Nourishing the Emperor One Day at a Time

Sweet Potato and Zucchini Mini-Muffins

Day 4

After feeling as if I had nearly traumatized Maximus with the attempts at getting him to eat yesterday's Cheddar Mini-Fritattas, I decided to try something I was pretty sure he would devour.

I originally found this recipe 4 years ago, when I had my first zucchini surplus from the garden.  That was my first year gardening and also the year I realized a family of 2 needed 1 zucchini plant, at the most.  I had 2, plus 2 summer squash and 1 sunburst squash.  I went overboard and was drowning in squash.  The original recipe for this quick bread came from epicurious, but I have modified it so much over the years that I had to rewrite the recipe because my notes were more voluminous than the recipe itself.

In bread form, I give this away as gifts and have been asked for the recipe more times than I can count.  It originally appealed to me because I was looking for a way to get more vegetables into Moose and he does not like sweet potatoes, nor zucchini.  I looked at it as a challenge.

The first time I made it, I followed the recipe religiously, but then set about trying to make it healthier.  I replaced all oil with homemade canned applesauce, started replacing portions of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour and set about trying to reduce the sugar content.  This summer, the idea of replacing the sugar entirely with natural sweetner and making a gluten and dairy-free version began simmering around in my mind.

Since I am still not at a point in the elimination diet where I can even try a gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free version of this recipe, I decided to just replace the sugar in this trial run and have Moose try it to tell me what he thought.  I decided to try it in mini-muffin form to make it easier to handle for the boys, as well as to make it easier to freeze manageable portions for later.  This bread freezes amazingly well! Finally, I added a small amount of oil back into the recipe because I now understand the importance of healthy fats in any diet.

Oh... and by the way, Moose LOVES my original modified bread form of this recipe, so much so that I finally told him a couple years ago he was eating sweet potatoes and zucchini and loving it!

Sweet Potato and Zucchini Mini-Muffins

2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp + a pinch baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2/3 cup good quality maple syrup (I used Vermont maple syrup Moose got on a business trip)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/8 cup grapeseed oil (you could also use extra virgin olive oil)
3 large eggs (I use omega-3 enriched)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups grated zucchini
1 1/2 cups grated peeled sweet potato
1 cup chopped walnuts (I used almonds this time because I was out of walnuts. You could also leave these out if you have a tree nut allergy)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a mini-muffin tin with olive oil or non-stick cooking spray. Sift first 5 ingredients into medium bowl. Beat maple syrup, oil, eggs and vanilla to blend in large bowl. Mix in zucchini and sweet potato. Add dry ingredients and nuts and stir well.

Transfer batter to prepared muffin tin. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 14 minutes. Let muffins cool for a couple minutes and then pop them out to cool completely on a wire rack. Wrap in foil and let stand at room temperature if entire recipe is not devoured within minutes.

Makes approximately 44 mini-muffins.

My Notes:

I grate the zucchini and sweet potato by hand, even though I find the task odious.  I am sure you could do it in the food processor, but I find that when you hand grate you wind up with more moisture from the zucchini and while most people would tell you to press any excess moisture out of the zucchini or any vegetable before you put it in the batter, I think it actually adds something to the bread doing it this way and not removing anything.  I wish I could say I had tested this out, but honestly, the only reason why I originally grated it by hand was because I am too short to reach the shelf where the processor lives, there was no chair tall enough for me to stand on and I think Moose was out of the house the day I made it.  I've been doing it that way ever since.

I use a kitchen-aid stand mixer and place all wet ingredients in the mixer bowl and let them stand while I'm sifting the dry.  Then I turn the mixer on medium speed to blend.  When I'm ready to add the flour, I turn the mixer down a notch and add the flour in batches until each batch is mixed in.  I never turn the mixer off until the last batch of flour has been added and is mixed in.  Then I stir the nuts in by hand.

This is the first time I've used whole wheat pastry flour in this recipe.  I've always just used plain whole wheat, which I think makes for a denser bread.  These ended up looking light and fluffy.  I say "looking" because...you know.. I decided to make something that I couldn't eat myself, again.

Results:

Moose thought they were great and commented on how much fluffier these muffins were than the bread.  I can only assume it is the pastry flour, or a combination of that and the substitution of maple syrup and grapeseed oil.  He snacked on them throughout the day, which did not surprise me.

Rowan ate 2 at breakfast, along with leftover frittata from Sunday and sliced apples.  He also snacked on them throughout the day and had one for dessert.  This pleases me immensely.

Sarah, our nanny, who got the recipe from me earlier in the summer and baked my modified version, thought the new one was even better!

Max put a small piece to his lips, put it down and refused to eat anything on his tray (read fritatta, apples and muffin). Finally, I broke down and pulled out the block o' cheese and gave him his fix.  God help me.

Olive Oil Crackers

Day 1 

In the last week, Max and Rowan polished off
4lbs of cheese and four boxes of wheat thins (1 of which was a family sized box).  Besides the fact that I absolutely cringe at packaged foods as a mainstay of any diet, I fear they will eat me out of house and home with their cheese/wheat thins addiction.  After a friend posted about her adventures in homemade cracker making on facebook, I decided to try and give crackers a whirl.

I first tried a gluten-free recipe for me and I am pleased to say they were fantastic, delicious, stupendous, amazing.  Need I say more?  Ok, they were great and easy and incredibly versatile.

The boys took a bite or two and then rejected them completely.  Moose, my husband, thought they were somewhat tasty, but I could tell he was suspiscious and probably would not eat any beyond what I asked him to try.  This was a couple weeks ago.  I was right.

After the wheat thins craze of late, I decided I needed to revisit the cracker idea.  I found the following recipe for crackers, chock full of gluten, but a possibility for the boys on a lovely website:  101 Cookbooks

Olive Oil Crackers

1 1/2 cups semolina flour
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (or all-purpose flour)
1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1 cup warm water
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

special equipment: pasta machine (optional)

Whisk together the flours and salt. Add the water and olive oil. Using a mixer with a dough hook attachment mix the dough at medium speed for about 5 - 7 minutes. Alternately, feel free to mix and then knead by hand on a floured counter-top. The dough should be just a bit tacky - not too dry, not too sticky to work with. If you need to add a bit more water (or flour) do so.

When you are done mixing, shape the dough into a large ball. Now cut into twelve equal-sized pieces. Gently rub each piece with a bit of olive oil, shape into a small ball and place on a plate. Cover with a clean dishtowel or plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for 30 - 60 minutes.

While the dough is resting, preheat your oven to 450F degrees. Insert a pizza stone if you have one.

When the dough is done resting, flatten one dough ball. Using a rolling pin or a pasta machine, shape into a flat strip of dough - I can usually get down to the 4 setting on my pasta machine w/o trouble. Pull the dough out a bit thinner by hand (the way you might pull pizza dough). You can also cut the dough into whatever shape you like at this point. Set dough on a floured (or cornmeal dusted) baking sheet, poke each cracker with the tines of a fork to prevent puffing, add any extra toppings, and slide into the oven (onto the pizza stone). Repeat the process for the remaining dough balls, baking in small batches. If you don't have a pizza stone, bake crackers a few at a time on baking sheets. Bake until deeply golden, and let cool before eating - you will get more crackery snap.

Makes a dozen extra large crackers. 

My Notes:

I did not use a pasta machine and I did not feel like bothering with a pizza stone.  I used a cookie sheet and a silicone liner from kitchen Aid. The first two balls I baked off, I forgot to prick with a fork and realized I hadn't rolled them out evenly enough.  I think this is key.  I did some as small, wheat-thin sized crackers and a couple larger sheets.  This is a mistake.  Cut them all around the same size, or you'll wind up burning some of them and having some of them come out not quite done, like I did.  That first batch, I cooked for 12 minutes.  Way too long.  I brushed them with olive oil and seasoned them with a bit of fresh grated parmesan, sea salt and pepper.  James thought they were bland and would definitely not stand in for wheat thins. The kids were in bed.

The second batch, I tried to role out uniformly and cut all roughly the same size, which is incredibly easy using a pizza cutter like Heidi mentions in the recipe.  I brushed them liberally with olive oil, layered grated parmesan (grated with a microplane), a fair amount more of sea salt and pepper.  I also remembered to prick them and baked them for 8 minutes.

Perfection.  They look beautiful, don't they?

The Results

The boys not only tried them, they ate the whole batch! (4 of the 12 mini-balls).  I'll be finishing up the rest of the recipe tonight.

Unfortunately, I cannot comment myself because somehow I thought it would be a good idea to make something I can't eat.  It seemed fine at the time.  That is until I couldn't taste it to see how it came out.  Not a fantastic idea, I might add.  This is especially so because I'm trying a 28 day elimination diet to see what food sensitivities I really do have and I'm only on day 3.

Note to self:  go back to the gluten-free version and try to make them tasty for the boys, sans cheese.  Maybe in a month or so, I'll post that version as a day's recipe.