The Perpetual Feast

You know you’ve had those days. Your stomach feels gorpy. You spent an hour on the phone arguing fruitlessly with a customer “service” representative about your account. You’re one step shy of a migraine – or maybe you already have one. You accidentally hit your finger with a hammer and broke it. You need muffin therapy. Just the word muffin is cozy and comforting. Muffin – muffin – muffin. Doesn’t that sound like a warm down quilt, wooly socks, and hot tea? And bananas, that comfort food from childhood. And of course chocolate – aaah chocolate. It needs no introduction. Now don’t go telling me that we need to learn to not seek comfort in food. That just not realistic. Everyone knows that misery loves calories. The trick is to have something gooey and satisfying on hand that also is not really high fat.

Therapeutic Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

3 ripe bananas

1/2 cup egg substitute
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 ounces mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F and place rack in center of oven. Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with cooking spray. Whisk the flour, salt, and baking soda together in a medium bowl. Put the bananas into the large bowl of an electric mixer and beat them until they are well mashed. Beat in the egg substitute. Beat in the sugar. Add the flour mixture about 1/4 cup at a time, until it is incorporated into the banana mixture. Beat in chips. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups until they are about 3/4 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes. Remove muffins from the pan and cool on a rack. These are delicious warm, and can be gently reheated in the microwave. They also freeze well, although I rarely have them left to freeze. These muffins are about 2.6 grams of fat/muffin. Eat two – you’ll feel better.

Variation: You can use regular size chocolate chips, which will make nice big gooey areas of chocolate in your muffins. I like my chocolate spread around more.

Come close. Note the gooey melty chocolate in the muffin.

I must go now. The muffins are warm and require my undivided attention.