Bananas,Whole Wheat and Good Friends

This one is for my friend Kathleen who took the time to read my blog and who puts up with my moodiness and general lack of consideration for others during said moodiness.
Finding recipes with whole wheat that taste good and don’t send kids( or husbands) running for the nearest hiding place isn’t easy. Me, I’m semi-lucky in the fact that my husband will try most things once thus making it that my girls must try it too.
Last night Kathleen invited me to a church meeting for the women where a demo for making homemade wheat bread and rhubarb jam were going on. I’m a bit gun shy about church in general but I do love a good cooking demo and getting together with like minded and valued women so I went. I was late, but had a good time.
So this is my recipe to share. I originally found it at the Fun and Food Café(http://www.funandfoodcafe.com/2012/04/healthy-green-muffins.html)  I made a change because I didn’t like the flavor my changes are in blue. I hope you enjoy.

Healthy Green Banana-Nut Muffins

Prep Time: 10 min
Bake Time: 20- 25 min
Servings: 6
Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/3 cup white or brown sugar ( I tried it with both types of sugar and found I liked the tasted better using Dark Brown sugar best)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup yogurt ( I used Greek style yogurt, I have used both plain and honey cinnamon flavored both are good)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 medium-sized banana ( I used a large banana that was very brown skinned with a few yellow spots. I think they make sweeter more banana-y flavor)
1 cup packed baby spinach leaves
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans ( Pecans definitely pecans)
Method
Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Grease or line muffin tin with paper liners and keep
ready. Mash the banana and set aside.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda,cinnamon and salt. In
another bowl, whisk the sugar and egg until creamy and fluffy. Stir in oil, yogurt,
lemon zest, vanilla, and mashed banana.
In a food processor, blend the spinach leaves until very finely chopped. It will
almost look like a pesto, and that’s what we need. Coarse grind the pecans in
another grinder, or just pound them with a mortar-pestle; you can even just chop
them lightly if you like texture.
Fold in the chopped spinach and half of the pecans into the batter, leaving some
of the nuts aside to sprinkle on the top.
Or if you are like me and despise doing dishes. Using your food processor if you have one add the banana,spinach, yogurt, egg, olive oil,  vanilla,and lemon zest to processor all at once. process until you have a creamy mush ( it should look like a green ranch dressing texture) then add while processor is on the remaining dry ingredients except nuts. Process until well mixed. it should look something like this :

stir in your nuts , ( used finely diced pecans) and continue as directed below.
Fill batter into prepared muffin tin, filling
them up to the brim. Remember, this recipe uses whole-wheat flour, which does not
have as much gluten as AP flour, so the muffins will not rise too high, so fill the tin
up to the brim.
Garnish each muffin with the remaining pecans.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until
toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  ( I found 20 minutes to be just right but as ovens vary I would recommend checking at the 20 min mark.)

I found this recipe easily doubles. It can also be made using half whole wheat half all purpose flour or all all purpose flour. The muffins do look green but taste great.