Whole Wheat Muffins - Ready for Mix-ins! : Freezer Friendly

I've been doing a lot of reading online lately about food, our ability to get food, and the kind of foods we eat.  I have high cholesterol.  At 28.  Had I not had Little One I probably wouldn't have learned this little tidbit and it might not have mattered as much to me.  Honestly, my whole worldview has changed now that I'm a mom.  This little life depends on me to be healthy... to set a good, healthy lifestyle example in food and exercise.  Now, I don't love eating healthy all the time (cheese is my weakness!!) and working out on a regular basis (ugh.  it feels soooooooo repetitive.  I just don't enjoy "the hurt" from working out.  But.  My mind has got to change.  I'm really trying to become better at these - for myself and for Little One.  

Now back from that tangent - I am trying to reduce the amount of processed (pre-made) food that we consume and to increase our amount of daily vegetable and fruit intake.  DH and I decided yesterday that we will cut out most fast food, especially if we're eating it because we're being lazy.  I read something a while back that has really stuck with me as it pertains to children and what they eat.  It was something along these lines... children aren't born with the taste and cravings for salty, processed, empty food.  They learn to like these foods because we feed it to them.  I fail daily at this, but it serves as a reminder to me to stop and think about what I'm feeding Little One.  

So you're a busy mom?  Hectic schedule?  Too many things to do in one day?  How can I possibly cook for my family to cut out some of the processed foods?  Check out this site and this site.  Tried and true places to start.

1) Start with freezer friendly meals.  

2) Set apart an hour a week to meal plan (look up some recipes you want to try!).  

3) Prepare your grocery list based on sections of the store.  I'm kinda crazy, but every time I go I always follow the same path.  This allows me to set up my grocery list the same way every time.  This little time I take to categorize my list based on section of the grocery store or aisle saves me A TON of time in the store and I don't have to backtrack.  

4) One weekend day (or week day - it doesn't matter... just sometime when you have childcare or you know your child can be easily entertained while you cook for about 30 - 45 minutes...) prepare your meals.  

5) Start with 2 or 3.  That's 2 or 3 more than you had before you started!  I try to pick meals or foods that have similar ingredients to save time on prep work.  Start small and slowly work it in.  If you don't like something you've made, mark that off the "to-try" list for next time.  If you like it add it to your "regulars" list.  You can do it!!  

I've found this site - 100 Days of Real Food - she has A TON of good ideas and recipes.  These muffins are from her site.  Little One LOVED them.  They aren't sweet like regular muffins - and it's super fun to be able to add your own different "sweet" fruit mix-ins.  Banana was our favorite (but we're a banana muffin kind of family!)  Let me know what you decide to mix in - the options are endless!

 

Whole Wheat Muffins - Ready for Mix-Ins! -  from this awesome site

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour 

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

2 eggs

2 tbl honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup oil (she used coconut, I used canola)

3/4 cup orange or apple juice

About 1 cup total filling (berries, fruit, nuts, etc)

muffin/cupcake liners

Directions

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Gather ingredients.   I didn't have nutmeg, so I used Pumpkin Pie spice I'm still trying to use up ;)  in place of the cinnamon and nutmeg.  

In a large bowl with a fork or whisk mix the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Make a well (hole) in the center of the flour mixture and put in the eggs, honey, vanilla, oil and juice. 

Mix together, do not overmix.  (I may have overmixed because they were a little dry!)  Line your muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Now, here's the cool part.  You can mix in your fruit, berries, and/or nuts now before putting the mixture into the liners.  OR.  WOW.  You can put the mixture in the liners then add your mix-ins.  I chose to try it out this way.  The banana mixed in well, the pears were hard to mix in.

I chopped half of a ripe pear into a small dice.  It was tough to mix in and kind of stayed on the top, so the bottom half of the muffin was dry with no fruit.  Now that being said, I LOVED the pear taste.  Next time I'll just mix it in BEFORE I put the mixture in the liners to make sure it's well incorporated.

I also mashed up a ripe banana.  It mixed it better.  It was still tough, but it was easier to get incorporated throughout.  And, like I said earlier, the banana flavor rocks!  It would be great with the addition of some nuts.  Mmm.

 

Fill the liners 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full.  If you haven't done so already, sprinkle 1-2 teaspoons of your filling and mix in. I used a fork to mix it in.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 - 15 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  These freeze well!

I also decided I'd try out the other way of making these - so I made another batch of the recipe.  This time I added in frozen blueberries before putting the mixture in the cupcake liners.  It was easy and worked well!  And the blueberries were yummy!!

Pears (6), Banana (6), and Blueberry (12)

(Each batch makes 12 muffins - remember I made 2 batches :))

YUM!

The Verdict

I definitely liked the idea of these muffins, but they needed a little something.  I would bump up the spices.  But then, I'm going to try these again because I didn't take into account the 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon AND 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg and just put 1/2 teaspoon of Pumpkin Pie spice.  Next time I'll be sure to add more spice.  She also used white whole-wheat flour.  I used regular and they were a little tough.  I might try to look for the white WWF to see if that makes a difference.  Or maybe next time I'll just mix it less ;)  For our family, we love banana muffins, so I'd probably use banana as a base in each muffin because those were the most moist.  Then I'd add another mix-in as well.  More than anything, I'm excited because this recipe has SO MUCH POTENTIAL!  There are lots of great ideas for mix-ins - these are from her site:

- blueberries

- diced strawberries

- peeled and diced pears

- applesauce

- diced or mashed up bananas and chopped walnuts

- raisins and chopped pecans (with a pinch more cinnamon)

- grated carrot and chopped walnuts

- orange or lemon zest (1/4 to a 1/2 teaspoon of zest per individual muffin)

- a mix of dried fruit bits

- jelly

Give me a shout - what mix-ins did you use?? 

Happy baking!  Cheers to you!