Monday Munchies: Blueberry Spelt Mini-Muffins

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Muffins

On Friday morning, I was up early, so I decided to throw together some mini-muffins for the trio’s breakfast.  Bo had his with strawberry yogurt for dipping.  These do have sugar, but are still significantly better (tasting and health wise) than the Hostess versions.

Blueberry Spelt Mini-Muffins

  • 4 Tbsp. canola oil
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup orange juice
  • 2 tsp. good quality vanilla
  • 2 cups spelt flour (can substitute 1 cup flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour)
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp lemon peel
  • pinch of salt
  • 3 heaping teaspoons flax seed
  • 3 heaping teaspoons wheat germ
  • 2 cups fresh blueberries

Heat oven to 375.  Spray two mini-muffin pans with Pam spray (I used Pam for baking).  In a large bowl, cream together oil and sugar.  Add applesauce, eggs, orange juice, and vanilla.  Add flour, baking powder, lemon peel, salt, flax, and wheat germ.  Stir until just combined.  Fold in blueberries.  Using a melon baller, scoop batter into prepared mini-muffin tin.  Bake for approximately 12 minutes.  Makes approximately 48. mini-muffins.

Anna muffins Bo muffins Clara muffins

Monday Munchies: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

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dough ball

Inspired by Katie’s post for Protein Balls, I tweaked the recipe a bit and developed these.  They taste a great deal like uncooked cookie dough, are a bit healthier, and the kids liked them.  Success!!  We had these Saturday afternoon for snack.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

  • 1 cup vanilla protein powder
  • 1/4 cup skim or soy milk
  • 1/2 cup organic, natural peanut  butter
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup agave nectar (you can use 1/2 cup honey if you do not have this)
  • 1 tsp good quality vanilla (I prefer this brand)
  • 1 1/2 cups oatmeal
  • 2 Tbsp flax seed
  • 2 Tbsp wheat germ
  • 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

In a large bowl, combine the milk and protein powder.  Mix well.  Add the peanut butter, honey, agave, and vanilla.  Mix until well combined. Add oatmeal, flax, wheat germ, and mini chocolate chips.  Roll into balls and place on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper.  Let set in the fridge for approximately 30 minutes.  Serve.  Store remaining balls in Ziploc bag in the fridge.  Makes approximately 20 balls.

Anna dough ball Bo dough ball Clara dough ball hand

Each Monday, I’ll showcase a family and kid-friendly recipe to share with your family.  Please let me know if you try one of my recipes! Enjoy!

Monday Munchies: Blueberry Oatmeal Pancakes

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Bo pancake tester

Blueberry Oatmeal Pancakes

  • 1 cup quick oats
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • two eggs
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
  • 2 Tbsp butter (melted)
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • splash of vanilla
  • blueberries (optional)

In a large bowl, soak the oats and the buttermilk overnight.  In the morning, add the remaining ingredients and mix well.  Cook on a hot griddle.  Add blueberries while cooking.  Very good!  This recipes feeds 1 and 3 small children.  Double if planning to feed 5 hungry, full-sized humans.

Bo pancakes 2Bo pancakes 3

These pancakes do take some forethought, as you need to soak the oats in the buttermilk overnight.  I put mine in the fridge last Tuesday night when it became apparent that we would be spending Wednesday snowed in thanks to the Blizzard of 2011.  These were easy to pull together on Wednesday morning for a yummy breakfast that all three of my kiddos enjoyed.  The pancakes have a very good flavor and texture.

Blizzard 2011

Each Monday, I’ll showcase a family and kid-friendly recipe to share with your family.  Please let me know if you try one of my recipes! Enjoy!

Ask Jamie: Dump Cake

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Kristi asks in the comments on this post:

But what is dump cake?

Mmm… dump cake. It sounds gross, but is very easy and quite delicious! They don’t photograph well, so I won’t share a picture with you, but they taste great and are quite yummy. The ‘dump’ of dump cake is just dumping a box of cake mix over the top of other ingredients and not mixing.
My favorite dump cake recipe is this Weight Watcher friendly one:
Dump Cake
2 bags frozen fruit (or 3 cups fresh fruit)
1 cake mix
1 diet pop
Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9 x 13 pan with PAM. Dump in fruit. Sprinkle cake mix on top. Pour diet soda over the top. Bake for approximately 45 to 50 minutes until the top is golden. 12 servings – 4 points each. Great served warm with fat free vanilla ice cream. You can experiment with different flavors but my two favorites are blackberries/yellow cake/diet sprite and blueberries/vanilla cake/diet cream soda.
The dump cake from the post that I referenced above is this recipe:
Pumpkin Dump Cake
1 29 oz. can pumpkin
1 12 oz can evaporated milk
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp cinnamon
1 box yellow cake mix
1 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup melted butter
Preheat oven to 350. Mix first six ingredients in a large bowl and pour into a 9 x 13 pan sprayed with PAM. Sprinkle cake mix on top and then cover with pecans. Pour melted butter over the top. Bake for 50 minutes.
Enjoy!!
Friday’s Feature at Sticky Feet Part Deux is Ask Jamie. Feel free to email me or leave a comment with any question you would like for me to answer. Anything is fair game!

Tasty Tuesday: Coconut Cream Pie

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Last Wednesday, I decided I was in the mood for coconut pie. I noticed a recipe in one of Mom’s Taste of Home magazines and decided to take to the challenge and make my own. (My recipe is slightly modified). It was quite good – even though I’m not a fan of meringue. Give me some Cool Whip any day. 🙂 Mom, Bo, and I managed to polish off over half a pie as our afternoon snack that day.

***For those of you who are local — I loved the coconut pie and chocolate pie that they use to make at Skipper’s Galley. If you have either of those recipes, please share!!***

Bo had never had coconut before and even though he liked it – he did have a few red blotches after eating. Luckily, they went away fairly quickly and there didn’t seem to be any long-term consequences.

Coconut Cream Pie
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups milk
3 egg yolks, beaten
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I prefer coconut extract)
1 pie crust, baked

Meringue:
3 egg whites
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 tsp vanilla
6 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup flaked coconut

In a heavy saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Add milk, stir until smooth. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat to low and cook and stir for 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat Stir a small amount of the hot filling into the egg yolks, then return all to the pan, stirring constantly. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the coconut and vanilla. Pour into prepared shell.

In a small bowl, beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and vanilla on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in sugar, 1 Tbsp. at a time, on high until stiff peaks form. Spread meringue over hot filling, sealing edges to crust. Sprinkle with coconut.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on on a wire rack and then refrigerate.

Ask Jamie: Toddler Friendly Lunch Ideas

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Typically, I answer a reader’s question and then throw it back your way. Today, I have a question for you that I hope you can help me out with!

I am trying to compose a list of toddler friendly lunch ideas — preferably easy to prepare and healthy. Please leave your ideas in the comments and I will move them to the body of the post for everyone to read and share.

1. English Muffin Pizzas (Serves 2)
Split two whole wheat English muffins. Top each half with 2 Tbsp of pizza sauce, 2 turkey pepperonis, and enough mozzarella cheese to cover. Broil at 350 for 5 minutes. Serve with a side of steamed broccoli and fruit for dessert.

2. Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup (Serves 2)
Heat soup – we prefer Amy’s Organic Creamy Tomato. Butter one side of four pieces of whole wheat bread. Take a Kraft single and place one between each piece of bread (I like the Fat-Free singles). Grill on the stove.

Friday’s Feature at Sticky Feet Part Deux is Ask Jamie. Feel free to email me or leave a comment with any question you would like for me to answer. Anything is fair game!

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Lemon Broiled Fish

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Last week, I made this simple and quick fish dish for our family. The flavor of the fish is phenomenal and this recipe is Bo-approved!

The first step is to mix up the sauce. I used the juice from one fresh lemon, 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, a bit of pepper.

I used frozen fish fillets that I quickly thawed under running water. I used both tilapia and orange roughy so we we would be able to compare the flavor of both types of fish. I covered a cookie sheet with foil, placed the thawed fillets on top, and coated them liberally with the sauce mixture.


Voila! The completed dish. The front piece of fish is the tilapia and the fish in back was the orange roughy. We enjoyed the tilapia more than the orange roughy, but both types were very good. I served the fish with broccoli and brown rice. Yum!

Lemon Broiled Fish

6 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp. butter (melted)
1/2 tsp. pepper
4 orange roughy fillets

Combine the first four ingredients and mix well. Spray a baking pan with PAM and place fish in pan. Liberally coat fish with sauce mixture. Broil for 10 minutes or until fish flakes easily. Quick, easy, and great with brown rice and broccoli for a healthy dinner!

POM Pork Medallions

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Recently, POM sent me a case of pomegranate juice to taste test. I tried the juice plain and it reminded me a bit of cranberry juice, but I have to admit, it isn’t something that I would drink regularly. I also tried adding the POM to seltzer water, which was fine, but not wonderful.

I went searching for healthy recipes using POM and found this recipe for pork chops with a pomegranate marinade on one of the blogs I frequent — Green Lite Bites. I modified the recipe slightly and we were thrilled with the results. This dish is healthy and tastes great!

Ingredients:
8 oz. POM Wonderful juice
2 Tbsp. honey
2 Tbsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. basil
2 lb pork tenderloin
1 vidalia onion
salt and pepper

Whisk together the POM juice, honey, garlic, and basil to make a marinade. Trim the tenderloin (one of my main beefs with pork is it can be fatty so I like to trim off all of the fat) and cut into medallions. My tenderloin made 10 medallions — that’s a lot of pork! Slice the onion.

Layer the pork, onions, and a bit of marinade several times in a Ziploc bag. Place in the fridge and marinate for at least 12 hours. Each time I opened the fridge I mixed it around a bit to make sure that all of the pork was coated.

Fire up the grill and grill the onions and medallions until your desired doneness (I prefer all of my meat extra well done). Please ignore Mikey’s disheveled appearance — this was on Sunday evening after walking, biking, weeding, mowing, planting, etc. Mike had a busy and productive day and was in need of a shower! 😉

The pork has an amazing flavor and is definitely a recipe I’ll make again. I was really impressed with the flavor but it was not overwhelming. The vidalia onions are a must and give a wonderful, sweet, crunch. I served the pork with green beans and new potatoes. Delish!
This recipe has been cross posted at my review blog http://www.stickyfeetreviews.com/.

Chocolate Mini-Muffins (Low Fat and High Fiber)

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Well, it seems I’m bailing on Tuesdays with Dorie. It’s been weeks since I’ve managed to actually make one of the recipes and I just can’t seem to find the time to do it with the way my schedule has been lately. I love to bake, and I’m sad to see it go, but it’s time for a change around here.

Since my mom’s stroke, we’ve all been making a conscious effort to eat better and that definitely impacts the goodies I am motivated to bake each week. Also, despite the fact that I’m currently pregnant with twins and actually encouraged to eat a high fat, high protein, high calorie diet, I know that after the girls are born, there will be some major lifestyle changes for all of us in the Sticky Feet household (not limited to lack of sleep). We all need to be more healthy and I am so ready to reclaim my body after years of infertility, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and now more pregnancy and probably breastfeeding. I know it isn’t going to be easy — especially with three small children, but hopefully posting about it here and finding healthy recipes will help.

And that isn’t to say you won’t see a few Tuesdays with Dorie posts from time to time — or high fat recipes for chocolaty goodness. I’m all about indulgence. But you’re probably going to start seeing more alternative recipes instead of the classic, rich, and fattening fare.

I had a random craving for these “healthier” mini-muffins last week so I whipped up a batch. I actually find they are great for a quick chocolate fix and they are extremely quick and easy to make — which is the type of recipe I’m going to need with three children under 2 at home! The result is very rich and brownie like — not to mention low fat and high in fiber.

Even Reagan was interested…

Chocolate Mini-Muffins

1 box devils food cake mix
1 can pumpkin
½ cup chocolate/butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350. In a medium mixing bowl combine cake mix and pumpkin – batter will be very thick (sometimes I add a dash of Diet Coke to thin the batter a bit) . Divide into 24 mini-muffin cups. Add 3 to 4 chocolate/butterscotch chips on top of each. Bake for 15 minutes. 1 WW point each.

French Chocolate Macarons with Peanut Butter Filling

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Susan from She’s Becoming Doughmesstic originally posted about her French Chocolate Macarons in July. I’ve been craving them since that day and have had the recipe starred in my Google Reader all of this time!

Sometimes, I wonder about myself… What on earth took me so long to actually make these cookies? I’ve even eyed purchasing some macarons online numerous times. But the $3-$6 per cookie always stopped me in my tracks.

Last week, Susan made another flavor of macarons and over the weekend, Tania from Love Big, Bake Often, made her own macarons as well. I knew it was time. I had to make them!!

Yesterday evening, while my mom was here to play with Bo and my lasagna was in the oven baking, I finally tackled the macarons. I used Susan’s recipe for French Chocolate Macarons and then made my own peanut butter filling.

My cookies did not achieve the smooth tops that other’s macarons have and I think that is mostly due to the fact that I couldn’t find my piping bag and had to use a Ziploc bag to pipe the cookies. (Other theories are welcome.) For my first attempt, I think they are delicious and I was thrilled with the results. I’ll definitely be making these again! Actually, I think I’ll go have a few for breakfast.

Peanut Butter Filling
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
4 Tbsp. powdered sugar
5 Tbsp. milk (I used whole)

In a small microwave safe bowl, melt the peanut butter, approximately 1 minute. Using a whisk, add the powdered sugar and milk and whisk until smooth. Yum!