Millet and More

I love this cookbook. Ask Noah, I usually don't like cook books, they cramp my style some in the kitchen...but this one...oh it's wonderful. Full of interesting ingredients (do you know what sea vegetables are? Anyone? How about quinoa?) and lots of great ideas about how to create meals that the whole family can eat, even the little bitties that dwell with you. It also has a lot of great principles, which I love. I want to know why something works, not just follow directions. That way I can apply the principle to something else later.

So, tonight, when trying to figure out what to make with the wonderful steaks that I was thawing to grill (finally warm enough today!), I was flipping though and realized I had some millet in the cupboard. I cooked it up for dinner, first time we had it, and it wasn't too bad...another grain to add to our rotation.

We had tons of millet left after dinner. Remembering there was a little note about what to do with leftover millet, I grabbed the book again and made a couple of things I had never made before. First, the millet became mix with some oil, milk, yeast, whole wheat flour, and salt to become the starter for bread. We'll see how it turns out...I have to let the starter sit for 24 hours before I can finish it.


The other thing we had abundance of was ripe bananas. So, those became banana blueberry muffins. Oh, they are so yummy. And shhhhhh, I actually pureed the leftover mixed veggies (squash, zucchini, carrots, and green beans) and added those. Here is the recipe.


Banana Blueberry Muffins
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I don't really know what pastry flour is, but I just used the whole wheat I had in the cupboard)
1 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt (I used regular, only because I don't have sea salt right now)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup poppy seeds (this would have been great, but I used all mine up last week)
2 cups banana puree
1/2 cup maple syrup or concentrated fruit sweetener
1/2 cup soy milk (don't have soy milk, so we used regular old cow's milk)
1/3 cup cold-pressed vegetable oil (didn't have that either, used olive oil, more expensive, I know, but it works)
2 teaspoon vanilla (oh man, I pulled out the good stuff from Mexico!)
1 cup fresh blueberries (didn't have fresh, but frozen from this summer is just as good, and I upped it to about 2 cups)

Preheat over to 375. Put flours, cornmeal, baking powder, salt cinnamon and poppy seeds in large mixing bowl and stir; set aside. Place banana, syrup, soy milk, oil, and vanilla in blender, blend until smooth. Add wet ingredients to dry mix, stir. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups with batter to top. Bake 25-30 minutes.

For Babies 6 months and older
Mash up some extra ripe bananas and serve

For Babies 10 months and older
Blend 1/2 ripe banana with 2 tablespoon s blueberries and serve for a naturally sweet treat


Oh so good!