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Hello! Sorry it’s been so long again…I’ve had some behind-the-scenes blog issues to resolve, and being short on time, I’ve had to let the blog sit till I could do some tweaking! Thankfully all issues were resolved today when I upgraded my Firefox browser to the latest edition…whew, simple fix! So here’s that picture I tried to post a while back…of my youngest juggling a full load of cucumbers! We’ve sure had a bumper crop this summer!
And nope, this post is NOT about cucumber muffins…
Okay…about muffins…
One of my adjustments to this back-to-school routine of ours, is in trying not to rely on cold cereals so much for breakfasts. I used to be pretty good at keeping fresh fruit on hand, and occasionally making pancakes or muffins or scrambled eggs for breakfast…but recently got into the cereal habit. It’s easy, the kids can fix their own breakfasts…but it’s expensive and not-so-cozy when it comes to “family mealtime”! And we’ve got *good reason to try to save money these days…so I’m getting back to doing a lot more “from scratch” breakfasts.
So far the muffin plan has been working well for us. It takes a few minutes each evening after supper to throw together the dry ingredients for the morning’s batch…for instance, last night I decided we’d have Jumbo Banana-Carrot Muffins for breakfast…so I mixed up the dry ingredients, and also the wet ingredients (honey, carrots, applesauce), kept the dry mixture on the counter in a sealed bowl, and stuck the wet ingredients in the fridge for morning. Mixing up breakfast took less than three minutes, and most of that was waiting for the egg whites to stiffen in the mixer.
Several of my muffin recipes call for a streusel topping–a mixture of butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped pecans. At the beginning of this “breakfast” planning adventure, I mixed up a quart sized freezer bag full of this topping and stashed it in the freezer to speed up the muffin making process. Pretty handy!
Here’s this morning’s muffin recipe for you…notice that it has no oil or butter, and we enjoyed these just fine WITHOUT the streusel topping!
Jumbo Banana-Carrot Muffins –from the 2008 Taste of Home Annual Recipes, page 284
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (whole wheat works dandy on these)
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
Note from Mary…mix the above dry ingredients together night before…
- 2 eggs, separated
- 1 TB honey
- 1/4 tsp grated orange peel
- 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
- 1 cup shredded carrots
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
I also mixed the above wet ingredients together the night before, excepting the eggs (since they need separated and mixed in different orders) and excepting also the bananas, since they tend to brown. I chop my carrots with my Pampered Chef food chopper, so much faster than grating/shredding them, as I don’t own a food processor. Technically the orange peel isn’t considered a wet ingredient, but it worked just fine doing it this way.
Directions:
In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. In a small mixing bowl, beat egg yolks until light and lemon-colored (I just beat them with a fork). Beat in honey and orange peel. Fold in the bananas, carrots and applesauce. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. (You’ll notice I did things slightly out of order by preparing things the night before, but it didn’t alter the outcome any)
In another small mixing bowl, beat egg whites on high speed until stiff peaks form; fold into batter a third at a time.
Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350*F for 25-30 minutes or until a tooth-oick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.
Yield: 9 jumbo muffins or 17 normal sized muffins
You’ll notice that this recipe is a pretty affordable one to make…no milk, oil or butter…and the only expensive ingredient is the grated orange peel, which, if you keep oranges on hand…you have in abundance if you grate before tossing the peel! I happen to have a spice jar full of orange peel leftover from the days when I made my own orange cappuccino drinks…so it’s good to find a use for it.
Remember, nothin’ says lovin’ like breakfast with a muffin! Ever try breakfast by candlelight?
Here are some more I’m wanting to try:
Tasty Muffin Recipes Suitable for Diabetics and Just In Time for Back-to-School…
Sugar-free Molasses Bran Muffins
Have you ever posted favorite muffin recipes at your site? I’d love a link to them in comments! Thanks!
*trying to save money back for orthodontic expenses, primarily, didn’t want you to think I was expecting or anything! ;O)
mmmm… I need to make more things from scratch too! I rely too much on the “box” for things such as brownies, cakes, and muffins too!
yum! We’ve tried carrot & pineapple muffins, banana chocolate chip muffins, pumpkin and cream cheese muffins – all are delicious!
Amy’s last blog post..Seek the Lord Sunday – Touching Hearts
It’s so easy to rely on the boxed stuff that I think we delude ourselves into thinking cooking from scratch is a big ordeal! It does mean a few more minutes (and dishes–but we have dishwasher’s, right?) but it’s really not that big of a deal. And so much better for us and our wallets! I only let myself spend a certain amount on grocery’s for this pay period, and it sure felt good to stock up on flour, sugar, butter, eggs and instant dry milk…and know that even if we run low on supplies I can make my own bread, cookies, tortillas, biscuits, pancakes, muffins, etc. This is important, because earlier this month I ran out of ALL those things and that was a LONG week!
Amy, those all sound luscious! We actually had pumpkin cream cheese muffins (with streusel topping, of course!!) on this past Thursday and Friday! 😉 So good!
I just made a batch of “Many Muffins Mix” from Jill Bond’s Mega Cooking.
20 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups sugar
3/4 cup baking powder
1 1/2 Tablespoons salt
5 cups powdered milk
I just mixed all this up and put it in a big container.
To use:
2 1/2 cups mix
1 cup water
1/3 cup oil or applesauce
1 egg
Mix together and it makes 12 muffins. Spoon into muffin tins that have been sprayed with oil. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Of course I double that for our family…
To this batter you can add about 1/2 cup of whatever you want to make it special. This week it’s been 1/2 cup pumpkin and some pumpkin spices because I cooked a big pumpkin from the garden. I’ve added pineapple, chopped apples, raisins, dried cranberries, blueberries, fresh chopped cranberries, dried apricot pieces, etc. I love having the mix around. I also tend to use up bits of specialty flours I have laying around (rye, rice, etc)when I mix up the mix, and the muffins are always light and tasty.
This is so nice to have on hand for these cooling off months. I like to start the oven in the morning. By the way I FINALLY made a sourdough starter last week. It’s growing and healthy and I’m exited to make some bread with it next week. It was a recipe where you don’t use any yeast. And then you don’t use yeast in the bread dough either. I captured wild local yeast from the air in my kitchen! Ultimate baking experiment for me.
WOW!!! I’m so depressed that I’m not your next door neighbor, Cena!!!!! This muffin mix sounds like the best thing! I can’t wait to try it and very soon will likely copy and paste that recipe and your comments into a blog post so it doesn’t get lost! I will have to grind some major wheat before tackling that one though! I love the idea of being able to add a half cup of whatever sounds good…my girls will dig that too! Thanks so much for typing it out on here! Yum!!
You captured wild yeast from the air??? That’s something new to me…you should be on Survivor! 😉 Keep me updated on the sourdough…I’ve only tried my hand at it once as part of a homeschool cooking class experiment, it was yummy though and there’s so much you can do with the stuff!
Your comment really blessed my day, you’re contagious, you know! Thanks bunches!