Tarragon and Chives

  Everyone should have a grandmother who bakes banana walnut muffins with cinnamon sugar and mini chocolate chips, or anything with bananas and chocolate chips.  My grandkids are lucky like that but this time I baked the goods and ended up with a dozen muffins in my freezer which was great because my husband and I enjoyed them a few at a time for breakfast, sorry kids.  I particularly like this muffin recipe so I'm going to share it with all my fellow banana 🍌 baking lovers. Ingredients and Recipe for Banana Walnut Muffins with Cinnamon Sugar and Chocolate Chips makes 12 generous muffins  1 & 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon  1/2 cup chopped walnuts 8 tablespoons or 1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature  3/4 cup sugar 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 large ripe bananas, peeled and mashed, about 1 cup 1/2 cup half and half for the topping 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips 2 tab...

My landscaper and his wife went to Palm Springs last weekend and came back with a 5 pound box of Medjool dates all for me. Of course I've been sharing the wealth with friends and family but now I'm getting down to the business of baking with Medjool dates, which is a pretty cool thing to do. I have quite a few recipes I enjoy that use dates but I always like to try new recipes, especially for baking. It's no secret with my family that I like to use ripe bananas for homemade banana bread, especially for my grandkids. I found a recipe that I doubled to make three loaves of banana bread adding Medjool dates in an interesting and delicious way, I'm sharing this recipe today. Like most people, we love desserts around the Christmas holidays and a few years ago I started making a Scrumptious date cake with a toffee sauce from a Sur La Table cooking class I took in San Francisco.  That cake recipe will eventually make its way on to the pages of my new blog, Tarragon and C...