Feel the love, you have plenty of time to shop next week
/I love this picture so much. It was taken by my friend Rebekkah Drake, who is not only an amazing photographer, but also an all-round fun person and excellent curator of tunes in a pilates class. Rebekkah shot most of the recent Silversun Pickups pics (yay, colored smoke bombs) and this pic is of Nikki, the bass player, running wild though the desert .
I hope you all got to share some wonderment with people you love this holiday weekend. I hope you're full of delicious food, love, and friendship. If you're looking for a good two-hour-killer movie, might I suggest, The Big Short, about the financial crisis and housing bubble crisis from a few years back. It sounds like a bummer, but it's brilliantly acted and produced, plus there's a pretty sweet perm happening on Ryan Gosling, and Steve Carrell is great in his flared-nostril glory. It also made me grateful that I'm not some brainiac banker, who lied out their bumholes and turned our whole economy into a downward spiral shit show.
I didn't do any shopping this weekend, instead I lay horizontal and read Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy about her struggle with anxiety and depression. This also sounds like it should be a bummer, but it's blow-coffee-out-your-nose funny. The chapter where she first touches on her insomnia and about making her taxidermied racoon ride rodeo-style on the cat at 2 a.m. is heaven on a page. She's the kind of woman you want to have over for a cake and Scrabble. Speaking of cake, the only other thing I did of note this long weekend was make (wait... for... it) Gwyneth Paltrow's banana date muffins. I fought with her book It's All Good for a long time, mainly because I felt like such a walking LA cliche saying that I just baked a vegan/Paleo/gluten-free ANYTHING, but trust me, these are pretty great! They have been served to many people (well, at least 8) and no one has died or gagged, or both. Once you get past the 85 pics of Gwynnie in all her goopy glory (In the kitchen! On the beach! With her kids! Setting the table!) there's some great stuff in there.
The recipe is below:
BANANA, DATE AND PUMPKIN SEED MUFFINS
Makes 12
Ingredients
1½ cups almond meal
½ coconut flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
Pinch of sea salt
2 ripe bananas, mashed
½ cup coconut oil, melted
½ cup good-quality maple syrup
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
½ cup pitted dates, roughly chopped
¼ cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas) + more to sprinkle on top
Method
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees (175 if you are a Celsius person).
- Mix dry ingredients (almond meal, coconut flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt) together in a small bowl.
- In a large bowl, mix wet ingredients (bananas, coconut oil, maple syrup, eggs, vanilla essence). Pour dry ingredients into large bowl and combine well.
- Stir through dates and pumpkin seeds. Divide into muffin trays and sprinkle more pumpkin seeds on top of each muffin.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until tops are golden brown.
Note: Warm with a little butter and you're in heaven. OK, I feel I made my somewhat slothy long weekend sound productive! If nothing else, I loved it. Now go hug someone.
