Healthy Quinoa Muffins

I found this recipe on Martha Stewart's website and was very pleased with the original. The recipe below includes the changes I made to make it even healthier. I enjoyed these muffins best right out of the oven. Since they are a little denser I would suggest eating them within a day or two. I didn't try the freezer option (freeze and eat later), although I am sure that would be great too. They were warm, crumbly, brown sugar sweet and delicious!

1 cup quinoa, rinsed - makes a little extra so feel free to do a shy cup

3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 tablespoons flaxseed meal

3/4 cup packed dark-brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup dried cranberries

3/4 cup milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 large egg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan, bring quinoa and 1 cup water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer; cover, and cook until water has been absorbed and quinoa is tender, 11 to 13 minutes. Leave lid on for a couple more minutes just for good measure. You don’t want the seeds crunchy!

In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, dried cranberries, and 2 cups cooked quinoa; reserve any leftover quinoa for another use.

In a small bowl, whisk together oil, milk, egg, and vanilla. Add milk mixture to flour mixture, and stir just until combined; divide batter into paper muffin cups.

Bake until toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool muffins in pan, 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Lactation Cookies

For those breastfeeding moms out there, here is a recipe that is not only tasty and healthy (for a cookie), but helps with your milk supply! The brewer's yeast is essential, so don't think you can leave it out.

Also, if you measure your maple syrup in the 1/4 cup measure (only half of it though) BEFORE you measure your honey, it will help the honey just fall out and there won't be much scraping!

Lactation Cookies

3 tablespoons butter, room temperature

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/8 cup pure maple syrup

1 egg

1 tablespoon water

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

4 tablespoons brewer’s yeast

1 tablespoon flax seed

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 /2 cup dried cranberries

1 /4 cup raw sunflower seeds

Combine the butter, sugar, honey, syrup, egg and water and mix well. Adding to the bowl, add the flour, yeast, flax seed, salt and baking soda. Once that is incorporated, mix in the oats, sunflower seeds and cranberries. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Cool and eat as many as you want!

Chicken Curry

Chicken curry has found it's place in our food rotation and we love it! It only takes about 20 minutes to prepare. I have adapted this recipe from Real Simple. We made it a little lighter and the sauce more to our liking. The original recipe is delicious too though! It can be found HERE.

• 1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast or 2 thighs
• 2 tablespoons curry powder
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 1 medium zucchini, thinly sliced
• 1 medium yellow squash, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp low-sodium chicken bouillon
• 1 can light coconut milk
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• Cooked white rice
• 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
• 1/4 cup (1 ounce) almonds, roughly chopped

Saute zucchini, squash and onions in some olive oil.

Toss the chicken with the curry and cinnamon.

After the vegetables are cooked to your liking, remove and fry up the chicken.

Combine the vegetables and all the rest of the ingredients. Let simmer for about 10 minutes and serve! See how easy it is?

Homemade Granola

One of my favorite snacks is granola. I like being able to control what is in the food I eat so I decided to make my granola myself. I have been enjoying this recipe for quite some time now and have made a few adjustments to my liking. It has been adapted from joyofbaking.com.

Homemade Granola Recipe:

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not instant)

1 cup chopped or slivered raw almonds

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

2 tablespoons wheat germ

1 tablespoon flax seed

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoonsalt

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 cup pure maple syrup (preferably Grade A Dark Amber)

I chopped up my whole almonds.

Definitely use pure maple syrup! It is so much better for you and taste better too.

Mix all your dry ingredients.

Separately mix together the syrup and melted butter. Add to dry ingredients and mix until well incorporated.

Cover cookie sheet with a piece of parchment paper and evenly layer the granola. Bake at 325 degrees for 30-45 minutes (depending on how done you like it), stirring it every 15 minutes. If you like it crunchy, watch it closely! It will go from done to burnt very quickly. Let the granola cool, break up the chunks and store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. Enjoy!

More Quinoa

We tried a new recipe last night!

1 3/4 cup water

1 cup uncooked quinoa

chopped tomato

chopped green onion

juice from 1 lemon

fresh parsley

salt and pepper

Boil the water and quinoa and then simmer for 20 minutes. Throw in all the other ingredients in the amounts that you like and serve either chilled or at room temperature. Clearly it is super easy but it still tasted great! Very summery and light.

I am a big fan of Costco and here is yet one more reason. I bought a 4lb bag of organic quinoa for $9.50! At a regular grocery store you can't even get 2lbs at that price. Go. Buy some. Enjoy this super grain that has so many health benefits.

Car Seat Cover

I saw a friend with a car seat cover and thought it was a great idea. My daughter is too big now for this size car seat but another bundle of joy came along two weeks ago to a friend so I thought it was a great reason to give the car seat cover a try!

Sorry I can't figure out how to flip the picture around.

I ended up doing roughly 35in x 35in with the top fabric slightly longer to give room for one more seam. I cut the top panel in half to sew on the loops, put the other panel on the back and went around the edges with the green fabric. I was going to use velcro for the loops, but I bought the one kind that was not recommended for fabrics! Luckily I was already borrowing a friend's pliers and snap assortment, so I just threw some snaps on. I also did stitch in the ditch of the middle seam so the inside fabric wasn't falling into the baby's face. All in all I think it turned out pretty well. Hopefully little Logan will sleep like a baby inside!

Quinoa Experiment

Here is my second experiment with quinoa! I really like the idea of eating quinoa because variety is the spice of life and quinoa is so good for you! The recipe I used was for Double Broccoli Quinoa and it turned out great! I also made a spiced salmon and yogurt biscuits because they are my Love's favorite. Whenever I ask if he wants yogurt biscuits he NEVER says no.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly, but tweaked it to my liking!
Have I posted yet about my toaster oven being my favorite kitchen appliance? I use it for just about EVERYTHING, even cake! I found this cute little dish ( which is a nice size for many things ) and used it for cake in the toaster oven. It came out perfectly: slightly dense and chewy but sweet and delicious. I rarely frost my cakes because I prefer to eat them warm out of the oven. The sweet hints inside the cake are just enough that it doesn't even need the frosting.
Here is the recipe:

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup milk

1/4 tsp pure vanilla

juice and zest from one lemon

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Mix in egg, milk, vanilla, lemon juice and zest. Put flour and baking powder together in sifter and sift into the batter. Mix until combined and bake in toaster oven at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

If you live near a costco you should grab a 10 pound bag of organic sugar there because it is only 89 cents a pound. That's a steal!

For the milk I used vanilla flavored almond milk and omitted the vanilla.

And a shout out to Land O Lakes butter for doing the quarter cup butter sticks. LOVE them.