Muffins!

On a non-beef note, I've been making muffins! The past few months I've gotten in the habit of making a couple of batches of muffins and freezing them. I grab one in the morning, microwave for 30 seconds and breakfast is done.

Here's the basic muffin recipe I settled on:

Dry Ingredients:

• 2 c. flours
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• spices
  

Wet Ingredients

• 1 c. plain low fat yogurt
• 1/4 c. oil
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp extract
• 1 to 2 tsp zest (optional)
  

Mix-In

• up to 2 c moist mix ins (frozen fruit, grated carrots, zuchinni, etc)
• up to 1 c dry mix in (chooped nuts, raisins, etc.

Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Use a large measuring cup to measure and mix the wet ingredients. Add wet to dry, stir a bit. Add mix ins. Stir until just combined. Baked in a greased muffin tin at 375 for 25-35 minutes (depending on how moist the mixins are). Cool, then freeze. Makes 12.

I adapt this recipe in a variety of ways based on the mixins, spices, extracts, and zest.

Lemon Blueberry: Use blueberries, lemon zest, lemon extract, dash of cloves
Apple: grated apples, chopped walnuts, vanilla extract, 2 tsp cinnamon
Carrot Cakish: 1 c grated apple, 1 c grated carrot, raisins, vanilla extract, 1 2/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cloves, orange zest.

The blueberry were my favorite. The apple were fairly bland. I'll play with the seasonings next time and toast the walnuts.