Muffin of sorts

Here I had a sole aging banana, and the desire to make banana nut bread again. And Adarsh wanted muffins. And I was nursing a terrible cold, and didn't feel like doing any kind of work. But felt emotionally obliged to make something fun for my son over the weekend. As Rajesh took Adarsh on his Sunday activities, I took stock of my woefully bare pantry (only in some items:)), and also had a baby with cold "kade-var"(reminded of Mukta bai). So here is what I came up with...

Banana-nut-chocolate chip muffins (makes about 12 medium sized muffins)
Ingredients:
1 sorry banana - mashed pulp about 1/2 measure (I used my rice measuring cup - 160 ml - 2/3 of the normal cup, and based my measurements on this unit)
1/2 measure - milk - pantry staple
3/4 measure - brown sugar - pantry excess
1/2 measure - sour cream - pantry excess
1 egg
1-1/2 tbsp butter - pantry staple
1/2 measure AP flour (maida) - pantry constraint
1/2 measure rava - pantry staple
1/2 measure atta (whole-wheat flour) - pantry staple
handful (probably 1/4 measure) walnuts chopped
handful (probably 1/4 measure) semi-sweet chocolate chips - pantry excess on request from Adarsh
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

Procedure:
Heat oven to 350 F. Beat well the mashed bananas, milk, butter(melted would be good), egg, sour cream(can be substituted with yogurt), sugar and vanilla. Fold in the flours and the baking powder, baking soda and the cinnamon. Finally add the nuts and chocolate chips. Pour into paper-lined muffin tins, and bake for about 20-25 minutes, until a skewer poked into the muffin comes out clean.

P.S.: I am not bothering with pictures, as I realize that that is my handicap. Didn't even take pictures this time (I do have several posts in draft, on which I want to upload the pictures, and then publish :))

Overall, we were quite pleased with the results. The sweetness was muted, just to our liking, and the rava and atta lent a nice dense texture to the muffins. I was worried that the result wouldn't be banana-ey, but we could taste the banana. If I had more bananas, I would add another one, and take away the milk.

Pizzaaaaaaaaa

Making pizza dough has become a de-riguer thing for me these days, thanks to the epicure in my son, Adarsh. Bloom some yeast in some warm water, make other additions like salt, sugar/honey, olive oil/yogurt/potato, mix in flour (mix of all-purpose and whole-wheat/atta), let it rest for a while, knead it, and you have a multipurpose dough ready.

If you've kneaded dough for rotis, you can swing the proportions too, after a couple of times of measured practice...

Top it with goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers and you've got yourself a gourmet pizza.

Top it with home-made tomato sauce, some mozzarella cheese, and you've got your kid happy.
Add mushrooms, pepper, onions, olives, jalapenos, and you have a vegetable pizza

Make a white sauce, slather on the rolled out pizza dough, add broccoli, corn or spinach with some pecorino-romano/parmesan/cheddar cheese.

The options for pizza are endless..

Or stuff it with curried cauliflower/onion/potato/left-over curries, and you can call it stuffed naan-kulcha

Or make it plain, and you have some yummy naan...

I also used some tile leftover from a bathroom remodel as my pizza stone, and the oven at 500 F, and you have a close recreation of the brick-oven pizzeria...

Get your palette ready, and color away to the varied possibilities...

State of my pantry

4 kinds of urad daal
~16 kinds of beans
6 kinds of rice

Not a toor daal in sight :(