Melt in your mouth min muffins

Today's amazingly yummy treat comes to us via Little House on the Prairie Living. Dr. Bob found the recipe and proceeded to do what he does best when it comes to baking, "Baby, you should try making this recipe!"

But it sounded too good not to try.

You can find the recipe here. The recipe makes 24 mini muffins.

The only things I added were:

1.) 2 tablespoons of flax seeds to make it a smidge healthier

See the flax seeds....
And 2.) cinnamon to the topping because just the sugar wasn't enough for me. I am definitely a cinnamon and sugar type of gal.Don't they look delicious?!

I actually made something along these lines for the day my nephew was born (to have something for people to munch on while visiting) and while that recipe was good - this one was a lot better and quicker! I will absolutely use this one again.

Like I said, it is beyond simple and quick. I think it took me 45 minutes from pulling out the ingredients to being completely cleaned up.

Little bits of heaven!

Give the recipe a try and let me know what you think!

Blueberry fun - Part 1

Mmmmm, don't they look delicious?!

A couple of new friends and I decided to go blueberry picking last week. It was a lot of fun...however we seemed to have picked the HOTTEST day ever to pick blueberries! Good grief, the sweat was dripping off us.
Luckily we got a good amount of berries in a short amount of time. I couldn't wait to get home and try some yummy new recipes.

Now, I am not going to lie, I am not a huge fan of blueberries on their own. But I am all about including them with other fruits or baking them into awesome baked goods/desserts.

Hence why we are here today:

I found this recipe for blueberry muffins on Allrecipes.com. It made only 6 muffins so I followed the commenters advice under the recipe and doubled it. I also made a few changes again per the commenters advice. Here they are:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg - I used less nutmeg
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil - I used 1/4 cup of oil
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• *I added 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
• *I also added 2 tablespoons of flax seed (always good to get some extra Omega 3's and dietary fiber!)

This ended up making 12 large muffins and 12 mini muffins.

Now I also have to warn you about how long to bake these bad boys! The recipe calls for 25-27 minutes at 375 degrees. I planned to check on the little guys after 20 minutes and this is what they looked like:

YIKES were they crispy! I know we are still getting used to cooking in a new oven and this sucker gets pretty hot, pretty quickly...but make sure to keep an eye on the little guys. I think they would have been fine at 15 minutes.

We can't always perfect the recipe the first time around now can we?? ;-)

The regular size muffins came out really pretty great.

And pretty tasty.

The other blueberry recipe I found was this Blueberry Loaf Cake on Allrecipes.com as well. This one came out phenomenally!

The only change I made was to up the amount of blueberries from 1 cup to 1 and 1/2 cups.
So those were my blueberry concoctions from last week. Dr. Bob had free range over the rest of the blueberries and trust me - he put them to good use.

He is going to be posting a Blueberry fun - Part 2 soon so stay tuned!

Reader Question:

What is your favorite blueberry recipe to make??

The Mrs' Morning Shake

Good Morning!

I thought I would share how I start my mornings off. It is delicious and easy!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup fruit (fresh or frozen - depending on the season)

1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt

1 scoop of whey protein (chocolate or vanilla)

1 heaping handful of spinach leaves

Cut up or pour the fruit into your blending cup. Right now I have been using a mixture of fresh blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries...yum! Plenty of antioxidants here my friends!

Note - if you are using frozen fruit, make sure to take it out ahead of time to allow it to defrost. I have an hour wait time of when I take my morning medicine and when I can eat - that is usually plenty of time to let the fruit defrost. Or you can put it in a container in the fridge overnight and you should be good to go by shake time.

Next, pile in the yogurt and whey protein.

When buying Whey - I usually find it in the grocery store near the protein bars and Ensure. Find one that has 20-25g of protein per scoop. I started off with Vanilla because I had never tried whey protein before and it tasted really good. I bought chocolate once when they were all out of vanilla and man was it fantastic! I think it is going to be a LONG time before I switch back to vanilla. But the choice is yours!

Obviously I ran out of room before getting my spinach in, so it will have to wait until I make some room in the blender.

I use a "magic bullet" knock off that I found at Big Lots for $20. It works amazingly well and it definitely saved my wallet a huge chunk of change!

Blend that around until you have room for:

Now, you are going to have to trust me on this one. I was super hesitant to put spinach in my shake. I was told that you can't taste it at all and it is a great way to get a helping of veggies in your daily diet without even knowing it. I was a doubting Thomas, but I gave it a shot ready to toss it or hand it to the Doctor if I didn't like it. They were right...go figure! You absolutely cannot taste it and my helpings of spinach have gotten larger over time...still no taste! I am super excited because if you know me, you know I am not a veggie fan. Win one for nutrition here!

Just make sure to cut this up before putting it to the shake to make the blending process a little easier.

I forgot to take a pic of the cut up spinach or when I added it to the shake because I was so excited (and hungry) to get this thing made!

And TA-DA...the finished product.

I am reliving the shake process as I am typing and very tempted to go make another one for a mid-morning snack ;-)

This shake is super tasty and good for you. There are lots of ways you can add things to it. I tried putting some granola in after everything was blended but I wasn't a fan of the texture. I like to keep things plain and simple. Some people add milk or juice to their shakes. I have found this recipe to work for me but it is fun to experiment with other ways!

Happy Blending!