Bumble downstairs on a Saturday morning. Brew strong coffee. Look in fridge. See buttermilk left over from making Brown Butter Cornbread. Sounds like muffins to me.

Usually when I bake with bananas I either mash or cube them and then caramelize them for extra flavor, but if I have bananas that are in danger of getting too brown to eat out of hand, I also peel and freeze them for use in smoothies or baking. I recently got a Vita-Mix Vita-Prep 3 as a gift, and it really is just about the greatest thing I’ve ever owned. The darn thing can puree hard-frozen bananas like they were made of room temperature butter. So I thought I’d see how it would turn out if I mixed all the wet ingredients right in the blender. Bueno! The results were tender, with a moist, open crumb. If you don’t have a jet-powered blender, you can do the same thing but simply use unfrozen bananas or defrost them in the microwave first.

Find Michael’s recipe for Banana, Buttermilk, and Brown Sugar (“Triple B”) Muffins on Herbivoracious.

Michael Natkin lives in Seattle with his wife and their two kids. A software engineer specializing in computer graphics for 25 years, Natkin left the tech world in 2012 to commit himself fully to his love of food. His debut cookbook, Herbivoracious, and companion blog celebrate his passion for bringing big flavors and good culinary technique to vegetarian cooking. He shares amazing and kid-friendly meatless recipes and cooking ideas with his friends at ParentMap and hopes to soon open a small, innovative restaurant in Seattle, so stay tuned!