Zucchini Muffins

“Your body is not your masterpiece, your life is.”

— Glennon Doyle

Happy Spring, my friends!!

So, I have a very similar recipe here, which is my chocolate zucchini cake covered in a match glaze (YUM!), but I wanted to make this slightly more kid-friendly! As Oliver is almost 13 months (what the heck!!??), I will happily admit that he has already consumed a little bit of chocolate—no shame here! That being said, we are trying to make sure we never sugar-overload with him, and the only sugar he generally has is from natural sources, like fruit. Of course, most of my baked goods have at least a touch of sugar, and these zucchini muffins are no different! In the 9 large muffins that I made, there is only ¾ cup of sugar, which is 12 tablespoons total, or 1 TBL + 1 tsp per muffin (I think!!). All in all, Oliver’s sugar intake per muffin is small, seeing as he doesn’t even eat ½ a muffin at a time!

Woo, that was a lot of quick math there. Anyways! If you check out the chocolate zucchini cake recipe that I did YEARS ago, you’ll see why I’m obsessed with adding zucchini to a recipe like this—aside from the childhood memory of it, it adds an extra amount of moisture, some vegetable intake, all things I’m here for, especially with a little one! Oliver has been devouring these in the morning with his breakfast, and it makes my heart SO happy! Of course, this kid is going to (hopefully) love baked goods, but if we can also teach him the importance of fruits and vegetables along the way, my job will be done!

I had Oliver help me in making these, and aside from sneaking a taste of the butter, which he wasn’t a fan of, he did tremendously! He helped mix and fold, which I was so pleased with. Then, it was time to put some chocolate chips on top of a few of them, so I showed him how to do it, thinking he would follow my lead, but he ended up just taking a handful of the chocolate chips and putting them directly into his mouth. Of course, why was I surprised?! Regardless, it was a wonderful first little baking adventure together, even if he had maybe 10 mini chips, who cares! These are perfect for kids, for adults, for breakfast, for a snack, we can’t get enough in our house and hope that you experiment with adding some veggies to your morning muffins, too!

ingredients

Butter—6 oz, or 1 ½ sticks

Brown Sugar—5.25 oz, or ¾ C

Eggs—3

Vanilla Extract—2 tsp

Flour—13.75 oz, or 2 ¾ C

Baking Powder—2 ½ tsp

Baking Soda—1 ½ tsp

Salt—1 tsp

Cinnamon—2 tsp

(Oat) Milk—4 oz, or ½ C

Zucchini, shredded—16.5 oz, or 2 C

Chocolate Chips (Optional)—to sprinkle on top

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F

In the bowl of your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth

Add in the eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined; add in vanilla extract

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon

With the mixer on low, slowly pour in about ½ of the dry mixture, then ½ of the milk; scrape down the bowl

Add the remainder of the dry mixture and milk; mix until just combined

Fold in the shredded zucchini

Spray your muffin pan with nonstick spray (we used large muffin pans, so this recipe made 9 muffins)

Fill each cup up about ¾ of the way full

Optional—sprinkle chocolate chips on the tops of the muffins

Bake in the oven for 18 minutes, rotate, 15 minutes

This time was for large muffins, so if you are doing smaller muffins, start with 10 minutes, rotate, 10 minutes

When the muffins spring back slightly when touched, remove from the oven and allow to cool before taking them out of the pan

Bon Appétit!

Vegan Banana Nut Muffins

“I’ve always found people love you best if you can laugh at your own foolish misfortunes and keep mum about everyone else’s.”

— Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer

Does anyone else still have mixed feelings when it comes to overripe bananas? A slight feeling like damn, I can’t believe I didn’t eat these fast enough combined with nice! Now I can freeze these babies for smoothies or chuck them in some baked good!! because that’s exactly how I feel every time.

Now that our little almost one-year-old (what the heck!!) is eating like a full-grown adult, he can down a full banana to himself! We have gone through being able to buy a bunch or two of bananas for the week to it now only lasting a few days, honestly, we just need our own tree in the yard! Last week, I went overboard and bought 4+ bunches because I reallllyyy didn’t want to go to the grocery store more than I truly needed to, but then the joke was truly on me. Surprisingly, that many bananas doesn’t last long in this house either because we can’t eat them fast enough! Moral of the story, suck it up, go get a new bunch every few days, and deal with the fact that you no longer have a tiny babe anymore! Ugh. The tears!

And so, here we have this recipe. I froze maybe 4-5 bananas for smoothies, and then I took a couple of very ripe ones and made them into these vegan muffins! Bananas are an incredible replacement for eggs, by the way! They are also very lightly sweetened, just some maple + the bananas, oh and some chocolate chips (duh!). You can add in whatever mix-ins you want—we learned that Oliver is not a walnut fan at the moment—and voilà! What’s the best part?! Because these are egg-free, you can feed the batter to your little one! I gave O the tiniest taste and it was so exciting!! He still isn’t eating chocolate, so we had to pick out the chips from the baked muffins (I didn’t think of this beforehand!), and they were a huge hit!!

With a husband who doesn’t love overly sweet things, a one-year-old who doesn’t consume much sugar at all, and me, who is trying to slightly cut back on my sugar obsession, these are PERFECT. Seriously, they check every single, delicious box! Now is the time to say bye to the banana bread you once knew and loved and up-level with these vegan muffins instead!

ingredients

Flour—10 oz, or 2 C

Oats—7 oz, or 2 C

Baking Powder—2 tsp

Baking Soda—1 tsp

Cinnamon—3 tsp

Nutmeg—1 tsp

Salt—1 ½ tsp

Walnuts, chopped—4 oz, or 1 C

Maple Syrup—5 oz, or ½ C

Oat Milk—6 oz, or ¾ C

Bananas, mashed—2 medium

Vanilla Extract—2 tsp

Coconut Oil or Butter, melted—4 oz, or ½ C, or 8 TBL

Chocolate Chips, mini—7 oz, or 1 C

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.

In a large bowl, combine your dry ingredients: flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and walnuts; mix.

In another bowl, combine your wet ingredients: maple syrup, oat milk, bananas, vanilla extract and your oil of choice.

Add in your wet to the dry and mix until just combined.

Fold in your chocolate chips.

Fill your muffin cups about ¾ of the way full; bake for 15 minutes, rotate, bake another 10-12 minutes. Because these are vegan, and have no eggs, if you want the center softer, then reduce the time!

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 20 minutes before removing from the pan and eating!

Bon Appétit!

The World's Best Pancakes

“May you live with wonder, not worry; curiosity, not caution.”

— Sjana Earp

We started this little tradition during the middle of summer, when social distancing was in full effect, of making pancakes every Sunday! Something about this little sense of normalcy feels so dang good, and I want little O to have these fun memories!

That being said, pancakes have, surprisingly been something that I have struggled with for YEARS! For some reason I couldn’t get the ratios right, the heat on the pan right, there was just no consistency! It drove me insane. After way too many failed attempts at them, here we have what I deem the World’s Best Pancakes. EVER! They’re simple, quick to whip up (we all know how I feel about speedy recipes now with an on-the-go baby!), and taste SO good!

What do I love about these? The sugar can be subbed for any sweetener of choice, the milk is all up to you, the yogurt is optional, swap out the 2 eggs for a large banana, throw in a bunch of other spices, chocolate chips, etc., you do you!!! Some days, I don’t have yogurt on hand, so I just add in the same amount but in milk, and BOOM, it still works! Hence why they are called the World’s Best Pancakes.

I hope everyone can bring these delightful little pancakes into their lives today or next weekend, or even mid-week, and that they make you go mmmmm the entire time while eating them like Oliver does!

ingredients

Flour—10 oz, or 2 C

Coconut Sugar—¼ C, or 2oz

Salt—1 tsp

Cinnamon—2 tsp

Baking Powder—4 tsp

Eggs—2

(Oat) Milk—8 oz, or 1 C

Yogurt—¾ C, or 7 oz

Coconut Oil or Butter, melted—2 oz, or 4 TBL

process

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking powder.

Melt the oil of choice and set aside to cool slightly.

To the dry ingredients, add in your eggs, milk and yogurt. You can replace the yogurt with more milk if you’d like! I prefer the taste and texture with the added yogurt!

Fold in these ingredients until just incorporated.

Add in the butter.

Heat your griddle or pan over medium heat, add a small bit of coconut oil or spray to the pan.

Drop about ¼ C of batter onto the griddle.

Cook until little bubbles begin to pop up, then flip.

Cook for a few more minutes on the other side.

Reserve in a warmed oven until ready to eat!

Bon Appétit!

Banana Pumpkin Oat Bars

“What did you do as a child that created timelessness that made you forget time? There lies the myth to live by.”

— Joseph Campbell

I figure one pumpkin recipe is a must for the start of each fall, so here you go! A [basically] raw dessert that’s packed full of spice, oats, pumpkin and chocolate—how can one go wrong here?! Ya can’t.

I have been seeing this meme a lot lately about how blogs go on and on in the intro about their personal life when all you want is the damn recipe…this hit hard for me because that’s exactly what I do! Anyways…I’ll try to make these intros short and sweet, but I mean, I also love to spill my thoughts here, so you get what you get!

Back to the excitement of these bars! If you haven’t caught on yet, my entire world changed 8 months ago when little O was born! Do I have less time to do things? Sure. Am I always running after him now and making sure he doesn’t eat the dog food? Of course. Do I love every dang second with this guy? Hell yes! Even though my life is quite different now that I have this wild boy, I didn’t want to just STOP baking. I want him to be that kid whose mom makes the best dessert that his friends get excited about coming over for! Duh. But now I need to do things at DOUBLE SPEED. His naps are becoming less and less as he gets older and his ability to just stay in one spot is nonexistent! Which is why I’m about #quickbaking for us parents!

These bars take 5-10 minutes to throw together, or if you have a baby who is trying to eat all of the dirt in your potted plants, it may take you about 20. From there, throw these babies into the oven for about 25 minutes and BAM! you’ve got the gooiest, perfectly sweet lovely little snacks.

Super allergen friendly if that’s something you’re worried about, too! Gluten free, vegan (if you think honey isn’t vegan, sub that for agave or maple syrup!), nut free! They aren’t over-the-top sweet which is my jam these days, they have the PERFECT flavor of pumpkin, of spices, of chocolate—honestly, they blow all other pumpkin desserts and snacks out of the water!

 ingredients

Oats—12 oz, or 4 C

Baking Powder—1 tsp

Cinnamon—2 tsp (heaping)

Nutmeg—1 tsp

Ginger—1 tsp

Cloves—½ tsp

Salt—1 tsp

Pumpkin purée—8.5 oz, or 1 C

Banana, mashed—1 small, or ½ large, about 3.5 oz

Coconut Oil, melted—2.75 oz, or 1/3 C

Honey—4 oz, or 1/3 C

Chocolate Chips—8 oz, or 1 C

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F

In a large bowl, combine your oats, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and salt

Mix to combine

Mix in the pumpkin purée and mashed banana

Add the melted oil

Fold in the chocolate chips

Put into an 8” x 8” baking pan

Bake for 22-25 minutes, until the center looks set

Allow to cool either at room temperature or in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes

Cut into squares, I did 16 for this batch

Store in a sealed container in the fridge!

Bon Appétit!

Spiced Squash Butter

“Don’t be in such a rush to figure everything out. Embrace the unknown and let your life surprise you.”

Happy Fall, y’all!!

I wonder how many times I have opened up a fall blog post that way! I honestly just get so dang excited. I think a huge part of it is that I LOVE squash. Like, ugh why can’t they be in season all year long?! There are so many varieties and they all have unique tastes, are hella versatile, the list is endless.

Butternut—great for soups, roasted for salads, smoothies, pizza toppings, quiche

Pumpkin—pies, roasted, soups

Spaghetti—sautéed, roasted to use as a noodle replacement

Kabocha (newly discovered!)—roasted for grain and salad bowls, mashed

Acorn—same as above and, now, as SQUASH BUTTER!

Of course, there are so many more that I didn’t mention, gosh like delicata (YUM), the list goes on! So, with fall comes squash, and with squash comes my excitement to experiment with new recipes. I decided to change things up with the normal apple or pumpkin butters that are made during this beautiful season and see if acorn squash would do the trick! And dang, is it GOOD. It’s super simple and quick (ish) to make, and the spices can be adjusted to your liking, which I love about squash in particular. This recipe is heavy on the spices—so beware!! but that’s what makes it soooooo delicious. If you love apple pie and all of its spices, this is like 10x the goodness!

It gets better. I couldn’t just leave it at the squash butter without thinking about what I would slather it on! The warm and wonderful Siete Foods family sent me this lovely package of cassava flour burritos + some other goodies, so I instantly was like “Uhhh this squash butter is going inside of these burritos, DUH!” So, I made this cute little breakfast burrito with eggs + apples + greens + squash butter! And seriously, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it…it’s such a nice blend of flavors, a little sweet and a little savory yet a LOT of yumminess! I cannot wait until you try this combination for the most perfect start to your crisp, fall mornings!

ingredients

Acorn Squash, roasted—14 oz, or 2 C; medium in size

Coconut Sugar—3 oz, or ½ C

Honey—2 TBL

Water—2 oz, or ¼ C

Lemon Juice—2 TBL

Cinnamon—1 TBL

Nutmeg—2 tsp

Cloves—2 tsp

Salt—½ tsp

process

To roast the squash: preheat your oven to 425˚F

Cut squash in half, lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and drizzle a little bit of olive oil on top, sprinkle with salt

Place on a baking sheet skin side down

Roast for 45 minutes-1 hour depending on size

Will know when it is finished as the squash will be soft enough for a knife to go in and come out easily

For butter: once the squash has cooled for about 15-30 minutes, scoop out the flesh and place in a food processor

If needed, you may add a couple of tablespoons of water so that it blends easier

Blend until smooth

Transfer to a medium saucepot and add the remaining ingredients

Cook at a low simmer, stirring frequently, for about 15 minutes

This really allows for the flavors to develop!

Allow to cool before putting into a jar to store in the refrigerator

To use: this is perfect as a dip for fruit, as a dessert topping, spread on a slice of homemade bread, or, my favorite way: on a Siete Foods burrito with eggs, apples and greens!

Bon Appétit!