Delicious Low-Fat Muffins

I love to bake, but baking isn't very conducive to staying on a diet. I searched all over the interwebs for a low-fat, low-calorie muffin recipe that would actually taste good. I finally found one that worked as a base; after I added a few ingredients these turned out light, fluffy, and delicious. I made a batch of them using some of the raspberries I picked up at the Farmer's Market last weekend. I have also made them with lemon and blueberries (fabulous!). You can get the recipe below.

Delicious Low-Fat Muffins
serving size: 1 muffin, serves 12
calories: 128, carbs: 22, fat: 4

Ingredients (muffin base):
1/2 c. 2% milk
1/4 c. vegetable or canola oil
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla

Variations:
add 1 c. well-drained fresh or thawed frozen blueberries and 1 tsp. lemon zest
add 1 c. well-drained fresh or thawed frozen raspberries and 1/2 tsp. almond extract
add 1 c. well-drained fresh or thawed frozen cranberries and 1 tsp. orange zest

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a standard muffin tin using a non-stick spray (like Pam) or use silicone muffin cups. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl combine milk, vegetable oil, egg, and vanilla (stir gently but do not beat). Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to combine with a few strokes until just damp. Add the fruit and combine gently until no large pockets of dry ingredients remain (batter will still be lumpy). Fill muffin cups approximately 2/3 full. Bake 20-25 minutes until tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean.

I use silicone muffin cups instead of a standard muffin tin. I have a small kitchen and even less room for baking supplies. If you haven't baked using silicone cups or pans, I highly recommend them. My baked goods pop right out of the cups every time, no problem. I just put the cups on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil (just in case).

Don't those look yummy?

I have some star-shaped muffin cups too. How cute is that little star muffin? I gave it to my little guy. He loved it. I hope you try these out. Do you have any other suggestions for wonderful muffin flavor combinations?

Quinoa and black bean salad

I recently talked about how I'm trying to lose my remaining baby weight, and then some, to be in better shape. I know I'm definitely not alone in this goal. You'd think that it would be super easy to eat healthy food while you're at home all day with your children. To the contrary, I actually find it harder to find time to eat lunch now than I did when I worked full-time teaching, or in an office. At least then I had a scheduled lunch break where all I had to do was eat. Or run errands. Or in the case of teaching, grade papers. But you know what I mean. Now all my time is wrapped up in making sure my baby is fed, happy, (relatively) clean, and not eating microscopic bits off the carpet, or pulling things down onto his cute little head.

I was inspired by some recent posts about tasty recipes over at Alisa Burke (ok, when I tried to find the post to link to I realized my version of recent is almost 2 months ago!) to try and find something I would be willing to eat for lunch day after day. I love food and I love to cook. I don't like to eat the same thing over and over though (except for breakfast, oddly). When I was at Whole Foods the other day picking up some beautiful tuna steaks (yum!) for a salad I grabbed one of their prepared meals that I thought would be healthy for lunch, their Quinoa and Black Bean Salad. I was starving and it was time to get the baby home for his afternoon nap. I couldn't even contemplate taking the time after all that to make food before I could eat it, and I'm definitely not wasting my daily calories on fast food (not anymore, anyway).

By reading the ingredients off the back of the container I pieced together my own recipe and it is delicious, and filling. Even better, it's pretty good for my diet healthy lifestyle.

Quinoa and Black Bean Salad
serving size: 1 cup, servings per batch: approximately 7
Nutritional information per serving: 244 calories, 31g carbs, 22g fat, 8g protein  

Ingredients:
1 c. Quinoa
1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
2 ears corn (cook and remove kernels from cobs)
1 c. red onions (diced)
2 c. red pepper (diced)
1/4 c. parsley (finely chopped)
3 cloves garlic (finely chopped or grated)
1/4 c. (loosely packed) fresh basil (finely chopped)
1/3 c. red wine vinegar
1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil
 salt and pepper

Cook the quinoa according to the package directions. When the quinoa is finished cooking transfer it to a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as my family did. Even our nearly-9-month-old loved it. Seriously, is that weird?

Sauteed spinach with roasted garlic

My family loves garlic, including my little guy (he's 8 1/2 months old). Is that unusual? Do your children like garlic?










My little guy loves new and interesting flavor combinations and we're constantly surprised at what he's not only willing, but excited to eat. Spinach on it's own isn't very exciting (at least not to me) so I thought I'd add a little roasted garlic. He's eaten other things cooked with raw garlic and liked them but I like the smoothness and carmelization that roasting lends to garlic.

So yesterday I roasted thirteen heads of garlic. I know, that's a lot. But like I said, around here we love garlic. The whole house smelled like garlic all day long. It was a little strange at 7:00 am but it was absolutely mouth-watering around lunch time. Plus, I'd recently bought three pounds of garlic at Sam's Club. I had to do something that would use up a lot of it before it started to sprout. I have to say, out of fifteen heads that I sliced in half, only two of them were bad inside. That's a lot more success than I ever have with garlic from the grocery store where half the heads I purchase have green sprouts inside.

I sauteed a large bag of baby spinach with in a little olive oil with a pinch of salt and pepper. Once the spinach started to wilt I added the roasted garlic from a while head of garlic. The whole thing took less than ten minutes. Once the spinach was cool I ran it through my Cuisinart food processor, making sure most of the cooking liquid stayed in the pan.

Some of the sauteed spinach went straight into my little guy's dinner bowl and the rest of it was deposited in my baby food freezer trays. I ended up with eight 1 oz. servings and a little leftover for lunch today.

I guess you could say he liked it. My husband liked it too. We might need to make some more for us to enjoy next time.