I’ve mentioned before that my little guy is a.k.a. “the muffin man” around our house.  I made these for him (and me) the other day after looking at some pitiful leftover zucchini that was screaming “use me!!” in the veggie drawer.  I adapted a zucchini bread recipe that I found in my beloved Magnolia Bakery cookbook into muffins and they turned out perfectly.  I cut down the amount of sugar and oil in the recipe by substituting natural unsweetened applesauce.  My rule of thumb (which is not backed up by any scientific baking data) is to substitute half the oil for the same amount of applesauce, and cut the sugar in just about half when doing so.  If you like more of a sweeter muffin then stick to the original amount of sugar in the recipe, but I like to cut back on the sugar whenever possible.

Don’t forget to enter your favorite Chili recipe into my Chili Cookoff Contest for a chance to win an awesome gift basket from Bush’s Beans!  Winner will be chosen randomly, contest ends Saturday, April 3 at midnight.

Zucchini Nut Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil (preferably canola)
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1/3 cup sugar (original recipe calls for 3/4 cup sugar)
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup shredded zucchini, plus a little extra for optional topping (about 1 medium zucchini, with skin)
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin tin with non stick spray.
2. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, n the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat together the oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and thick, about 3 minutes. Stir in zucchini.
4. Add dry ingredients and gently mix until just combined. Stir in the chopped nuts.
5. Pour the batter into muffin tins, filling each tin about 3/4 full. Sprinkle some shredded zucchini on top of each uncooked muffin. Place in preheated oven and bake for about 15-18 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out clean. Let cool slightly before taking out of muffin pan. Makes a dozen muffins.

Recipe adapted from Zucchini Walnut Bread, The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

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Not long ago, a good friend of mine graciously lent me her waffle maker for a “test drive”. I’ve been wanting to buy one of my own, but like most kitchen gadgets, I wasn’t sure if it was something I was going to really use. My kids eat waffles for breakfast several times a week, so I thought, like pancakes, that it might be a good idea to make large batches of homemade waffles and freeze them.

So last Sunday, we tried out our first batch of homemade waffles. I’ll just say that I couldn’t make them fast enough! Everyone loved them…and they just kept asking for more! I was lucky enough to be able to sit down and eat the last two for my own breakfast.

I found a recipe on Recipezaar that I toyed with and made my own. We have made them 2 Sundays in a row and have really enjoyed them both times. I am thinking it is going to become a Sunday tradition…

I guess I’ll be going out to buy my own waffle maker this week…thank you Betsy for the loaner! 😉

Sunday Morning Waffles

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup turbinado sugar (or regular sugar)
• 3 TB baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups lowfat buttermilk (can substitute lowfat milk)
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup applesauce
• 2 TB flax meal
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Add buttermilk, eggs, applesauce and flax meal to the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Pour approximately 1/3 cup of the batter per waffle into the waffle maker and cook according to waffle maker directions.
2. Serve with a small bit of butter, maple syrup and fruit.

 

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Have a great week!

(Gina and Sammy, Flagler Beach, Saturday April 4)

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Happy Monday to you! I’m surprisingly a Monday person…Mondays tend to be a good day for me. I have lots of energy on Mondays and am ready to start the week, mostly getting myself and the family organized, projects started and the house cleaned up….by Thursday though, it’s a totally different story. I really start to slow down on Thursdays…not a big fan of Thursdays, except for Thursday night TV…but now I am rambling aren’t I?

I did bake these muffins last Thursday though…some of our friends were moving out of state and we were going to be going over to say our good byes. I wanted to bring them something they could snack on during their big moving trip…I haven’t made these Pumpkin Muffins in a while and my son has been begging to bake some lately. This time I decided to add some mini chocolate chips into the batch, I’ve been seeing really great pumpkin-chocolate combinations in blog world lately and I’ve had a craving! They came out really yummy!

I decided not to “healthy them up” this time since we were planning to give most of them away (that sounds terrible doesn’t it?). I stuck to the original recipe for the most part which actually is Paula Deen’s Pumpkin Bread recipe (from her Lady and Sons cookbook). The changes I made were subbing applesauce for vegetable oil and the cooking time since they were mini muffins instead of bread loaves.

Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients:

• 3 cups sugar
• 1 cup applesauce (original recipe uses 1 cup vegetable oil)
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups canned pumpkin
• 2/3 cup water
• 3 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 35o degrees. Place liners into mini muffin pan and spray insides of liners with non stick spray.
2. Mix sugar and oil with mixer. Add eggs and blend. Add pumpkin and blend. Add water and blend. Combine remaining ingredients and add slowly. With a spoon or small ice cream scooper fill baking cups equally. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.
3. These make a ton of mini muffins. You can also divide the batter into two loaf pans and bake for 1 hour for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread.

adapted from Paula Deen, The Lady and Sons cookbook

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