Fat Friday: Mom's Breakfast Muffins

Mark your calendars because today is a momentous day here at Karenpie. We have our first guest food blogger!

As I was exploring the idea of a guest food blogger I thought, "Who should it be? Do I know any celebrities? Who could fill Karenpie's large and occasionally stinky food-blogging shoes?" This decision should not be taken lightly. It could affect lives, man.

Then - EUREKA! Who taught Karenpie how to cook? Who still cooks with Karenpie whenever we get the chance? Who has a multitude of awesome, healthy recipes to share? Who is a rock star in the kitchen?

Mom!

The perfect celebrity guest food blogger. We love to cook together and if you want to catch up on some of our escapades, read this and this.

Mom is a self-proclaimed health nut. She's obsessed with nutrition and gardening. She's a salad fanatic. She's one of the few people who actually gets the recommended 9-13 servings of fruit and vegetables a day. She's a doctor's dream patient.

So, of course her favorite recipe is going to be chock full of healthy things and notably missing will be the unhealthy things like fat and lots of sugar. But you know what? You won't miss them at all. You can trust me on that. I am a HUGE fan of butter and sugar - we've been friends for decades - and I don't miss them in these muffins.

Here's what you need -

1-1/2 c. whole wheat flour

3/4 c. flaxseed meal

3/4 c. oat bran

1/4 c. brown sugar

2 t. baking soda

1 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

2 t. cinnamon

1/4 c. Splenda

1-1/2 c. grated carrots (14 oz or 3-4 large)

2 large apples (1 lb.) peeled and grated

1/4 c. raisins

3/4 c. nuts

1/4 c. agave nectar

1/2 c. milk

2 eggs

1 t. vanilla

By the way, this recipe was adapted from a recipe found on the back of Bob's Red Mill brand Flaxseed Meal.

These are flaxseeds. They come in different colors and frankly, I don't know the difference. You need to grind these up into meal. I use my coffee grinder. There should be a picture but I didn't take one. I was too busy making my celebrity guest food blogger happy.

In a very large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together - the flour, flaxseed meal, oat bran, sugar, soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and Splenda.

Then work on your carrots and apples. If you want a workout, you can grate them on a box grater but Mom peels them, cuts them into even pieces and chops them in her food processor.

Get the carrots finely chopped and just dump them on top of the dry ingredients.

Then do the same thing to the apples. You'll probably have to do the apples in a couple of batches. They're so juicy they won't chop up evenly if the processor is too full. Mom doesn't get the apples as finely chopped as the carrots - we like some big apple chunks in our muffins!

So, while Mom was doing all the easy stuff and I had the hard job of taking pictures and occasionally sampling the ingredients, I conducted a little interview.

Karenpie: "Mom, can you share with our readers how you became such an awesome cook? Who taught you?"

Mom: "Well, I learned a lot from Grandmother in my childhood, but over the years I've done a lot of experimenting and learning on my own. I try to make things healthy and always alter recipes to reduce fat and sugar. I like to go to cooking classes, especially if the emphasis is on nutrition."

Karenpie: "When did you start getting interested in nutrition? Was it because of Dad's high blood pressure?"

Mom: "The first time I became interested in nutrition was in nursing school. It was fascinating that you could cure diseases like Rickets with vitamins! Then when Dad got high blood pressure in his twenties, I was more motivated. At that time, it was all about low salt diets."

Karenpie: "OK Mom, this is all very interesting but I'd like to ask you some things so our readers can get to know you better. OK? For instance, out of all three of your kids, who's your favorite? Be honest, Mom, and you're safe. Nancy and Dan don't read my blog. The losers."

Can you read lips? In this picture, even though you can't hear her, she's saying "Yoooooooouuuuuuuu."

OK, fine. Here's her real answer -

Mom: "My favorite is whoever is doing the most for me at the time."

Smartypants. Now you know where I inherited that particular character trait.

I guess we should get back to the recipe. Where were we, anyway?

After you've mixed the carrots and apples into the dry ingredients, fold in the raisins and nuts.

Mix all the wet ingredients together - the milk, eggs, agave nectar and vanilla - and pour it over the batter.

Mix it well and fill your greased muffin pans.

Mom likes to use silicone pans because you don't have to grease them. I gave these to Mom for her birthday. Got some serious daughter points for that, I must say.

Fill the muffin cups almost to the top. They won't rise very much.

Bake 15 - 20 minutes at 350.

This recipe makes 2 dozen and they freeze beautifully. Store them in the fridge if you're not going to eat them all at once. Mom says they can go bad in a couple of days, probably because of the flaxseed oil.

We ate ours warm, right out of the oven - yum.

Mom's breakfast muffins!

The only thing better would be eating them with Mom every day.