We all know of Elvis Presley's affinity for peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I make a pretty mean version of that — spread some honey on the bread first, then some peanut butter, then a mashed banana; put it all together, spread butter on the outside of the bread, and fry it up like a grilled cheese sandwich.

Warm, gooey, sweet, with just a little bit of protein to delude a girl into thinking that it will balance out the carbs and sugars — ha! My son Jeremy loves them ... LOVES them. I haven't made these for a long, long time; I might have to indulge him, to make up for the extra hours at work these days during our busy season. Yes, I can buy his affection with food.

One of the ways that I cope with stress is to cook and to bake. Other people rely upon drive-thrus and take-out when life gets busy; I decompress in the kitchen. And the other day, I had some bananas to use up. But instead of making plain ol' banana bread, I made Elvis Muffins.

I'm sure you can already guess the primary ingredients in these beauties: peanut butter and banana. But there's whole wheat flour to make them more nutritious, and a sprinkling of honey-roasted peanuts on top "just 'cause."

They're easy to make, they were apparently quite the hit with my boyfriend Tom's co-workers when he brought some in to share, and the house smells amazing as they bake. These muffins are just "A Big Hunk o' Love," in honor of The King.

Elvis Muffins

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter (ideally, Michigan's own Koeze's)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3 medium bananas, mashed
1 cup unbleached white flour
3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup honey-roasted peanuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350F. Fill a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

In a large bowl, combine the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar. Stir in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the bananas. Add the white flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; mix well. Divide batter among the lined cups. Sprinkle tops of muffins with the chopped peanuts.

Bake for 25 minutes or so, until a tester comes out clean.

(This recipe was originally published on Food Floozie on August 17, 2010.)

Mary Bilyeu has won or placed in more than 60 cooking contests and writes about her adventures in the kitchen. The phrase "You Should Only Be Happy" (written in Hebrew on the stone pictured next to the blog's title) comes from Deuteronomy 16:15 and is a wish for all her readers as they cook along with her ... may you always be happy here. Check out her blog -- Food Floozie -- in which she cooks, reviews restaurants, and generally enthuses and effuses over all things food-related. Or send an email to yentamary@gmail.com.