Whole Wheat Banana Maple Muffins with Sunflower Seeds Recipe

1 box of Hodgson Mills Whole Wheat Muffin Mix
3/4 c sunflower seeds, with 2 tbs set aside
1 cup rice milk (any milk would probably work, that's just the kind I had at home)
2 tbs maple syrup
about 1/4 tsp cardamom, clove, nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon, split in half
1 tbs sugar
1 egg
1 tbs slightly melted butter
2 ripe bananas

Preheat oven to 400. Mash ripe bananas and milk until well incorporated. Add the rest of the wet ingredients and stir until well blended. Sift in the whole wheat mix just until well mixed. Add the spices (being sure to set aside 1/2 tsp sugar) and sunflower seeds (being sure to set aside 2 tbs of seeds). Mix well then pour into greased muffin tin. I got a yield of 12 regular sized muffins. In a separate bowl, mix sugar, seeds and cinnamon then sprinkle generously on the top of each muffin. Bake about 20 or until they pass the toothpick test.

Cooking Greens

We had some yummy and very inexpensive kale with dinner yesterday. You can get a bag of frozen blue curl kale for 1.99 at Whole Foods. the key to cooking greens well is having a smoky flavor, an earthy flavor, a spicy flavor, a smidge of fat and a sweet flavor. Lots of people do bacon for fat and smoke but I don't eat pork so here's what I did:

Med high heat 1/2 tbs butter and 1 tbs olive oil, sautee 4 sliced garlic cloves and 1 sliced onion til they're clear, add the kale and stir then sprinkle about 1/4 cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp tumeric, 1 tsp soy sauce, 1 tsp honey and about a cup of veggie broth, season to taste with salt and pepper, cook until the kale is heated through, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom and let the broth reduced. It takes about 15 mins.