Healthy Muffins That Taste Good

I invented a muffin recipe last night. I don't know what to call it. Fibre Packed Muffins That Don't Taste Crappy? I don't know, but if you try these and you like them, maybe you can help me come up with a name. I really like these muffins, and so do my daughter and husband. They have coconut in them, so if you're avoiding that, omit it. It will still work out.

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup quick cooking oats
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
• 2 tbsp ground flaxseed
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup raisins (we use Sun Maid)
  
• 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots (we use Sun Maid)
• 1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut (we used Let's Do... Organic! Coconut and have verified they don't use peanuts/other nuts)
  

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 425 F.
In a small bowl, combine milk and oats; let soak for 15 minutes. Add egg and oil after that time, then stir. In a large bowl, sift together flours, wheat germ, flaxseed, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir wet ingredients into dry, until just combined. Add raisins, coconut and chopped dried apricots. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups until cups are 2/3 full. Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. When the muffin springs back up when you touch it, it's done.

Best Ever Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies

These are soft, chewy and delicious ginger molasses cookies with gorgeous sparkling sugar on the outside. They are absolutely, hands-down, my favourite cookie of all time.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup of melted butter
1 cup of brown sugar (we use golden brown)
1 slightly beaten egg
1/4 cup of fancy molasses
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger

In a medium bowl, combine the first four ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients. Blend dry ingredients into wet. Cover and chill dough for one hour.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Roll dough into one inch balls, then roll in white sugar. Place cookies 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets (I used a silpat, and they turn out great). Bake for 8-10 minutes, until tops are a little crackly. Cool on sheet for five minutes, then place on wire racks to cool further. To keep the cookies soft, chewy and fabulous, place a piece of bread in a covered container. It really works. They'll stay fresh-baked soft until they are gone.

Best Ever Blueberry Muffins

I have tried several blueberry muffins recipes and none have been what I'm looking for. I found my new favourite yesterday on allrecipes.com and tweaked it a bit to add whole wheat flour. It doesn't make many muffins, just eight, but it can be doubled. The batter is very thick and the crumb topping is a very pretty addition.

Best Ever Blueberry Muffins

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

For the topping

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

In one bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. In a measuring cup, measure out the oil, then crack the egg and fill with milk until the cup measures "one cup". Mix together with dry ingredients until just moistened, then stir in blueberries. I used frozen and it made no difference. Line eight muffin cups with paper liners, then fill 3/4 full with batter. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, flour and cinnamon, then cut in the cubed butter until you have very fine crumbs. I had to use my hands for this. It makes way more topping than you need. Spoon a little onto each cup of muffin batter and bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes. We needed 25 minutes.

These smell so unbelievably good while baking.

Vanilla Frozen Yogurt

I forgot to take a picture of our delicious, creamy, tangy and smooth frozen yogurt tonight. I was so excited to have it turn out that I forgot to grab the camera. We just grabbed spoons and dug right in!

We recently got an ice cream maker. It's a Cuisinart 2 QT Ice Cream, Frozen Yogurt and Sorbet maker. There was a little bit of a learning curve with it, and I made banana ice cream before I made the frozen yogurt (so, a few days ago) but it wasn't good and not worth blogging about. It had way too much banana (GASP!) and tasted like, well, a cold and overripe banana. Anyway, I discovered that to be successful in your homemade ice cream (via a machine, though) endeavour, the assembled ingredients should be chilled for a while until you put it in the machine, and you should not take out the frozen bowl until, like, seconds before you put the stuff in.

I winged tonights recipe and was so happy to have it turn out. I need to try a frozen yogurt recipe that uses gelatin because this stuff melts fast and I know that will help. However, laziness won out. C'est la vie. At least it was delicious!

Lisa's Fast and Lazy Vanilla Frozen Yogurt

1 cup of plain whole milk (5%) yogurt
1 cup of vanilla whole milk (5% or so) yogurt
1/2 cup of milk (used 1%)
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp sugar
splash o' vanilla

Mix together in some sort of bowl (not the ice cream maker bowl!) and chill for a couple of hours. When ready, freeze according to your maker's directions. Eat immediately, 'cause it's gonna melt. Everyone loved this, especially Little Miss. She kept grabbing my face and squeezing my cheeks, grinning wildly and crowing, "I eating fwozen yogurt! It's weally dood!" I thought it tasted just like yogen fruz. I think next time I'll add some smashed berries to it near the end of the mixing cycle.

Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins

I love rhubarb. I love the tartness of it and I love the way it pairs with strawberries. I saw fresh rhubarb cropping up around the farm stands a couple of weeks ago and finally got to buying some. I decided to try something new with the ol' strawberry rhubarb combination and make muffins instead of the usual cobbler. I adapted this recipe from a Robin Hood flour recipe to make it somewhat healthier. I like these muffins, but I don't know that I love them. The texture was great, but they needed more rhubarb. My husband really enjoys them, but the little one only likes to eat the top, which isn't her usual style. I would like to try it again using actual buttermilk instead of the vinegar in milk thing that I commonly do, but really, who keeps buttermilk on hand? Oh, and I think fresh strawberries would've been better, but frozen worked fine. I'm just being picky.

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 tbsp ground flax seed (flaxmeal); we use TA foods flaxmeal, which is in a red bag and can be found at Real Canadian Superstore. Bobs Red Mills is okay for just peanut allergy but not tree nut allergy and Nature's Path recently started labelling for peanut cross contamination.
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup melted margarine
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk with 1 tbsp vinegar, that has sat for five minutes)
1 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb (I used the food processor because I'm lazy like that)
3/4 cup chopped strawberries

Topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Mix dry ingredients together in one bowl. In separate bowl, combine margarine, egg, buttermilk, strawberries and rhubarb. Add dry ingredients and stir until just moistened. Scoop batter into paper lined or silicone muffin cups and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon mixture.
Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Muffins will spring back when done. Makes 18.

Whole Wheat Apple Hermits

I get a big kick out of baking "healthy" cookies. It pleases me to no great end to make a whole grain, fruit or vegetable filled cookie and have my rather picky daughter declare it to be "weally dood!" I like to take a normal recipe and change it up completely. I especially like it when it works out well. Yesterday's creation, the whole wheat apple hermit, was fabulous. This hermit is a moist, spicy cookie studded with soft apple pieces and chewy dried fruit, and is a new house favourite, destined to take up a permanent space in my recipe box. Really, this is more of a fall recipe than a summer recipe, but I don't play by the rules. Plus, it's been cold, wet and windy.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup softened margarine or butter
1 beaten egg
1 cup of packed brown sugar
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 generous tsp of ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 large apple, peeled, cored and chopped into itty bitty pieces
1 cup of raisins (we use and trust Sunmaid)
1 cup of Craisins (for the love of all that is holy, don't use the icky flavoured ones)

In mixer, cream together margarine, egg and sugar.
In separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, spices and salt.
Add the dry ingredients slowly to the wet ingredients and mix until combined. It will end up looking too dry and you might feel a little panicked. Add the fruits, mix well and place balls of cookie dough about an inch apart onto a greased cookie sheet (we use a silpat lined cookie sheet). Flatten slightly. Bake at 350 for 13-15 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then move to cooling rack. Your house will smell like spicy goodness. Enjoy!