Pumpkin, spinach and semi sun-dried tomato muffins (hello high protein, low fat)

My life has changed and so has my appetite. So my dear Clever Muffin has to change with me. Expect more savoury. More high protein. Bigger bites. And who knows what else.

Bit of metaphor for my life really. Very poetic. In a Year 12 literature essay kinda way.

These muffins have two whole cups of pumpkin in them, a cup of spinach, NO BUTTER OR OIL (I know!) and seeds. A good high protein low sugar fix.

Read Full Post »

FWP I have too much ham (mini ham and cheese muffins)

These ham and cheese muffins are FULL of leftover ham, tasty cheese and have a sneaky piece of brie in the middle for extra flavour.

Why? Well, because that sounds tasty. But the real reason is I am suffering from a very real FWP (first-world-problem):  too much ham after an amazing ham at Christmas.

Read Full Post »

Tomato and basil muffins – just a touch of Christmas

There muffins have red tomatoes and green basil in them and are therefore Christmas-sy.

Don’t judge me. I’m making fruit mince pies. I have a giant blow up Santa on my balcony.

Read Full Post »

Perfect pizza muffins

I can say these are perfect pizza muffins. I’ve earned the right. They took me three goes to perfect the recipe to just the right amount of pizza flavour.

Sweet muffins are more my ‘thing’ than savoury. But the folks out there love a savoury muffin so I try and put a few up. The spinach and feta ones on here are awesome, and quite fool proof. A muffin with three different kinds of cheese tends to be.

But the olive and chilli ones are quite hard, and best served warm. I like them like that, they’re interesting, but I got a few comments back saying they were too hard. And I listen to comments. Really I do. Except if you’re the people that write in and say ‘this was great, I ended up buying the product after I read this’. Because you’re a stupid spammer head and I know it.

Back to the point, I was determined to make these pizza muffins moist enough that they would be a good take-to-work snack. The original recipe only used water to bind, so after three goes I’m pretty happy with the consistency. Hope you like them too…

Some things you will need:

Make them pretty by topping them with a quarter of a cherry tomato. If that’s your kind of thing.

And then eat them!

Ingredients
4 rashes of shortcut rindless bacon, fat trimmed (or the equivalent of ham)
½ – 1 onion, (purely depending how much you like onion flavour, I use ½)
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 cup lite grated cheese
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons of olive oil
3 cherry tomatoes, to top, optional
1 teaspoon of Italian herbs

Add in some fresh parsley if you have some, but it’s purely for the touch of green, the dried herbs will give it the taste.

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 C. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin or line with patty cases and spray with cooking oil.
2. Slice up bacon into small pieces, if you are using onion, then chop finely.
3. Fry bacon and onion until bacon is crispy.
4. Mix together everything else, except egg and cherry tomatoes.
5. Make egg up to 1 cup with water then mix with dry ingredients until just combined.
6. Spoon into the prepared muffin tin and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean and muffins are golden. Makes 12.

Healthy? 157 calories a muffin, and they’re very filling. Not bad at all.

Gluten free? No, and they’re already quite crumbly so you may want to add more binding agent if converting.

Storage: They freeze well, otherwise best eaten within a couple of days.

Read Full Post »

Chilli and olive muffins

Here’s a lovely thing. Heavy, dough like muffins with a cheesy spicy flavour and crispy polenta baked on top.

They’re not your average muffin. If you throw one at someone while they’re not paying attention it’ll hurt (I said I was sorry, I really thought they were looking at me).

Easy as pie to make.  Easier in fact, as pie is much harder to make than muffins (oh, come on, I had to say it!).

No need to stand on ceremony with these muffins. You just throw all your ingredients in a bowl and mix until just combined. It’s a good bicep workout.

Then spoon the mixture in to your prepared muffin tray.

And sprinkle the polenta on top.

Easy. And also quite low on calories. Bonus!

Ingredients
1 egg
3/4 water
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups grated lite cheese
1/2 cup pitted black olives, sliced (I go for the ones in the jar that are already pitted and sliced, but cutting them up from scratch would be lovely)
1 teaspoon chilli flakes, or slice a whole dried chilli very finely
2 tablespoons polenta (cornmeal)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin or line with patty cases and spray with cooking oil.
2. Mix together all ingredients except cornmeal. Add 1/4 – 1/2 cup more of water if needed – I often find it does. The mixture will be very solid and dough like.
3. Spoon in to your well-greased muffin pan and sprinkle with the polenta. Press down on the top of each muffin slightly to help the polenta stick to the muffin.
4. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes, or until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean. Makes 12 smallish muffins.

Note: The muffins are quite small, but I wouldn’t recommend making fewer and larger muffins. As they’re quite solid, the small size and crispy top works well. Best served warmed.

Healthy? At 130 calories they’re a good little snack.

Gluten free? No, and I haven’t tried adapting.

Storage:  They freeze well, otherwise best eaten within a couple of days. Store in airtight container.

Source: modified from the Muffin Bible olive & chilli muffins.

Read Full Post »