Tag: Breakfast
Spiced Applesauce Bread
It’s spring break in our household, and in true spring break tradition of lazy days at home (not true spring break tradition of topless in Mexico, if that’s what you were expecting), my kids and I have mostly been hanging out with friends in the neighborhood, lounging around, and enjoying leisurely time on blankets at parks.
And today, as a last hurrah since it’s Friday of our break, we went out to lunch at a ’50s diner, where my kids were FASCINATED by the concept of a jukebox at the table.
With the extra time on our hands, we’ve been able to enjoy some special breakfasts as well, from baked goods to scrambled eggs. (Yes, scrambled eggs is a special breakfast in our house because of how much I can’t stand cleaning the sticky web of egg remnants off my nonstick pan.) As for baked goods, this spiced applesauce bread is a perennial favorite.
It’s a no-frills breakfast or brunch item that uses a whopping 1 and 1/4 cups of applesauce, an entire grated apple, and half whole wheat flour to make it healthy, and vegetable oil and plenty of aromatic spices to make it tasty. I’ve been making it for years, and it’s a great stand-by recipe for your bread arsenal. Give it a try for your next weekend breakfast or brunch!
And now, in true lazy spring break fashion, I’m going to stop writing and go watch a movie. 🙂
Spiced Applesauce Bread
A better-for-you spiced quick bread that's chock full of applesauce!
Servings: 1 loaf
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce
- 1/2 c. brown sugar
- 1/2 c. vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 3 Tbsp. milk (regular dairy or almond milk)
- 1 c. all-purpose flour
- 1 c. whole wheat or white whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp. ground allspice
- 1 apple, peeled
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. In a large bowl, mix applesauce, brown sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and milk.
- In a separate bowl (or the same bowl, if you want to be lazy like me), mix all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. Stir with wet ingredients until just combined.
- Using a cheese grater, grate peeled apple directly into bowl, then stir briefly to incorporate. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake 60-65 minutes.
Notes
Adapted from Allrecipes.com.
Lemon Honey Olive Oil Muffins
You know the phrase, “If you want something done right, do it yourself”? Well, you may not think this phrase applies to the humble muffin, but I’m here to tell you it does.
As a muffin–o–maniac, I am constantly scouring the internet for new muffin varieties to try, but sometimes, alas, I just can’t find exactly the recipe I want for the ingredients I have on hand.
Thankfully, muffins are the perfect drawing board for recipe experimentation, even for anyone new to the process. If you can’t find a recipe for exactly what you want, you can always take the DIY route. Muffins are like a bake-able paint-by-numbers kit: hard to screw up and with a bit of room for creativity. All you have to do is find a good basic recipe (like this one from King Arthur Flour or this one from Mark Bittman) and tweak it to your liking, or to fit whatever items in your kitchen need using up. You might even use a flavor guide like The Flavor Bible for inspiration on ingredient combinations. That’s how I ended up with these Lemon Honey Olive Oil Muffins–which, by the way, are no basic muffin.
Popping with lemony tartness both in the batter and in a glaze on top, these little gems also have an undercurrent of the distinctive, mellower flavor of olive oil. They were just what I was hoping for when I decided to roll up my sleeves and figure out a recipe that used honey, lemon, olive oil, and whole wheat flour. Knowing they were awaiting me for breakfast even motivated me to get out of bed in the morning during this week of my kids’ return to school after Christmas break. (How did I get so used to sleeping in after only two weeks?)
So tell me, what kind of muffins would you make if you were to create your own recipe? Or what other types of foods do you find easy to experiment with? I’m always looking for new ideas!
Lemon Honey Olive Oil Muffins
These lemony muffins get their sweetness from honey and their moist texture from olive oil.
Servings: 10 muffins
Ingredients
For the muffins:
- 2/3 c. honey
- 1/2 c. olive oil
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 c. sour cream
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 Tbsp. almond milk
- juice of 1/2 a lemon (about 2 Tbsp.)
- 1 c. all-purpose flour
- 1 c. whole wheat flour
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- zest of 1 lemon
For the glaze:
- juice of other 1/2 of lemon
- 1/2 c. powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray 10 cups of a muffin tin with cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the honey, olive oil, eggs, sour cream, vanilla, almond milk, and lemon juice until smooth.
- Add all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, salt, baking powder, and lemon zest and mix until just combined.
- Spoon into greased muffin cups and bake 3 minutes at 425, then reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake an additional 15-17 minutes.
- Cool at least 10 minutes in the pan. Meanwhile, make the glaze by whisking together the remaining lemon juice and powder sugar. Remove muffins from tin and drizzle with the glaze. Store in an airtight container.
Notes
A Love Letter to Food Original Recipe.
Kid-Friendly Banana “Sushi”
Today is the last day of my kids’ Christmas break. I won’t lie, there have definitely been times in the last two weeks when I’ve heard the Christmas carol lyrics “and mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again” and been a little too much like…
But there have also been good times. Like the reading together, restoring the dollhouse my grandpa built for me when I was 7 for and giving it to my daughter, and playing with this bizarre toy that defied all logic to become the hit of our Christmas. Today, being the last day of all-kids-all-the-time for a little while, I decided to make it a day of Fun Foods. (Cause food is my love language.) In the morning, I made my kids breakfast in bed, then for lunch we had Hawaiian pizza, and at snack time, it was time to roll out this goofy thing I’d seen on Pinterest months ago…Banana “Sushi”!
My middle child actually really likes real sushi, but to my other two kids, I’m pretty sure sushi is an alien creation that’s about as edible as elephant hide. This reimagined version of sushi, however, even my 5-year-old was stoked to try. It’s essentially just a cereal, yogurt, and fruit parfait in a different package that’s a lot more fun to eat than smooshed together in a cup.
And a whole lot cuter, too!
Banana Sushi could make a unique breakfast, a fun finger food with lunch, or just a made-with-love healthy snack–perfect for a chilly, cloudy last day of Christmas break. (Cause Lord knows this kind of thing is NOT getting packed in my kids’ school lunches.) Give it a try and see if your little ones enjoy it as much as mine did! Or try it yourself–you might realize how fun it is to eat bananas with chopsticks.
Kid-Friendly Banana "Sushi"
A fun, healthy way to eat "sushi" for breakfast or a special snack!
Servings: 1 banana sushi roll
Ingredients
- 1 banana
- 1/4 c. plain yogurt
- 1/2 c. crushed fruity cereal
- 2 blackberries, sliced into pieces
Instructions
- Coat the surface of a peeled banana with yogurt. Place crushed cereal in a shallow bowl and dredge the yogurt-covered banana through it until covered. Slice and top with blackberry pieces.
Notes
From an idea seen on Raising Whasians.
Turkey Breakfast Sausage
This Thursday marked a super-serious-big-deal life event for me: after 467 hours of work over 9 months, I completed the nutrition internship leading up to my licensure as a dietetic technician!
I can’t tell you how good it feels to have to have this accomplishment under my belt–and to think that maybe in the near future I might actually get paid for the work I do!
For this third and final portion of my internship, for the last two months I have been working in a hospital kitchen, learning about the business side of food service management, the day-to-day process of feeding 100+ patients, and how to create patient menus that are both healthy and appealing. One of my assignments was to create a new recipe the hospital might actually add to their patient menu. As I assessed the hospital’s menu for nutritional value, it didn’t take long to see that it was a very old school meat and potatoes-type meal cycle. In fact, if you were a patient at this particular hospital, in any given week you would receive 21 servings of meat–8 of them red meat, 7 of them pork, and 5 out of the 7 pork servings bacon or sausage. To me, this is frankly an ALARMING amount of red and processed meats to be serving to patients who actually want to get healthy, amirite? As I’ve written about before on this blog, reducing meat consumption–especially red meat–can have profound effects on both your health and the environment. I am all for it.
With that in mind, I set out to create a potential alternative to the several bacon and pork sausage servings patients receive at breakfast each week. For quite some time, I’ve been a big fan of using turkey in place of pork or beef for its lower fat and sodium content. (See my Mediterranean turkey burgers, turkey taco calzones, turkey shepherd’s pie, and turkey bean chili for some examples!) Turkey sausage seemed like an easy and obvious fix to what I came to think of as the hospital’s “pork problem.” (Which sounds like a comical euphemism, but unfortunately is not. This was a genuine, literal pork problem.)
These tasty sausage patties I adapted from Monica over at The Yummy Life had plenty of flavor for almost 50% less fat and 75% less sodium than ground pork sausage. At a taste test for the hospital’s kitchen staff and dietitians, the finished product received very positive reviews. 80% of employees surveyed gave it the highest rating for taste and appearance and 100% gave it the highest rating for texture. For a breakfast food that comes in at about 100 calories and 5 grams of fat per serving, I consider that a success!
So if you’re looking for a better-for-you switch in the first meal of the day, or just a little something different for a weekend or special occasion breakfast, give this easy, low-calorie turkey sausage a whirl. If you want to make it a true stand-out meal, try a healthier spin on the egg McMuffin with an egg, cheese, and a handful of spinach on an English muffin. First step hospital menu, next step McDonald’s!
Turkey Breakfast Sausage
(Adapted from The Yummy Life)
Ingredients:
1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. dried sage
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 tsp. onion powder
1 lb. 93% lean ground turkey
2 tsp. olive oil
Directions:
- In a large bowl, mix applesauce, salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, dried sage, garlic powder, and onion powder.
- Add ground turkey and mix with applesauce-spice mixture until well combined.
- Form into 8-10 patties of about ¼ c. each.
- In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the patties and cook until browned on one side, then flip and cook until browned on the other side.
- Remove cooked patties and drain on paper towels.
Makes 8-10 patties.
Cherry Almond Muffins
It’s been two and a half weeks since my kids–even my baby–started school. Full-time, big kid, real deal school. And since the last rotation of my nutrition internship doesn’t start until tomorrow, I’ve spent the last nineteen days feeling a little lost. In one sense, this is the moment I’ve been anticipating for nine years since my oldest child was born. When I chose to stay at home with my kids, there was always the sense that it was temporary, that I would get back to “real life” if these kids would just hurry up and get to school age. When someone was screaming because they didn’t get the pink plate at lunch, when someone dropped nap time and suddenly added ten hours to my “work week,” or when I had to play yet another round of “Chocolate, Dirt, or Poop?” with the brown stain on the carpet, I could say to myself, “Someday they will all go to school and I can live MY OWN LIFE again.” But the truth is, after you’ve spent almost ten years serving, providing for, and nurturing three little people, your OWN LIFE feels like kind of a contradiction in terms. Not that I don’t have hobbies or pursuits of my own I enjoy–I do–it’s just that my kids are, in many ways, my life. And having no particular agenda while they’re all away at school from 8:00-3:00 has been distinctly strange. (Though also, at times, distinctly awesome, like when I get to blog uninterrupted and grocery shop by myself.) Still, these last few weeks have forced me to look into the face of the question, “Who am I when I don’t have a job and my kids no longer need me as much?” It’s a healthy exercise, but a tough one, too.
Of course, they do still need me, but as my children get older, the ways they need me are evolving, and so are the ways I can serve them. So on their first day of school a couple weeks back, I wanted to do a little something special for them: I made a batch of cherry almond muffins. In a sense, cooking wholesome food for my kids is a way I see my continued purpose in the life of our family. If I can send my children off to school in the morning with something lovingly made filling their bellies and fueling their minds, I can know that I have done well by them until I see them again in the afternoon.
As for the existential angst of “who-am-I-when-I-have-all-this-time-on-my-hands,” my imminent internship rotation will probably push that question out of the picture for now (to be dealt with again ten weeks from now when it’s over). And as for this new era with my kids, I was on a walk the other day when into my mind popped a beautiful e. e. cummings poem. (Remember him from high school English? The guy who wrote in all lower case with unconventional punctuation?) The last several lines sum up the connection I will always feel to my children:
here is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the budand the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which growshigher than soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Cherry Almond Muffins
(Adapted from Pretty Simple Sweet)
Ingredients:
1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. white whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2/3 c. sugar
1 egg
1 c. plain yogurt
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
1 1/2 c. fresh or frozen cherries, pitted and halved
1/2 c. slivered almonds (or sliced almonds broken into pieces–I like to put them in a plastic bag and smash them a few times with the rounded end of a tuna can–how’s that for specific recipe instructions?)
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin.
- In a large bowl, mix all-purpose flour, white whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Make a well in the center and add egg, yogurt, vegetable oil, vanilla, and almond extract, stirring until just combined. Fold in cherries and almonds.
- Scoop batter into muffin cups, filling almost to the top. Bake for 3 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees and continue to bake another 15-17 minutes or until tops of muffins spring back when touched.
Makes 12 muffins.