Morning Glory Muffins

I have had muffin baking on my to do list for over a week now. Tonight I decided to go for it. These morning glory muffins are a great way to start your day. They have fruit, vegetables, fiber, protein, and lots of other good stuff. The best part is that they are healthy AND they taste great!

INGREDIENTS
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups grated carrots
1 apple - peeled, cored, and chopped
1 cup raisins
1 egg
2 egg whites

3/4 cup apple sauce
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons toasted wheat germ

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line 18 muffin cups, or coat with nonstick cooking spray.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, egg whites, apple sauce and vanilla.
In a large bowl, stir together flours, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in carrots, apples and raisins. Stir in apple sauce mixture until just moistened. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling them about 3/4 full. (The batter is very thick.)
In a small bowl, combine walnuts and wheat germ; sprinkle over the muffin tops.
Bake at 375 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and spring back when lightly pressed.

Linking up to Money Saving Mom's baking day and What did you bake today

Broccoli Beef, Fajitas, Crockpot Apple Cake

We have set a goal for ourselves to eat in more often. It will help keep our eating and spending habits healthy. I'm all in, but Barrett sometimes needs coaxing.

In order to make this adventure more fun for all of us we've started "restaurant nights". This is where one member of the family picks out what they would eat if we were going out that night. I then find a copycat recipe and try to recreate the restaurant meal - only a healthier version.

This weekend we visited a pizzeria, a Chinese "restaurant" and a Mexican "restaurant". Here are the recipes:

Pizza: Since the goal is health, I went with a whole wheat no rise crust that I saw on Sno White's blog. I also borrowed the pizza sauce recipe from my friend Cara's blog. The pizza dough recipe has a yield of two large pizzas. I made one large for Barrett and I, and then two smaller pizzas so that the kids could each top their own. We used turkey pepperoni, yellow peppers and mushrooms.

Chinese Broccoli Beef: This is a recipe that I adapted from allrecipes.

INGREDIENTS

1 small onion sliced
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 (10.5 ounce) cans beef broth
2 tablespoons white sugar
4 tablespoons soy sauce
1 pound boneless round steak, cut into bite size pieces
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh ginger root
2 clove garlic, minced
4 cups chopped fresh broccoli

DIRECTIONS
In a small bowl, combine flour, broth, sugar, and soy sauce. Stir until sugar and flour are dissolved.
In a large skillet or wok over high heat, cook and stir beef and onion 2 to 4 minutes, or until browned. Stir in broth mixture, ginger, garlic, and broccoli. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat. Simmer 5 to 10 minutes, or until sauce thickens.

I served this with steamed rice. To make my steamed rice more flavorful I use chicken stock instead of water.

My kids love to eat this meal (and most anything) with chopsticks. I ordered the cutest animal training chopsticks for them.

Fajitas: I won't give you a whole recipe for fajitas since it is rather straight forward, but I will give you my spice mix for taco/fajita seasoning. Once you use this, you'll never use one of those packets again!

Ingredients

1 teaspoon paprika
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon minced onion
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground oregano
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon chili powder

Directions
Combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl.
To prepare the meat filling for the tacos/fajitas : In large skillet, brown 1 pound ground beef, chicken, turky, shrimp, etc.
Add spices& seasoning and 2/3 cup water; mix thoroughly.
Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low, and cook, uncovered, 7 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Crockpot Fat Free Apple Cake: Yummy! I again borrowed a recipe from Sno White. Follow her directions and enjoy! I love baking in the crockpot, what a novel idea. We set about our Sunday activities and then enjoyed this when we got home.

One last note. I read about a cute idea that I'll be trying with the kids soon. We will be making "menus" by cutting pictures out of the weekly grocery ads and pasting them onto construction paper. The menus can be further decorated to suit your childs creativity. The kids love to play chef to Barrett and I by "cooking" up goodies for us in their play kitchen. These menus will be perfect!

B & B Saturday

Last Saturday we had a blast doing our B&B routine. B&B in our house is beauty and baking.

For the beauty portion of the evenings events we did a clay face mask. The only one who really needs the benefit of the mask is me, but the little ones really get a kick out of it. Brady proudly joined the beauty brigade complete with headband and all.

For the baking portion of the evenings events we decided to try something different from the usual sweets. We made bavarian pretzels. I found the recipe on http://www.allrecipes.com/. Here it is:

INGREDIENTS
4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
5 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/2 cup baking soda
4 cups hot water
1/4 cup kosher salt, for topping


DIRECTIONS
In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, mix together flour, 1/2 cup sugar, and salt. Make a well in the center; add the oil and yeast mixture. Mix and form into a dough. If the mixture is dry, add one or two tablespoons of water. Knead the dough until smooth, about 7 to 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). In a large bowl, dissolve baking soda in hot water.
When risen, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope and twist into a pretzel shape. Once all of the dough is all shaped, dip each pretzel into the baking soda solution and place on a greased baking sheet. Sprinkle with kosher salt.
Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes, until browned.