and look wonderful with whatever plants they are sharing space with. You can see how cool the Red Dragon looks growing intertwined with the Cranesbill. Those Persicarias are all first year plants ordered from an online nursery back in May and came in 3" pots and they really took off! By the way, the local nursery here had no true name tags for that cranesbill, which is the perennial geranium; bummer. I bought twelve of them and put them in groups of threes in the front of borders in four areas of the gardens.

Another really wonderful flower and annual that is overlooked is the Tagetes Marigold, or french culinary marigold. This one is called Lemon Gem. These are the only kind of marigolds I plant. They have a very pungent lemon herby scent and ferny foliage and butter yellow blooms. There is also a dark orange variety. A six pack of plants interspersed among newly planted perennials quickly fills the bare spots and blooms non stop and yes, is still blooming in late October. I planted two six packs in a very new and bare border and look how nicely they filled spots with cheer and color.

After the yard work, I had to head over to Applecrest Farms to pick up our CSA farm share. Look at the brilliant foliage on the trees next to my car - how gloriously they show even in the overcast - my heart swelled with joy!

Totally cheery and cheer on this dreary and drear day.

This week's box - 1 more to go after this for the season :(

I had a pile of over ripe bananas so I decided to make some really tasty and moist Double Chocolate Banana muffins (they are more of a cake than muffin) to bake, frost and freeze for future use, like when grandkids come over, or teenagers, or a Sunday School class of youth I bake for every Sunday just because, or when either I or my husband have a hankering for a good cupcake, eaten cold but not frozen is how I like them best. I doubled the batch which make 24 muffins and then I had enough batter to make a 4" baby cake for a couple girlfriends that popped over later in the evening. This is the original recipe. Makes 12 (or more)

Double Chocolate Banana Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. baking powder

Mix these six together in your mixing bowl. In another bowl mash together:

3 large or 4 small very over ripe bananas

1/3 cup vegetable oil (or olive or coconut)

1 egg

1 t. vanilla

Add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined. Add 1 cup semi or bittersweet chocolate chips and stir in. Fill muffin tins greased or lined 3/4 full. I sprinkled a few pecans and walnuts on half of them. Bake 350 for 20-25 minutes. Less is better.

I frosted the cake with ganache and the cupcakes with a glaze of heavy cream with powdered sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt and them shaved Guittard bittersweet chocolate.

The cupcakes/muffins went right into the Happy freezer.

Chocolate is extremely important to me and I tend to hoard it just in case. Since 70% of the cacao crop is grown in West Africa and I read an article recently which stated that the Ebola crisis could affect the cacao crops due to closed borders (for workers), and quarantines and whatever other problem it creates; whether or not that proves to be true and you know how the media can be, nevertheless, I ordered a lot more cocoa powders and chocolate blocks for baking and hot chocolate because I just can't take any chances people. By the way, there is a fabulous online chocolate supplier which stocks almost every kind of brand name chocolate from all over the world, for baking and eating called World Wide Chocolate. Good prices too. I placed an order with them pronto and used the Cocoa Barry Extra Brute for these muffins. It's not a dutched chocolate but it was very dark anyway. Lovely. And the muffins are too.