Sunday, August 26, 2007
Muffins
I don't know how it started. But somehow I started the tradition of baking a bunch of muffins and freezing them when it's time to go Back to School. They make a fast and healthy breakfast that can be eaten alone or supplemented with other things. They are a quick and filling after school snack. They are great to put in school lunches. In fact, if you put them in frozen they keep other things cold while they defrost. What could be more perfect?I'll tell you. You can make muffins jam-packed with good stuff and kids like them because they are sweet and cup-cakey. I make my muffins with only whole wheat flour and I especially like recipes that include fruit for extra fiber and vitamins.
One of the all-time favorites is Pumpkin Bread. We try lots of different variations on the recipes and I can never quite keep track of which ones were the best. Most pumpkin bread recipes use milk, which I can't do (C's allergic). Here's the recipe I'll be making next:
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups sugar
3 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 beaten eggs
1 cup oil
2/3 cup water
2 cups mashed pumpkin
Sift goteger dry ingredients. In separate bowl, combine eggs, oil, water, pumpkin and mix well. Add to dry ingredients. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes in greased muffin pan.
Another family favorite is Whole Wheat Applesauce Blueberry Muffins. These can be sweeter if you use sweetened applesauce or healthier by using unsweetened applesauce (that's usually what I do). They are super moist and filling.
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 cup applesauce
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp cinnamon
(I fold in lots of blueberries, too)
Beat oil and sugar until well mixed. Beat in appleasuce and baking soda. Fold in flour and cinnamon. Blend throughly. Pour into muffin tins sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.
My personal favorite is a regular old Whole Wheat Bran Muffins. I ususally just buy some bran cereal from the store and tweak a recipe on the box.
I try lots of different muffin recipes. I like recipes that use new fruits or fruits in combinations that I've never tried. Sometimes we have banana muffins. Once I found a recipe for strawberry-banana muffins. Those didn't turn out so great. By that I mean, that people weren't DYING for them, but they were liked and eaten. It's hard to go wrong with muffins.
My latest experiment was Peaches and Cream Muffins.
batter:
2 cups canned peaches, drained (save syrup)
4 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
3/4 cup oil
2 cups milk
filling:
8 oz cream cheese
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp peach saved peach syrup
1 tsp almond extract
topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
Dice drained peaches to size of peas. Set aside. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In separate bowl combine eggs and oil. Then whisk in the milk. Combine egg and flour mixtures. Then fold in diced peaches.
For filling, beat cream cheese, sugar, peach huice and almosnd extract. Fill greased muffin tins half full of batter. Drop 1 tsp of the filling into each muffin cup of the batter. Top with 1 1/2 tbsp more batter.
For topping, mix cinnamon and sugar. Sprinkle over muffins. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
This recipe was MUCH more work than I usually do for muffins. But don't peaches and cream muffins just sound divine? As it turns out, they weren't that great. I mean, don't get me wrong. They were good. Just not the kind of good that was worth all that extra work. You can't really taste the peaches and the almond extract in the cream is just too much. Next time I would leave that out completely. The recipe says it makes 24 so I doubled it. But it ended up making 72. And then of course I had to halve it and make a whole other batch with soymilk and fake cream cheese for Allergy Boy. He likes them, though. But boy I was wiped out. All but 10 are sitting in my freezer right now. I think that makes a total of 75 frozen muffins.
Should last a day or two anyway.
link | posted by Real at 7:35 AM
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Friday, August 24, 2007
Freezer Meals
So, I haven't been writing much over here. Not that many people read this blog anyway, so I don't think it's a great loss. Nevertheless, I'm still struggling to feed my family. Here are two posts (here and here)where you can read about what I've been up to lately.Oh yeah. And this one.
link | posted by Real at 5:08 PM
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