Welcome-- and Muffins!

Welcome to "Day Care Muffins," a blog which will hopefully serve as a useful resource for easy, inexpensive, and healthy recipes that we can feel good feeding ourselves and our families. The first recipe is for my Day Care Muffins- an endlessly adaptable recipe once you get the hang of it. For example, the recipe calls for 2 cups of flour- I usually use the combination below, but you can use almost any mixture of whole wheat, white, cornmeal, rice flour, other flours, etc, and it will still come out tasty. Experiment with spices, added fruits and vegetables, and you've got your own specialty muffins for less than $2 worth of ingredients.

I like to send these for snacktime in my almost-2-year old's day care bag. I usually bake a batch on Sunday and send one muffin each day so that getting lunch together is easy during the workweek. And hey, you baked something for your child! From scratch! SO you get extra parent points, of course.

They are also great to send for snack because they are so easily portable, not messy, and they are made of good ingredients you can vary with the seasons. This version has carrots and apples, but I have tried versions with lots of other veggies and fruits and they always turn out nicely. When substituting other vegetables, keep an eye on water content- zucchini and spinach can throw off a lot of water when they cook, for example, so it is good to mix them with starchier veggies. Figure about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of grated fruits and veggies.

Straight from the oven, cooling on a towel, with various items strewn around kitchen of course

Day Care Muffins 
adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything
Yields: 12-14 medium sized muffins (recipe can be halved or doubled easily)
Time: About 35 minutes, 10 active, 20-30 minutes cooking time

Step 1: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly oil a muffin tin.

Step 2: In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients:
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Cup White Flour
1/2 Cup Ground Corn Meal
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
Optional add-ins: A couple Tablespoons of Ground Flaxseed Meal for extra fiber and Omega-3s; 1/2 tsp Cinnamon and a pinch ground cloves for spice.

Step 3: To the dry ingredients, add:
1 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil
1 Egg
1 1/4 cup plain lowfat yogurt (any kind works great: if you are using Greek-style, you may need to thin batter with a Tablespoon or two of milk or water)
just under 1/4 cup sugar (or a bit less or more according to your taste,  I don't like overly sweet muffins)

Mix the ingredients until just blended. Then;

Step 4: Add:
2 peeled, cored, and grated medium apples (I use a food processer with the grater disk- so quick!) 
3 peeled and grated medium-sized carrots (or 2 large; no need to peel if organic, just wash well)

And mix a bit more. Batter should be thick but fully incorporated. Add 1/4 cup of water or milk if necessary.

Step 5:
Divide the batter into a lightly greased muffin tin. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool 5 minutes in tin, then remove and allow to cool completely before serving. Store well wrapped in the fridge for about a week, or tightly wrapped in the freezer for a month.