Apricot Zucchini Bread & Muffins

Made With Fresh Apricots, Zucchini Squash & Coconut this is going to be my favorite quick bread! 

I adore apricots and coconut. The combination is something wonderful! I had frozen apricots & tons of squash this morning so I experimented with my zucchini quick bread recipe and found something heavenly! Moist, beautiful apricotiness. Shhhh! Don't tell the silly people that it has squash. They will never know as fast as it disappears down the hatch!           

½ cup Coconut oil
1 cup Raw Sugar
2 Eggs
1 cup Apricots fresh or frozen, cut up and smashed, (NOT DRIED)
2 cups Zucchini, shredded
1 cup Coconut (moist, Baker's brand)
2 tsp Vanilla
½ tsp Salt
½ tsp Baking Powder
1½ tsp Baking Soda
3 cups Flour (can use part whole wheat)
2 tsp Cinnamon
¼ tsp Nutmeg

Pre-heat oven to 325°F. In a mixing bowl stir together oil and sugar. Beat in the eggs, apricots, zucchini, coconut and vanilla, mixing well. 

Fold in dry ingredients just until blended.
Pour into greased loaf pans, or muffin tins. 
Bake for about 30 minutes for the loaves. Don't overcook!
You can toothpick test off center. A toothpick coming out relatively clean is a loaf done enough. Springs back when you gently touch center? That's good also. This is so scrumptious I could make myself sick eating it.

Apricot Zucchini Bread



1 stick butter
1 cup raw honey
2 eggs
¾ cup fresh apricots, cut up and smashed
2 cups shredded zucchini
2 tsp vanilla
½ tsp sea salt
½ tsp aluminum-free baking powder
1½ tsp baking soda
3 cups fresh-ground sprouted whole wheat flour
2 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
A pinch of cardamom


Pre-heat oven to 350°F. In a mixing bowl cream the butter and honey until creamy. Beat eggs in one at a time then continue beating for 1 minute. Add the apricots, zucchini and vanilla. Mix well. Fold in dry ingredients just until blended. Do not over mix.
Pour into 2 greased bread pans. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

Strawberry Crepes

We had crepes for breakfast! 

  Crepes are a nice, thin little pancake that you can fill with savory or sweet ingredients. You can make these strawberry filled ones naughty, nice, or somewhere in-between. By that I mean you could use yogurt and unsweetened berries if you are trying to be super good. Sweetened berries, whipped cream & powdered sugar if you are bent on blowing your diet. We LOVED the sort of in-between ones I made today which had cream whipped made with a very small amount of sugar and vanilla & unsweetened berries piled inside. I put the extra unfilled crepes between waxed paper and stored them in the fridge.

Blend together with a mixer:

• 1 ½ cups milk
• 2 large eggs
• 2 Tab. sugar (possibly could leave this out)
• 1 Tab. oil
•  1/8 tsp. salt
• 1 cup flour 

Heat a small skillet over medium heat with a small amount of oil or butter. Remove the pan from the burner and put 2-3 Tablespoons of batter in the pan swirling the pan quickly to coat the bottom.

Set the pan back on the burner and cook until the edges are brown. Brown only one side. These are so thin they will be cooked on the topside without flipping over.

Loosen the edges and invert your pan over a plate with a paper towel and there you are! 
A wonderful little crepe! Real whipped cream that you whip yourself is the best. ENJOY!

 I saved you some.

BIG Batch Granola

BIG Batch Granola (Yes, you can do it!)

I give amounts here, but the basic thing to remember is 16 cups of dry stuff. Use what you like!
I've made it with no nuts at all, but if you do so you must increase the oil and honey or it will be too dry.
Leave out something if you want, just exchange it for the same amount of oats, or something else. I never make it the same way twice.

Dry:
8 cups oats - a mix of quick and regular if you like
(save the container)
2 cups coconut
1 cup flax meal or seed
1cup wheat germ
2 cup salted sunflower seed (or add a little salt to mix)
2 cups chopped nuts (pecan, almond, walnut...)


Wet:
1 cup olive oil, coconut oil, or mixture
1 cup honey (sometimes I use a little brown sugar or molasses)
2 Tab. of butter, for flavor
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla

Heat wet stuff in a saucepan. (If you measure the oil first, then the honey, the honey will slide right out of the cup.)

Mix dry stuff in a HUGE bowl.

Pour wet stuff over dry stuff and mix with a HUGE spoon.
 

Pour out onto 2 cookie sheets, smoothing into the corners so that it won't burn on the edges.

 
Bake at 325, stirring OFTEN, as it toasts. I set the timer at 5 minute increments so I will not scorch it. Later on 5 minutes will be too much time. Once it starts to brown watch it like a hawk! Switch your pans around, occasionally, if you don't have a convection oven, as the bottom pan will burn on bottom, and the top pan will burn on top. Granola doesn't need to be really brown, just very lightly toasted. It will seem too moist when you take it out at "very lightly toasted", but it will dry as it cools. If it doesn't put it back a toast a bit more.

Cool and place it back in the oatmeal containers.
Add the dried fruit when you start to eat it. Cherries, raisins, apricots...

Granola can be eaten cold with milk, or heated in the microwave. It can be stirred into yogurt. You can make a delicious"parfait" with vanilla yogurt, nuts, granola, and frozen or fresh blueberries. (Cat's recipe)

Muffins on the Sly or Apple Bran "Cupcakes"

I say Muffins on the Sly because little grandson has been told by his mommy that any muffin/cupcake food item is a cupcake. That way a healthy muffin is as fun for him to eat as a cupcake because he loves cake and they're all cakey. So below is the yummy muffin recipe. I usually don't make them the same every time, but they came out so wonderful and moist yesterday I decided to write it down so I could repeat. I made two large batches. The first batch had mashed bananas in place of part of the applesauce. I have made them with honey. If you use honey increase flour a little. I forgot the honey in a batch once that had bananas in it, but they were still pretty wonderful. Just not as wonderful. You can use a little oat flour, or milled flax seed as part of the flour.

Normally you can see apple chunks. Nummy!

Apple Bran Muffins

• 2 c. bran cereal, crushed
• ½ c. milk
• 4 eggs
• ⅓ c. coconut oil, melted
• 2 c. applesauce
• ¾ c. Sugar in the Raw or honey
• 1 tsp. almond or vanilla flavoring
• 2 apples peeled & chopped
• ¼ c. chopped walnuts 
• 2 c. flour (I like King Aurthur whole wheat flour)
• 1½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt

Mix all the wet stuff, also including sugar, nuts and apples. Add all the dry stuff. Here's a tip: Crush soda or baking powder in your hand with the back of your measuring spoon. If you've ever bit into a baked item and had a hard crunch of baking soda you'll know this is important.

Mix all together. Don't over-mix. Spray muffin tins with non-stick spray. I used mini-muffin pans, regular, and heart pans yesterday. Bake at 350° until done. If you over bake them the bottoms will scorch and they won't be as moist.

Hurry Honey Biscuits

These are the softest, fluffiest, most moist biscuits, because they are made with yeast and oil.
You can use olive oil or some coconut oil, and experiment with using part whole wheat flour. You can use honey in place of the sugar, or put some grated cheese and garlic in them for a dinner biscuit.

These make a large batch, but you can place the leftover dough in the fridge and make more when you like. Leave room in the container for yeast expansion.

Hurry Honey Biscuits don't necessarily have honey in them, the name just means biscuits made in a hurry....Honey. It's a real hurry if you have the dough made up and waiting in the fridge. Ask me how often I really do that. ;)

Hurry Honey Biscuits

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 pkg. or 2 1/4 tsp. yeast
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup oil
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 2 tsp. salt
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 5+ cups of flour

Pour warm water in a large bowl and sprinkle the yeast on top of the water. Let sit a moment then add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Stir in the oil and buttermilk. Stir the dry ingredients together and add to the wet mixture. Stir in enough flour to make a soft, not too sticky dough. Dump the dough onto the counter which has been dusted with flour and knead just enough to make the dough smooth and not sticky. Too much kneading will produce tough biscuits.


Roll out the dough to about 1/2 inch thickness and cut out your biscuits using a cutter or glass dipped in flour. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350.

Whatever Happened to Breakfast? Oatmeal Pancakes

Whatever happened to real breakfasts?
What happened to oatmeal, Malt-O-Meal, eggs and biscuits?


Growing up I remember my mom worked and we ate lots of cold cereal on weekdays. By 9 AM I was soooo hungry. Lunch in the lunchroom at school, which I usually scarfed down, only held me over until after school when I would be ravenous again. Sometimes there was a small snack, sometimes not, and a wait until dinner at 7PM or later. Let's feed our kids a good breakfast. Let's teach them how to cook some good things. It's cheaper and more healthy in the long run.

I like to sleep until 7:00, and my husband leaves the house before 6:00. So I cook the lazy way. I declared today was oat day. I made oatmeal pancakes AND my BIG Batch Granola (recipe here.) The morning, and two large boxes of oatmeal are gone, but I have a lot of yummy stuff to show for it.

Updated 8/4/13

Oatmeal Pancakes - double batch (makes 22)

• 2 cups milk
• 2 cups water
• 1/3 cup olive oil or coconut oil
• 4 eggs separated
• 4 cups quick oats
• (you may use long-cooking oats, like McCann's, just adjust the liquid and cook as directed)
• 2 tsp. salt
• 5 tsp. baking powder
• 2/3 cup flour
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Heat the milk, water, and oil in a large pan. Stir in the oats and turn off the burner. Let it sit and become relatively cool.

While oats cool: beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. 

Stir the dry ingredients together. You may add a splash more of milk, but remember the batter needs to be super thick and the egg whites will add moisture too.  (You can also start measuring out the ingredients for the granola if you're making it at the same time.) 

Stir the egg yolks and dry mixture into the oats 

 Fold in the egg whites.

I cook these on a non-stick griddle, four at a time. Oil the griddle.
Cook on medium high heat until getting sort of dry on top. They take longer to brown than a normal pancake, so take your time.

YUMMY!

Cool and place in the fridge, or freezer, if your family doesn't eat them all.
Scrumptiously moist, you can eat them plain.
If you must, you can have a little honey or syrup.

Evidently, real cinnamon hasn't been seen in this country for awhile. You may not know that we've been cooking with Cinnamomum cassia, which is not true cinnamon. Once you have the real thing, you won't like the other as well. I got mine in Germany, and I'm very stingy with it.

Breakfast Burritos

Breakfast burritos are great to have in the fridge or freezer.
Here are the ones I made this morning:



Breakfast Burritos

10 large, flour tortillas (save bag)
1 package of turkey bacon or sausage
1 dozen eggs
Cheese is optional. I use a little Parmesan or cheddar.
Seasoning salt or Cajun seasoning
Red Pepper flakes (if you want plenty of heat)
Black pepper
Butter or olive oil
Salsa (can be added after heating to eat)
Waxed paper

Cook the turkey bacon and crumble.

Scramble the eggs in a little olive oil, seasonings and pepper.

Heat the tortillas on a griddle. I stack them all on there at once, and flip them around to expose the stack to the heat.

Mix a little cheese with eggs if you want.

Mix eggs in with the bacon.

Place mixture on tortilla
Fold ends over

Roll snugly from the bottom

Roll up in the waxed paper in the same fashion

Place the finished burritos in the bag the tortillas came in!