Muffins | Healthy and Sane

Comfort foods–healthified

February 7th, 2011

I haven’t cooked at all last week since I was traveling during the first part of the week and then came home to a fridge bare of fresh produce. We finally made it to the grocery store on Saturday but looking through these pictures of what I made over the weekend, it seems like I could have waited a few more days!

These recipes were all made from pantry items and meat/bread from the freezer and they all tasted like cheat meals. My taste buds had no idea this was diet friendly food. Just the way I like it! : )

Chicken parm meatball “subs”

Almost every single savory recipe on Healthy Food for Living looks like something that Adam (and I) would love. They’re comforting; they’re “man meals” which makes for one happy husband (and hey, I like me some man-food too. What’s not to love?). These chicken meatballs were full of Italian herbs and parmesan cheese – a little sauce and cheese put them over the top.

[1 Point Plus per meatball. This dinner was 10 points. The bun is a large hot dog bun.]

Jumbo bran muffins

On Saturday morning I woke up craving a big healthy muffin. When Adam asked where I wanted it to be from, I said “from my kitchen.” Winking smile So I got to work…

While making coffee, the Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook jumped out at me. I love that the Points Plus values are right there and I don’t have to take that extra step of calculating nutritional info (btw, I linked to the book through Amazon… if you buy it or anything else on Amazon, I’d really appreciate if you would start your shopping from Healthy and Sane (link on the right column)… I get a few percent commission from your purchase but it doesn’t cost you any extra. This money would be reinvested back into the blog. Thanks in advance!!). Anyways, sorry for the detour… back to the muffins…

The word “jumbo” was the draw here… who doesn’t want a JUMBO muffin for just 5 Points Plus. Sign me up! Smile

The perfect way to start a morning. The strudel topping was unbelievable and I loved the sweetness of the raisins. Yum!

Chocolate gooey butter cookies

Paula Deen is who you think of when you think of healthy food, right? A few years back I had the Food Network on and she was making these cookies. They looked so incredible that even though I normally can’t stand Paula, I went straight online and printed out the recipe.

Finally this weekend I decided to make them. I stumbled upon the old recipe printout and figured it was now or never (I plan on cleaning out my recipe binder in a few weeks and plan on only keeping things I’ve made and loved. Everything else will go. It’s time for a clean beginning!)

These were incredibly easy to make and came out pretty well. The recipe made 36 cookies, only 3 Points Plus each! [I used reduced fat cream cheese… couldn’t help myself.]

I brought them to the Superbowl party and people seemed to enjoy them. I thought they weren’t chocolaty enough but maybe it was just the cake mix I used.

The slightly cakey texture (not muffin-like!) was pretty awesome.

Yes, I ate as many cookies as the amount of pictures I took. That’s what happens when you park yourself right next to the party food table. Oh well. The rest of my week has been going really well (diet wise). More on that in the next post! Open-mouthed smile

What have you been cooking lately? I’ve definitely been a bit of a slacker lately so I was really happy to finally spend some quality time in the kitchen this weekend! Smile

Better Butter review and giveaway

January 9th, 2011

I feel like I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had much time to cook so this weekend I finally made sure to schedule-in some serious kitchen time. It was so much fun! One of the items on my to-make list – muffins with a product I recently received for a review.

Better Butter was actually started by a friend of mine, Marina, whom I met through blogging last year. She was a big fan of nut butters (who isn’t, right?) but was frustrated with how caloric they were…so she started playing with natural ingredients like pumpkin and mashed banana to make a lighter peanut butter spread. And that’s how Better Butter was born!

[Edited to add: I forgot something really important!! Better Butter is ~45% less calories than peanut butter (around 100 calories for 2 tablespoons), ~50% less fat than peanut butter and ~65% less saturated fat than peanut butter. I love these stats!!]

A few weeks ago Marina sent me a Better Butter variety pack to taste and review on the blog. I was super excited to say the least!!

The 3 flavors currently available are: honey nut banana, maple pumpkin and nutty chocolate chip

These are definitely peanut butter spreads. This may sound funny but I don’t think peanut butter tastes a lot like peanuts – it has a very distinct flavor for me. Better Butter tasted a lot like peanuts… and the flavorings! Each variety had a very different texture as well.

The maple pumpkin was light and fluffy. I loved the spices in it – tasted like a pumpkin pie filling but much less sweet (all Better Butter spreads are sweetened with agave nectar which has a much more subtle sweetness).

The honey nut banana was my least favorite actually. It was a lot more dense and seemed to taste differently on different days. One day it tasted like green bananas, another day it was very peanuty.

Unsurprisingly, the nutty chocolate chip was the one I kept going back for. It was a little grainy but I just loved the deep chocolate flavor and the mini chocolate chips. Yes, everything is better with chocolate chips! Open-mouthed smile

I actually received a whole full-sized jar of the nutty chocolate chip to play around with and challenged myself to the very first Elina original muffin recipe!! I made a cherry chocolate kind on Saturday, took notes on what worked and what didn’t, and went back to the drawing board (and my kitchen) on Sunday. Here are my Healthy and Sane chocolate apricot muffins (makes 6)

Wet ingredients:

1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 cup apple sauce
1 egg
1T canola oil
2T Better Butter nutty chocolate chip

Dry ingredients:

4oz whole wheat pastry flour
2.5T cacao powder
1t instant coffee
1t baking powder
1/2t salt
4T sugar (these were not too sweet, use more if you prefer sweet muffins)

Mix-ins: dried apricots, chopped (I used 75grams – all I had left). I think chocolate chips would put these over the edge in amazingness Smile

The process in pictures…

Mix wet ingredients:

Mix the dry ingredients:

Combine the 2, add mix-ins. Bake at 350* for 16 minutes.

Enjoy!

These muffins came out super moist with a hint of chocolate and peanut butter flavor (I think the addition of chocolate chips would make these more chocolaty). I loved the addition of dried apricots – they are my latest obsession!

[Each muffin is 5 Points Plus]

As mentioned above, they weren’t too sweet so I thought a shmear of Better Butter over the top was appropriate Winking smile

Yup, very appropriate. Yum! Smile

This was muffin #2 actually, I took a bite and then remembered dinner was coming, so I “glued” it back together. Sneaky.

Want a chance to win a variety pack of Better Butter and taste all 3 flavors?

Here are the rules: there are 6 ways to enter.

1) Leave a comment on this post – Tell me anything peanut butter related – maybe what your favorite brand or flavor is or how you like to enjoy it.

2+3) Follow me on Twitter (please tell me in the comments what your twitter name is so I can confirm). For an additional entry, you can also tweet about this giveaway (my twitter name @elinacooks must be included to qualify)

4) Like Healthy and Sane on Facebook.

5) Add Healthy and Sane to your blogroll.

6) Link to this post on your blog, if you have one. If you don’t, let someone else know about this giveaway and tell me so in the comments section after they’ve entered the giveaway.

Please leave a separate comment for each entry. The giveaway is open to US residents only (sorry!) and will end on January 15. I will randomly choose a winner using random.org and announce him/her on the following Monday. Good luck! Open-mouthed smile

Healthier peanut butter and choc chip pumpkin muffins

December 2nd, 2010

In case you haven’t noticed from the recap in my last post, there have been a lot of sweets consumed over the past two weeks. None of them came into my life unwillingly (like those office sweets that just jump out of nowhere at unsuspecting dieters). I made every one except for the cake and pies consumed on Thanksgiving. And the day after. What, not everyone eats leftover cake for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving? So yeah, I made them on purpose. But then I ate them, waaaaay too many of them. What can I say, the second sugar hits my lips, it’s like crack. I can’t stop.

So when people ask me how my lifting program is going, I can’t really tell them much because while I’m following the lifting portion of the program, and yes – eating more protein, all those sweets kind of undo the hard work. [I’ve seen no body changes so far and gained another 0.6lbs in the last 2 weeks. And no, it is NOT muscle mass.]

I polish them off so that “they’ll be gone and I can be better tomorrow” which is silly, really. But not in that moment… at that moment it seems oh so logical. So I decided something. When baking, I’m going to stick to healthier treats from now on. So that there is no guilt and no urge to binge just one more time before I try to be better. And hey, healthier doesn’t mean less tasty anyway. So really, it’s a win-win. Open-mouthed smile We’re going back to the basics here. I got a little too lax about treats in the name of “intuitive eating” but clearly intuitive (sweets) eater I am not.

Btw, how do you like my pumpkin muffin pan? Isn’t it the cutest? I’ve been meaning to use it for about 12 months now. Ever since I got it on sale at Crate & Barrel last year after their fall collection was switched to Christmas-themed. And what do you know, I’m using it smack in the middle of Christmas season. Oh well, better late than never.

I’ve been craving pumpkin muffins like it was my job, so last night my pumpkin dream became a reality. It was rainy, dark and our kitchen was clean (thanks to Adam, our dish cleaning master). Oh and right about the same time, I stumbled upon a printout of Lauren’s pumpkin muffins with spiced cream cheese filling recipe. These were based on Ellie Krieger’s pumpkin muffin recipe, which I ADORE, so I knew there was a very good chance I’d love these too.

I followed Lauren’s recipe for the muffin dough + added 1/4 cup chocolate chips and 1/4 cup peanut butter chips (which coincidently Lauren sent me as a sweet present. Last time we saw each other, I was telling her how I could no longer find the natural kind. Thanks again, Lauren!!!). I also used 2T of sugar for the cream cheese filling (instead of 1), which I sandwiched between muffin halves after they were baked (there was enough filling for 6).

The result was fantastic. These are so moist!! They have just enough sweetness to make them feel like a treat, but I know with the whole grains and pumpkin I’m still taking care of my body. I will admit, I had one for breakfast today (with a plain Oikos) but devoured this model after his after-dinner photo-shoot tonight as well. He was as good as he looks Smile with tongue out