Banana Chocolate Hazelnut Muffins

Thanks for all your well wishes for Hannah’s birthday yesterday!  Since she had school all day yesterday, we decided to go out for sushi on Sunday night.  Here she is ready to go:

Although Hannah and I don’t do raw sushi – we like the pot stickers, aged dashi tofu, tempura shrimp and veggies – you know, all the healthy stuff – ha!

Tony wasn’t up yet for going out, but we brought him back a couple rolls (cooked though!) and he was able to eat them with no problem.  His appetite is coming back slowly but surely. 😀

So I told you that Hannah has school all day on Monday’s – her first class starts at 11:00 and her last class doesn’t end until 9:00.  She has an hour and a half break between one of her classes and she calls me to say she wants to ditch the rest of her classes and wants to know if that’s okay.  But here’s the kicker – she contacted her teachers to let them know she wasn’t going to be there – I just never would have shown up – I mean its college for goodness sakes!  Although besides missing a couple classes for being sick, she’s never missed one, so it wasn’t a big deal.

I made Hannah banana muffins before heading to work yesterday.  I had a 2.5 ounce candy bar that was dark chocolate with hazelnuts that I chopped into the batter.  I still need to figure out the nutritional value, but I’ll post it later.     Each muffin:  169 calories, 3.5 fat, 30.6 carbs, 1.1 fiber, 3.5 protein = 4 PointsPlus.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 really ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• 1 6 oz. container plain Greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2.5 ounce dark chocolate with hazelnuts bar, chopped
• 1 tablespoon sugar free brown sugar

Directions:

1. Whisk dry ingredients together.  Mix wet ingredients together.  Mix until just combined.  Stir in the chopped chocolate bar.  Divide the 1 tablespoon of sugar free brown sugar over the top of each muffin – bake for 18 minutes, or until browned on top.

Since my oven was still hot – I baked 5 wonton cups – it only takes about 8 minutes to get them crisp.  I filled these with egg beaters, chopped deli ham, baby spinach and 3/4 ounce of cheese – this whole plate was only 7 points!

I lucked out with fresh strawberries – my store sold them for only .99 last weekend!  I did sprinkle them with a bit of splenda:

The above picture was my afternoon snack – that giant cafe mocha is only 1 point!  It’s 1/2 a package of SF cocoa, 1/2 hot water, 1/2 espresso and then 15 calories of whip cream – 45 calories total and its completely filling – with a muffin on the side. 😀

I went to the gym at lunch – I wasn’t really feeling the run, so I decided that I could walk on an incline for 3 minutes, then run for 2 minutes – but the kicker was that each of my 2 minute runs had to be faster than the last.  I ended up doing 7.5 mph (equivalent to 8 minute mile!) for the last one minute – it felt good!  When I got back I had a grilled cheese sandwich and a serving of my broccoli cheddar soup – no picture as my battery died. 😦 

I had assumed since Hannah ditched school that she was going to just hang out with friends since we went out on Sunday.  Imagine my surprise when Tony and I are done with dinner that she walked in!  We had cheese ravioli – check out the stats!  So I quickly made her some pasta.

My bowl – 4 ounces pasta (wasn’t sure if it was 4 ounces frozen, or 4 ounces cooked – 4 oucnes frozen ended up being 6 ounces cooked, but I stuck with the 4 ounces), 3 ounces Italian sausage, baby spinach and marinara – 11 points.

One of the traditions we have on Hannah’s birthday is watching the videotape when she was born.  I never get tired of watching it!  And since it was 1992, I was still sporting giant eye glasses that covered my face.  I really need to transfer my video tapes to DVD – then I’ll be able to share home movies with you guys. 😀

Time to get ready for work – hope you have a great day and thanks again for all your Happy Birthday wishes for Hannah! 😀

Question of the Day:  Can you eat raw sushi, or just the cooked stuff?