whole wheat banana hazelnut muffins.

a.k.a: super-dense-keep-you-full-for-hours-convenient-and-yummy-breakfast-muffins!

i actually made this exact batch of muffins way back in august! i'm not sure why i hid them away for so long, because they were really delicious, hearty, textural, and filling!

they're made with some healthier ingredients and turned out very moist, dense (in a good way), and tasty. i would eat one in the morning at work and be FULL until lunch. especially if you spread some almond butter or something on top! so perfectly tame and easy to stomach early in the morning.

i have a weird problem with not being able to eat non-breakfast foods right when i wake up. i need something subtle to ease my way in to life. some folks i know do not have this problem at all and could wake up crack o' dawn and chow down a spaghetti dinner or a bowl of meat stew or something. me, nuh uh.

i really loooove hazelnuts. if you don't like, you can leave them out or substitute another type of nut. i'm all about that crunch factor baybay.

these also contain wheat germ, which i happened to have in the pantry, but i wouldn't say its totally necessary since you're adding whole wheat flour + oats anyway.

my dad used to make some lady's "healthy" cookie recipe and they contained wheat germ, so i always mentally held wheat germ on a pedestal of supreeeme health. i think it just adds some extra protein & vitamins to the mix, ain't nothing wrong with that!

they are especially delicious when cut in half and warmed up with a pat of butter & honey. :)

now that i look at these again, i think they would be really good with diced caramelized apple chunks in there as well. mmm, cozy. ima try it, mmk!

Whole Wheat Banana Hazelnut Muffins

Makes 12 regular sized muffins

Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 TB honey
• 1/3 cup wheat germ
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup oats
• 1/3 cup chopped hazelnuts
• dash of nutmeg (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand mixer or large mixing bowl, cream together the brown sugar and egg. Stir in the mashed bananas and honey.

Slowly add all dry ingredients, mixing in between additions until the flour is incorporated. Lastly, add the oats, chopped hazelnuts, and a dash of nutmeg if desired. Mix until just combined. 

Spray, oil, or place paper cupcake liners in a regular sized 12-muffin tin.  Using a spoon or measuring cup, fill each cup about 2/3 full of batter.

Place the muffin pan on top of a flat baking sheet and place in the oven, to prevent burned muffin bottoms (the worst!). 

Bake for about 23 minutes.  Around 20 minutes, pull out of the oven and check the center of a muffin with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, the muffins are done. If the toothpick is still slightly goopy, return to the oven for just a few minutes. Do not over-bake.

enjoy!

qp

holiday season in new york city.

i'm SO happy to have visited new york city during the holidays last month. i just love love love it. four days there are never enough!

i went with my friend whitney! we went to nyc together last october and wanted to come back around christmas time. and that we did. 

^^^ this photo above was the view from the roof of our airbnb. it was kind of cold while we were there, but we still went up here in the mornings for coffee & views. loved ittttt.

the airbnb we stayed at was all-around fab. great location in chelsea in a nice building, with everything we needed for a few days.

first meal of the trip: big salads from sweetgreen. so fresh & hearty! and the bevs they have there are super refreshing. nothing makes you feel more disgusting and slimy than a long ride on an airplane, train, and subway, so these salads were the perfect dinner choice that night.

mine had little bites of falafel and hummus atop. whit's was some sort of delish bowl of harvest. sweet potatoes & apples i think?

^^^ ca-uuute festive liquor store.  ca-uuute friend waiting for da sub. ^^^

breakfast at bubby's! whenever i see this pic on my phone i want that blueberry pancake back, stat.

^^^ at tom's aka monk's from seinfeld :)

(i'm also watching seinfeld as i type this. #dweeeeeb.)

aMaAaAaAziNg cookies from levain bakery! holy wow. really good. howeeeevvverrr...i DO think that "THE COOKIE" from metropolitan market in the seattle area gives the levain chocolate chip a run for its money. in fact, i think i like THE COOKIE more, which is a very bold statement! if you have had THE COOKIE from met market, you know. how do they do it? i don't make this stuff up. truly. the BEST COOKIE EVA.

traveling is super exhausting. and a trip like this where you have to squeeeeeze all the new york city things into less than 4 days is a lot of work, physically. we basically didn't stop moving, walking, carrying, running across streets, riding subways, walking, eating, drinking, walking...the entire time. even though it was a vacation and we loved every minute of it, its just not "relaxing," per se. whit and i talked about how the most "relaxing" part of this entire trip was sitting on this sunny bench on a quiet street in harlem eating our cookies. HA!

new york's most exciting hotel experience.

alsoooo, yaaassss to fulfilling all of my home alone 2 dreams during this trip :)

^^^ must say... we were disappointed by the tree at rockefeller center. i guess all the movies and tv stuff we've seen throughout our lives make the tree seem GINORMOUS. i mean, yeah, its a bigass tree. but...not as big as we'd built up in our minds. glad we got to see it though! i was definitely excited about it. maybe we should have gone to see it at night instead. 

we went to this secret bar called little branch that took us forever to find. if you blink, you will miss it! there are so many fun restaurants & bars in this town...it's really the best.

the butcher's daughter. sooo cute. great healthy food, too.

we decided that there are so many more "healthier" food options throughout new york city compared to seattle. i do wish there were more places here with lighter food options that you don't need to go across town to get to or whatever. they exist, but in nyc they are sprinkled all over!

seeing the 9/11 memorial for the first time was pretty intense and emotional! i didn't really know what the memorial looked like before we got there but once i saw it, wow. i didn't take many photos besides this one ^^^ on the right. seeing that gaping hole in the ground where one of the towers once stood was very overwhelming and insane. it is definitely worth spending time at if you're in the financial district or near the world trade center.

the oculus mall next to the world trade center. crazy place.

whitney & i got the chance to go tour the bon appétit magazine test kitchen in the world trade center! it was soo cool! 

i felt very official getting my photo taken and them sending us up the fancy elevators. it would be a wild place to go to work every single day, just from the security perspective.

my manager at work got me connected with someone who works here in the test kitchen for a quick tour (thanks adrian & amelia!). i'm a lover/avid reader of bon appétit, so it was awesome to see how the cooking and photography portion of the magazine is created!

they have amaaazing views of the city from their floor, it was nuts. you could even see the statue of liberty. would be such an amazing place to work, in many ways!

it was a beautiful afternoon, so we walked across the brooklyn bridge! 

this was really cool with different views of the city. it takes about 20-30 minutes to walk across, assuming everyone else is moseying along taking 87 photos of the same thing (me!).

DUMBO! down under the manhattan bridge overpass.

oh yayayyayy. this was one of our only solid plans we had for the trip. an evening at eataly in the flatiron district, and a neapolitan style pizza making class!

baita is this cozy winter wonderland at la birreria restaurant on the roof of eataly! 

pizza class! 

^^^that appetizer was super delicious. it was like a beet purée with pesto, burrata, and that fluffy potato + cheese bread (that's at least how i remember it). it was gooooooood.

our instructors were super italian, which made the class all the more fun. we learned a lot about what makes a neapolitan pizza actually legit. hint: simplicity!

the class was a little expensive, but it was like our birthday gift to each other since we both had our birthdays in december. it was definitely a fun life experience type of gift to take an italian pizza class from real italians in the heart of new york city at christmas time. 

in addition to making our own individual pizzas and getting a pound of pizza dough to bring home (one of the weirder things i've been stopped at airport security for - next to the time i brought a paper coffee cup full of sea shells wrapped in kleenex through security in north carolina and they made me unwrap each shell individually...), they fed us a lot of amazing pizza, too!

a four cheese + gorgonzola & basil, a fancy new import of italian prosciutto + arugula & shaved parmesan, and classic margherita pizza - tomato sauce, mozzarella, & basil. 

all were amazingly delicious, oh man. beer & wine tastings were also a part of the class. at the end, he made these nutella + cinnamon sugar treats with the leftover pizza dough, which were incredible. we definitely ate to our heart's content that evening. it was most delightful & fun!

cue SATC theme song.

we actually just happened to be walking by carrie's street on our way to breakfast, so we had to stop by her apartment and see what she, samantha, miranda, & charlotte were up to. (in my head, they're my real friends, it's cooooo.)

but really, sex & the city stands the test of time (i guess it wasn't that long ago, but seems like it! re-watch it and laugh at all the scenes where they're just figuring out e-mail and this thing called "google."). bitches still be crazy for it. some french chicks took this photo of us while they were also here to paparazzi carrie's abode.

festive, festive, festive.

breakfast at jack's wife freda!

i had the green shakshuka and whit got this supa fresh mediterranean breakfast salad with eggs, avo & pita. so much flavor!

the bright green hot sauce was amazing. must re-create. and how cute are their sugar packets?^

into the plaza for some festive christmas tree scoping. 

sidenote: earlier in the trip we were getting out of an elevator at the ritz carlton after using their fine facilities, and our gal jennifer aniston was walking in! hiiiiii jen! whitney died a little bit since she is her all-time fav. she was very pretty and very small in real life.

beautiful!!!

afternoon at the metropolitan museum of art! such a massive building.

i wanna go back to this very rooftop in the summa summa summa tiiiime. or maybe spring spring spring tiiiime or whenever its not hot & humid as hell in new york. 

again, new york, i love you. i will be back.

all photos taken on my iphone 6. 

qp