Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I've gotten into the habit lately of letting the last couple bananas of the bunch turn brown and sticking them in my freezer to make use of at a later day. Coincidentally my freezer door has gotten into the habit of flying open whenever it feels like it. After lying in bed one night unable to fall asleep because I was afraid my freezer would open during the night and all of the bacon and individual servings of soup inside of it would spoil, I resorted to taping the door shut with a strip of masking tape. The tape has worked so far, but I realize that the bigger problem is me loading my freezer with things like aging bananas and leftovers that I will probably never eat but feel guilty about throwing away. It seems slightly asinine that I'm unable to throw away about 25 cents worth of old bananas, but we all have our quirks, don't we?

My initial plan for the bananas involved a banana chocolate chip bar recipe that I found in my co-op's monthly newsletter. Unfortunately when the time came to make the bars they had replaced the October newsletter with the November one and the recipe was nowhere to be found. I resorted to searching Epicurious for something involving bananas and chocolate chips, ultimately settling on a muffin recipe. I doctored them up a bit with extra chocolate chips, peanut butter, and some oats, and the result was very tasty muffins. I thought about calling them Banana Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Muffins, but that's a little wordy, isn't it? The banana and the chocolate are the flavors that really stand out and make them taste just like my mom's banana chocolate chip cookies in muffin form, so I'm going to stick with the abbreviated version.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Adapted from Bon Appetit, March 1999

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup rolled oats

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

1 large egg

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1 cup (at least) semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl combine the flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl combine the bananas, egg, butter, milk, and peanut butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until combined, and then stir in the chocolate chips.

Pour mixture into 12 lined muffin cups. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the tops are slightly golden and a tester comes out clean. Transfer to a rack to cool.