Paleo Blueberry Muffins

I was desperately craving some blueberry muffins the other day. So what's a girl to do, but start baking?

I am a self-proclaimed baker, not a cook. Don't get me wrong, I can whip up some decent meals, but baking is by far my strong suit - it's intuitive. I know what the various batters are supposed to look like and I just mix in my Paleo ingredients until it looks right. So here's one recipe for Paleo blueberry muffins. I did use maple syrup, but you can easily exclude it if you're on a Whole 30. Yes, blueberry muffins are considered SWYPO (Sex With Your Pants On), but if you've got a craving, I think it's better to let yourself indulge in that craving instead of eating everything else you can get your hands on and then still being dissatisfied. Go ahead... you know you want to!

Paleo Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients

1 cup almond butter

1 cup almond meal

3 Tbls tapioca flour

3 Tbls arrowroot powder

1/2 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

a couple shakes of sea salt

2 eggs

2 Tbls maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1 cup fresh blueberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325°F.
2. Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another. Once the wet ingredients are thoroughly mixed, stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
3. Distribute into 10 muffin tins - you can either coat each section with coconut oil, or you can use a muffin tin liner - silicone is easier to separate from the muffin, but paper works well too.
4. Cook for 12-15 minutes.
5. Let cool for a little bit, then devour as if you were cookie monster and these blueberry muffins were cookies. But try to get all of these muffins in your mouth instead of letting them fly all over the place, it'd be a shame to waste such deliciousness.

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

I made a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip bars last night. The non-Paleo kind. So tempting! My goal for this week(end) is to tweak my Paleo-ified version of it. I brought the pan into work, and it was cleaned out by noonish. Any some of my co-workers didn't even get any. Fortunately I have enough ingredients to make another batch. You're welcome, co-workers!

I really need to get back into good sleep habits. This morning, I either slept through a series of alarms or I partially woke up, turned off four alarms, and immediately fell back asleep.  My alarms are set at 5:00, 5:30, and 6:00, and sounds every 5 minutes if you don't turn it off. The first alarm to go off would be my sleep cycle alarm in the 4:30-5:00 range. The remaining alarms are on my phone. I finally woke up at 6:05 If I happened to sleep through all of the alarms (plus 5 minute reminder alarms), that would mean that my phone sounded 14 times this morning before I managed to rolled myself out of bed. I shuffled a few feet closer to the bathroom, and then dropped into 50 squats.

I'm doing a 30-day, 6000 squat challenge, meaning 200 squats per day. (Feel free to join in! Though you would need to catch up for a couple days.) Today was day two, and I'm 450 squats in. Unfortunately, I'm also already icing my knee. Though technically I started doing that yesterday evening. Maybe it's time to invest in a knee brace again. Each time I do a squat I can hear my knees creaking. It's a bit disconcerting. Anyways, to the good stuff...

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup cranberries
2 eggs
1/2 cup almond flour
1 Tbls pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 Tbls maple syrup

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.
2. Mix together wet ingredients (pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, and maple syrup).
3. Then stir in remaining ingredients. And spoon into coconut-oil greased muffin tin.

4. Bake for 35-40 minutes,  until toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Whole 30 - Day 2

2 days down... 28 to go. Haven't had too many cravings today, though I did attack some pistachios with a bit more vigor than I would have liked this evening. It was a nice dessert after my evening walk with my good friend and new-ish neighbor LMR. Oh well. I was truthful and tracked in on paleotrack.com, bringing my grand total caloric intake to just about 1130 calories. I got the "Strict Paleo" designation, but I really want to work on getting "Optimal Paleo," meaning I need to aim for a 2.3:1 Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio and a 3.9:1 Potassium to Sodium ratio. I really need to figure out how to consume more Omega 3 and potassium.

Anyways, I'm sure you're all wondering what I'll be eating for breakfast this week. Well, look no further than...

Pulled Pork Egg Muffins

1 cup leftover Pulled Pork

6 eggs

1/4 green pepper, chopped

1/4 red pepper, chopped

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Mix ingredients together and pour into an oiled/greased muffin tin (or use liners). Bake for 15 minutes. or until egg is solid.

It makes 6 muffins, so I'm covered for the next 6 days.

Buffalo Chicken Egg Bites

Buffalo Chicken Egg Bites

4 eggs, whisked
1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup frozen cut spinach

Sauce
1/4 cup (4 Tbls) hot sauce
2 Tbls (2 oz) Tbls ghee, melted
1 small clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp sea salt
pinch of ground black pepper

Chicken
1 lb chicken, cubed and seasoned with
1 tsp olive oil
pinch of salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Pull out your 6-muffin tin and either insert paper liners or coat with oil.
2. In a bowl, stir together the chicken, olive oil, salt, and pepper.
3. Spread the seasoned chicken across a baking sheet, and cook for ~7 minutes or until cooked through. Remove from oven and pat dry.
4. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl (large enough to hold 2 cups).

5. Stir in the cooked chicken, making sure chicken is fully coated.

6. Evenly distribute the pepper, spinach, and chicken among the 6 muffins.
7. Add 3.5 Tbls of the whisked egg to each muffin.

8. Bake in oven for 15 minutes.

Alternatives: You can use a loaf pan, or 8"x8" pan instead of muffin tins if you like. I had leftover eggs and chicken, so I chopped up some more pepper and made a mini souffle dish of the buffalo chicken egg bites, as you can see at the top...

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Pumpkin Spice Muffins


Bowl 1
1/2 cup coconut flour
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin spice
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp cloves
Bowl 2
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1/4 cup honey
2 tbls coconut oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla


Streusel
1/2 cup choppen pecans
1/4 cup almond flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbls coconut oil, melted

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Sift the ingredients of Bowl 1 together. Set aside. Put pumpkin puree into a bowl and mix in eggs, one at a time. Add honey, coconut oil, and vanilla, stirring well. Add in the dry ingredients, beating until no large lumps remain. Fill muffin tin 2/3 of the way and top with a spoonful of the Streusel mixture.

Bake 20-25 minutes.

YUMMMM!!!

Blueberry-Banana-Walnut Muffins

I love to bake! Especially for other people. Prior to my self-imposed exile from the world of sweets and thus baked goods I would bake just to bring in cookies or brownies to work. It's been a while, but I had some free time yesterday afternoon before going to see The Hunger Games (which was awesome), so I baked some muffins!

Blueberry-Banana-Walnut Muffins

wet ingredients

1 cup almond butter

2 eggs

2 bananas - 1 frozen, 1 very ripe (spotty). I feel like using a frozen banana makes the muffins a tad bit sweeter than just using a ripe banana.

dry ingredients

1 cup almond flour

1/4 cup walnuts

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ginger

2 shakes pumpkin pie spice

1/2 cup blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Mash the two bananas in a large bowl using a fork.

Mix the almond butter and the eggs into the mashed banana. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and fold the blueberries into the batter. For those who bake regularly, it will actually look like non-paleo muffin batter.

Fill paper- or silicone-lined muffin tins 3/4 of the way full, or roughly 2 heaping tablespoons per muffin.

Bake for 13-15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Makes a baker's dozen worth of muffins. Enjoy!