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!

Dairy-Free Choco Chunk Cookies

“Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.”

— Glennon Doyle

Of all of the things that I was excited for about my little babe turning ONE (!!) at the beginning of the month, introducing him to my world of baked goods was among the top few! No, I didn’t just let him run wild with chocolate and cookies and cakes, but giving him tiny bits of cookies or bars has been the most fun to see him reaction!

For his birthday, we did it true pandemic style and had a big zoom party with the family, including singing, balloons, streamers, and, of course, CAKE! I made him a (basically) no sugar added carrot cake with a peanut butter frosting. I have loved this recipe forever, and just wanted him to have SOME health to it! Let me tell you - it was not a love at first bite kind of moment. Oliver was so delicate with the cake, taking a tiny lick from his finger, but once my husband gave him a spoonful, it was ON! Oliver kept wanting more and more, then became ultra silly, giggling, screaming, it was a blast! Of course, we took a mid-cake break with some actual lunch for him, but he couldn’t get enough! The small 6” cake that I made for him was probably about a quarter of the way eaten when we realized that we should probably take it away from him! All in all, a huge success in my book!

Moving on to these cookies. I was graciously gifted these Honey Mamas bars, which are UNREAL! They seriously taste like a chocolate bar, yet there’s no processed ingredients in them at all. Like, go get yourself some! I shared a lot with a friend who hikes almost every other day and she was OBSESSED! Anyways, now that Oliver can safely eat honey, I figured I would chop up a bunch of them and throw them into these cookies! Incredible idea, Katie! These cookies aren’t overly sweet, are full of some good fats, some great fiber, just all around wonderful! I want Oliver to love food yet also benefit from everything he is eating. So, if I can make him some chocolate chunk cookies that just happen to be slightly more healthy and wholesome than your average cookie, I’m taking this as a win!

Do you need these Honey Mamas bars to make these babies delish?! Not at all - any chocolate chunk works! I just love the added richness, so I highly recommend!

ingredients

Coconut Oil—6 oz, or ¾ C

Peanut Butter—7.5 oz, or ¾ C

Brown Sugar—8 oz, or 1 C

Eggs—3

Vanilla Extract—1tsp

Baking Soda—1 tsp

Salt—1 tsp

Flour—20 oz, or 4 C

Cinnamon—2 tsp

Oats—3 oz, or 1 C

Chocolate Chunks—11 oz, or 2 (heaped) C

(DF) Milk—2 oz, or ¼ C

process

In the bowl of your mixer, cream together the coconut oil and peanut butter until smooth, scraping down the sides every few minutes.

Add in the brown sugar, mix until smooth.

Add in the eggs and vanilla extract, mix and scrape.

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

Slowly add this to the creamed mixture and mix until just combined.

Add in the oats and chocolate chunks, mix until just combined.

Slowly add in the milk, 1 Tablespoon at a time.

Once everything has been incorporated and your dough has come together, slightly sticky, remove from the mixer, place in a bowl, covered, and into the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350˚F.

Using a scoop or your hands, form cookie balls that are roughly 2 Tablespoons in size.

Place on a baking sheet that has either been sprayed with non-stick spray or use parchment/Silpat.

Bake for 10 minutes, rotate the pan, 8 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly on a cooling rack before enjoying!

Store in an airtight container.

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 Protein Truffles

“All that is gold does not glitter; all those who wander are not lost; the old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by frost.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

New recipe of the new year and damn, it’s a winner!

I have been on SUCH a snack kick lately, I think that the holidays got the best of me. While balance is basically how I live my life, the past couple of weeks have been more cookies and chocolate, less veggies and hummus, and that is OKAY! That being said, my skin told me to chill a bit with the heaps of nuts, plantain chips and chocolate oranges as did my exhaustion, so I’m listening to both sides of my cravings with this recipe!

As we all know, chocolate anything is my love language, and add in some nut butter? SOLD! Straying away from the overdone protein balls, I wanted to introduce protein TRUFFLES - sounds so fancy doesn’t it?! The texture in these is much softer and less chalky, there’s no protein powder, no almond or coconut flour, nothing that will make you feel as though you need a gallon of water after each bite. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good protein ball, but, I don’t know, they feel very 2018 to me right now, and I’m trying to bring some excitement to 2021!

Mixing (or mash!) in chickpeas to these was a true game changer!! As we know, chickpeas + tahini = hummus (basically), so why not chickpeas + nut butter?! The same smooth texture, the same nonexistent flavor of chickpeas with whatever nut butter you want, some banana, some spice, some chocolate … HELLO to these soft and decadent snacks/desserts/whenever you want them pillows of YUM! I also realized that these can be baked if you want some melted chocolate in there, they can be rolled in crushed peanuts, in unsweetened coconut (seen below), drizzled with chocolate, the list goes on and on! They take about 10 minutes to whip up, if you don’t have a little babe running around, and they aren’t sickeningly sweet, either. The best of every single world!

Will these be a new staple in my snacking diet? Hell yes. Will they become a (hopeful) favorite of Oliver?! You bet! Simple, slightly sweet, packed with protein and healthy fats, unprocessed, homemade snack truffles - what a mouthful. The new year doesn’t exactly mean that things will be back to “normal” any time soon, but it does bring a sense of freshness, in whatever sense you’d like that to mean for yourself, and for me, it’s the excitement of new recipes, new milestones for O, and new oportunities!

ingredients

Banana—1 medium

Chickpeas—1-15.5 oz can

Nut Butter—3 oz, or 1/3 C

Honey—2.5 oz, or ¼ C

Vanilla—1 tsp

Salt—1 tsp

Cinnamon—1 tsp

Oats—3 oz, or ¾ C

Chocolate Chips—4 oz, or ½ C

Coconut—to coat

process

In a food processor or a large bowl, combine the banana, chickpeas, nut butter, honey, vanilla, cinnamon and salt. Blend/mash together.

Add in the oats and chocolate chips, blend until just mixed, making sure that there are still some full pieces of the oats. Great for texture!

Using a small scoop, or your hands, put the scooped truffles onto a baking sheet lined with either parchment paper or a nonstick mat. If using your hands, the size is up to you, but about 2 tablespoons is great!

Once you have finished scooping the truffles, you have a few options: either roll them in coconut, crushed up nuts, a drizzle of chocolate, or you can bake them at 350˚F for about 12 minutes, just enough for the chocolate to melt!

If you are rolling in coconut, etc., afterwards, place in the fridge or freezer to firm up for about 30-60 minutes before storing them in an airtight container in the fridge!

Bon Appétit!