My favorite carrot muffins

I love to bake muffins, and it's even better when I can use ingredients from my own backyard garden.  Last April (that sounds like so long ago!), I planted a few carrot seeds.  I finally got to harvest them this week.  How fun are these multi-colored carrots?!

I ended up with just enough carrots to make my favorite carrot muffins, a recipe from Taste of Home. It's a healthy recipe, with whole wheat flour and applesauce instead of butter or shortening.  I loved how these muffins turned out, with the different colors of shredded carrots in the mix.  Give these a try next time you see carrots on sale at the grocery store (or at the farmers market).

Joy the Baker's blueberry muffins

I'm a big fan of the Joy the Baker food blog, so I bought her debut cookbook this spring.  I waited until blueberries went on sale before I tried her recipe for browned butter blueberry muffins. 

I had a little trouble making the crumbly topping (it was all flour and not a lot a butter, for some reason), and I think I may have underbaked them a bit.  But they are a nice, light muffin, and I enjoyed eating them as a quick breakfast before I left for work.  How great is it that blueberry season is almost here!

Apple streusel muffins

One of my favorite food magazines is Seasons from Hy-Vee, an Iowa-based grocery store chain.  I used to pick up a copy of Seasons whenever I saw a new edition at Hy-Vee.  But then I figured out I could sign up to have the magazine delivered to my house -- for free!  No yearly subscription!

Like the name suggests, Seasons features recipes that are perfect for the season.  This month's issue offers Christmas baking and seafood recipes (which I can't wait to try for New Year's this year.)

As for the baking recipes, I had a few overripe apples in my refrigerator, so I decided to bake up a batch of the Baked Apple Crumble Muffins featured in the fall issue. The recipe was a little more complicated to make than the typical muffin recipe.  But I loved all the different spices, particularly the "heavy" (1/2 tsp.) dose of cloves.

My husband wasn't too excited when he saw these muffins cooling on the counter.  But he ended up loving them.  "I don't usually like muffins, but these were good," he said.  So I'm sharing the recipe with all of you.  Hope you enjoy it!

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Baked Apple Crumble Muffins (or Apple Streusel Muffins)

From Hy-Vee's Seasons magazine

Topping:

• 1/2 C. unsalted butter
• 1/4 C. sugar
• 1/4 C. plus 2 Tbls. packed light brown sugar
• 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• Pinch of salt
• 1-1/3 C. flour
• 1/2 C. chopped walnuts

Muffins:

• 1-1/2 C. packed light brown sugar
• 1/3 C. vegetable oil
• 1/3 C. unsweetened applesauce
• 1 large egg
• 1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2-1/2 C. flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. ginger
• 1 C. buttermilk
• 1-1/4 C. chopped walnuts
• 2-1/2 C. chopped apple

For topping: In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Remove pan from the heat and add the granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Stir with a rubber scraper, pressing when necessary, until smooth.  Add flour and mix until well-blended and pasty.  Fold in chopped walnuts; set aside.

For muffins:  Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar, oil, applesauce, egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and ginger.  Stir oil mixture into flour mixture alternately with buttermilk.  Stir in walnuts.  Fold in apples, mixing until just combined.  Spoon into greased standard-size muffin cups, filling almost full. Break up the topping mixture with your fingers into medium-size pieces.  Evenly sprinkle the topping pieces over the muffin batter. Bake 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown and tops spring back when lightly touched. Yield: 18 muffins.

Iowa church cookbook recipe: Morning Glory Muffins

I planted carrots in the same garden plot as tomatoes.  By mid-July, the tomatoes were getting so big that they were overshadowing the carrots.  So even though the carrots were on the small side, I decided it was time to yank them out of the ground.  We have really rich, black, heavy soil here in central Iowa, so I always have a difficult time trying to get the little carrots out of the ground without them breaking off.  Does anyone have a trick for digging up carrots?

Even though the carrots were small, I ended up with quite a few of them.  

Fresh from the garden.

All cleaned up!

Since they were so tiny, I thought it would be best to shred them in the food processor and bake with them.  I wasn't in the mood for carrot cake, so I turned to my favorite church cookbook and found a recipe for Morning Glory Muffins.  I had all the ingredients on hand, which is great because I didn't want to make another trip to the grocery store.

These muffins turned out a little "tough," but I think that's because I didn't add the shredded apple.  (I was out of apples.)  You're welcome to give them a try if you have a few extra carrots in your refrigerator that need to be used up.

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Morning Glory Muffins

• 1/2 C. raisins, soaked 1/2 hour in hot water (drain)
• 2 C. flour
• 1 C. sugar
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp nutmet
• 2 C. shredded carrots
• 1 large tart apple, shredded
• 1/2 C. sliced almonds (opt.)
• 1/2 C. coconut (opt.)
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 C. cooking oil
• 2 tsp. vanilla

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda and spices. Stir in drained raisins, carrots, apples, almonds and coconut.  Beat eggs.  Add oil and vanilla.  Add to flour mixture and stir just to combine.  Grease muffin cups or line with paper liners.  Fill cups 2/3 full.  You can sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top, if desired.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to35 minutes.  Yield: 24 muffins.

You say tomato

Driving through my neighborhood, I see dozens of tomato plants with ripe, red tomatoes on the vine. Yet my garden hasn't yielded one ripe tomato, until last week. Here's my first red tomato. It's not so pretty, but it's mine!

Since I can't do much with one tomato, I bought 10 pounds of tomatoes this week from Black's Heritage Farms in Ames so I could can tomatoes. Once again, canning tomatoes was suprisingly easy, except for the time involved. I decided to break out the pressure canner for the first time. However, it took well over an hour to pressure-can the tomatoes. Next time, I'll probably just process them in a boiling-water bath.

I found blueberries on sale at Fareway, so I also baked blueberry muffins while I was waiting for the tomatoes to process. These muffins have quickly become our favorite. I always make several batches in the summer, put them in the freezer and then heat one up in the microwave for breakfast.