banana, date and lemongrass muffins - a world foods giveaway

... there's a very funny episode of Friends where, for some reason or other, the gang are talking about how to explain to kids that a beloved pet has died and that the classic story to tell is that the cat has gone to live on a farm where it's now chasing mice and chickens, living a happy and fulfilled life... as is always the case Ross remarks that it's so funny because their cat actually did go to a farm to chase mice and chicken and of course Monica has to break the truth to him gently... well on Saturday we took Audrey The Cat to her new home, well I say 'we' but The Viking couldn't quite handle the goodbyes and even though I told him it would only be au revoir he was wracked with mixed feelings of guilt and remorse at losing her so he very much stayed at home. To be honest it was quite an emotional event but I know that Elaine and George will give her a wonderful home and whilst these past couple of months have been fraught with anxious emotions over the welfare of the poor little beast, one hopes she'll now have the chance to live a full and fun life for many many years, chasing mice and chickens... I decided we needed something sweet to help stifle the emotions a little...

banana date and lemongrass muffins
you'll remember that a couple of weeks back I had a wonderful evening learning to cook asian food at the School of Wok courtesy of the gorgeous World Foods... one of the amazing dishes they served up to us was a sponge cake made with an entire pot of their incredible lemongrass paste. It was an impressive and innovative cake and was like nothing i'd had before. I was lucky enough to be given a pot of the lemongrass to take home and i've been wandering what to do with the stuff for a while now and then on Sunday evening I saw that Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen had made some banana muffins and I was instantly inspired to make some too and whist routine around for the ingredients the pot of lemongrass almost fell into my hands and, like all eureka moments, the seed was sown...

... they don't look like much but they were phenomenally good, getting more moist the longer we left them and fortunately for one of you lovely people out there you don't just have to read about how good they were... you can be in with a chance of not only winning a pot of lemongrass but the entire range of World Food sauces and pastes... I know!... the range has a whopping 18 items and has the value of over £30 and includes: Thai Red Paste, Thai Yellow Curry, Thai Masaman Paste, Thai Panang Paste, Thai Basil Curry, Indonesian Fried Nasai Goreng, Malaysian Rendang Curry Paste, Singapeorean Nyonya Laksa Paste, Thai Tom Yum Paste, Thai Green Paste, Garlic Paste, Chilli Paste, Lemongrass Paste, Thai Sweet Chilli with Kaffir Lime Dipping Sauce, Chinese Ginger, Garlic & Chilli Dipping Sauce, Pad Thai Noodle Sauce, Thai Turmeric Lemon Grass Marinade, Malaysian Sweet Chilli Coconut Marinade

... all you have to do to enter is answer the simple question in the rafflecopter gadget below - good luck!

makes 12 medium muffins
8oz self raising flour
4oz butter
4oz brown sugar
4oz dates - roughly chopped
1 ripe banana - mashed
2 large free-range eggs
3 large tablespoons lemongrass paste

pre-heat the oven to 170C and line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases

in a large bowl use your hands to rub the butter into the flour and brown sugar, then add the mashed banana, lemongrass paste and eggs and mix together with a wooden spoon - the mixture will start quite dry and then very quickly turn into a wet batter

spoon into your muffin cases so that they are two thirds full and bake for 25 mins then set aside to cool

a Rafflecopter giveaway

eat and of course, enjoy!