Before I started making my own healthy muffins, there was a bakery by my house on the way to my office. I would literally say, if there was a parking space open, I would get a muffin, or if there wasn’t I would pass it by. More times than not there would be a space and I would eat a muffin. Bakery muffins are made with LOTS of butter and sugar and 1 muffin can easily set you back 600 calories and 30 grams of fat. Not a great way to start your day!

I adapted this recipe from Penzey Spices Catalog I got in the mail. I made a few adjustments. One being that I used silken tofu instead of the butter for the recipe, the other is I used skim milk instead of whole milk. The results? You can’t even tell I made any alterations!

Cinnamon muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup oats (not instant)
1 cup skim milk
1-2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/5 block of silken tofu (91 grams)
1/3 cup brown sugar (not packed)
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 TB Canola Oil
4 Tablespoons chocolate chips (because I have to have some chocolate!)

Directions:

In a small bowl, add the oats and cover with the milk and let stand 10 minutes.

In a mixer add the tofu, the brown sugar and egg and mix until smooth. Add the oats soaked in the milk and the rest of the ingredients.

I used a Jumbo Muffin Tin (found at Target or Walmart). (Makes 6 muffins).

Mix together some sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle on top of each muffin. Bake for about 18-20 minutes at 350 or until a toothpick comes out clean.

And, the difference vs. buying a huge muffin at the bakery?? Here’s the nutritional info:

I love when lightened up versions turn out great!

Under the categories section, there is a category for “Muffin of the Week” where you will find all the muffins I’ve made so far over the past 2 1/2 years!

Have a great Saturday!!!

Here is a cute picture I took this morning of our cat Max and my son Mark!

Max & Mark

New Total Cereal + Omega 3's - Per 1 cup serving 200 calories, 3.5 g. fat and 4 g. of fiber

I was recently sent a free box of Total Cereal + Omega 3’s in the mail. I’ve had Total cereal before, and I like it, and having a newer version with Omega 3’s sounded that much better. I usually eat my breakfast at work and sometimes bringing cereal and then a thermos of milk is too time consuming, so I thought about incorporating the cereal to make a grab and go breakfast muffin!

This recipe made 12 muffins and each muffin is 198 calories, 9 grams of fat and 3 grams of fiber.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups of Total Cereal + Omega 3’s, pulsed in a blender until it resembles flour
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup skim milk
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
2 egg whites
4 tablespoons semi sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup Canola oil
3 Tablespoons ground flax seed

In a mixing bowl mix together all ingredients until well blended. Spray a muffin tin with Non-stick cooking spray or use muffin liners.

Bake at 375 for 15-17 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

These turned out moist and yummy. I had one every morning for breakfast with an apple or grapes and a yogurt and it kept me full all morning!

I doubled the recipe to freeze some for later!

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Also, don’t forget to vote for John for him to win $10,000 from Stride Gum for his idea to run 40 races by his 40th birthday!! He’s lost 105 pounds since December!!! VOTE FOR HIM HERE, YOU CAN VOTE ONCE A DAY!

And check out my sister Biz’s Blog for her 101 days of Summer Update!
I had my best week in a long time! I gave up diet soda, rode my bike to work every day (3.2 miles!) and did P90X 4x!! Wahoo!

So yesterday I was checking my e-mail and I clicked on Food Buzz’s featured recipes for the day. One was from THIS SITE and it was for bacon, cheddar and cornmeal waffles. It sounded amazing to me, but I don’t have a waffle maker, so I wondered, “Can I make these into muffins?” And the answer is a resounding “YES!”

First, I had to make it lower in calories. So I used turkey bacon instead of real bacon, I added minced green onions, and I used skim milk instead of whole milk and I lessened the amount of cheese.

I though my version turned out great!

Turkey Bacon, Cheddar and Cornmeal Muffins (adapted from THIS SITE)

This recipe makes 12 muffins.

Each muffin is 177 calories, 6 grams of fat, 1.2 grams of fiber, 22.5 grams of carbs and 8.2 grams of protein.

Ingredients

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs
½ cup plain yogurt
1 green onion (optional)
1 ½ cups skim milk
6 slices turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled
3 oz. cheddar cheese + some for sprinkling on top before baking(try Sargento Reduced Sodium Cheddar cheese!)

I chopped up the uncooked turkey bacon and added it to a skillet with 1 tablespoon of butter so it would crisp up. I finely chopped up the green onion and added it to the bacon and cooked for several minutes.

In a big mixing bowl, add all the dry ingredients. Next, add the cooked bacon/green onion mixture, the other tablespoon of butter and the rest of the ingredients. Beat on low for about a minute, or until it’s all incorporated.

Let the batter stand for 10 minutes.

In a 12 muffin tin, sprayed with Pam, take a 1/2 cup measuring cup and start filling the muffin cups.

Sprinkle a little shredded cheese on top and bake at 375 for 10-13 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

The great thing about this recipe, is that you can freeze the leftovers and have a quick breakfast when you are in a hurry, just re-heat in the microwave for a minute.

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Now onto the free cheese coupons! I received 5 coupons to try the New Sargento Reduced Sodium cheeses.

They come in these flavors:

Colby-Jack Slices
Provolone Slices
Colby-Jack Snack Sticks
Sting Snacks
Mild Cheddar shredded chees
Mozzarella shredded cheese

So, 5 lucky readers who post a comment will be eligible to win!

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Each Jumbo Muffin is only 197 calories, 6 grams fat, 2 grams fiber, 31 carbs, and 4 grams of protein

Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins (Adapted from Cooking Light Magazine) From www.cowgirlchef.com

*My changes are in bold
INGREDIENTS
1 2/3 cups quick cooking oats
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup wheat flour (I just used all purpose flour, didn’t have wheat flour)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon sea salt (I just used regular salt)
¾ cup brown sugar, packed (I didn’t pack it down)
1 ½ cups buttermilk (I didn’t have buttermilk, so I used skim milk with 1 TB. Apple cider vinegar, let stand 5 minutes)
¼ cup canola oil
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons lemon zest (appx. 1 lemon) (I didn’t have any of that)
2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
2 tablespoons granulated cane sugar (I put brown sugar on top)
I also added ½ cup ground flax seed
WHAT YOU DO
Preheat oven to 400.
1. Place oats in food processor; pulse 5-6 times until oats resemble coarse meal. Place in a large bowl.
2. Sift flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together and add to oats. Stir until combined
3. Add brown sugar, buttermilk, canola oil, lemon zest, and eggs. Stir just until combined.
4. Gently fold in blueberries.
5. Spoon batter into 16 muffin cups; sprinkle each with a bit of granulated sugar. (I made 6 jumbo muffins and 1 loaf of bread) Bake for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in the center. Remove from pans immediately. Place on a wire rack.

**I just dumped all the ingredients at one time and then mixed for a minute. (Although I did fold in the blueberries)

So check out CowGirl Chef’s site, she has a lot of great things on it!!

This picture was taken at my desk (after I took a few bites!) The picture doesn't do the muffin justice, it is fantastic!!

The result? Very good! It gave it a nice crunch on top, but you could still taste the saltiness from the pretzels. It kind of reminded me of the Momofuku Milk Bar cookies where the chef adds crushed pretzels AND crushed potato chips to their famous cookies!

I basically used the same recipe as my chocolate zucchini muffins, but I didn’t have any zucchini, so I just left that ingredient out.

Chocolate muffins by Jenn/Adapted from 101 Cookbooks

1 cup unpacked brown sugar
1/4 cup Canola oil
1 egg + 2 egg whites
1 banana, mashed
1 container yogurt (the one I used was vanilla at 90 calories)
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. banking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
10 pretzel nugget, crushed
1 tb. brown sugar for the topping

In a mixer, mix together the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl add the dry ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet batter and mix until incorporated.

I made 6 Jumbo Muffins out of this recipe, bake them at 375 for 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

So for the topping, I took 10 pretzel nuggets and a tablespoon of brown sugar and crushed that with a rolling pin until the pretzel pieces were smaller and then sprinkled that on top.

For 1 JUMBO muffin, it’s only 225 calories!!!

Pretzel crusted chocolate chip muffins!

What’s your favorite sweet/salty combo??

Please check out my BROTHER’S blog today, he has a great post about turning the switch ON for weight loss or what happens when the switch is OFF?