Yesterday night was interesting. After a tiring work day, I went to the groceries and aimlessly wandered around the sections. When I went to the fruits&vegetables section, I randomly chose 3 things: some mushrooms, 4 slices of pumpkin and 2 purple carrots. Why? I don’t have any idea. But I have some guesses:

• I bought mushrooms because I haven’t eaten them for a while.
• I bought pumpkin because I saw a pumpkin bread recipe today in a blog, and I had been thinking about it since then.
• I bought purple carrots because I had never seen them before, and they looked interesting to me. Are they carrots at all? They are probably parsnips, but I can’t really tell the difference between them. If you have any ideas, please enlighten me! Google doesn’t give any results for neither purple carrot nor purple parsnip.

So, when I got home with my three random ingredients, I decided to put the mushrooms away for a while because they didn’t look interesting to me near the pumpkin and purple carrots. They will be my dinner for today, though. In case you want to know, I’ll roast them in the oven with some olive oil, onions and ground thyme.

But, what about pumpkin and purple carrots? Well, I had planned what to do with the pumpkin earlier, when I saw the pumpkin bread. I was going to make some sweet pumpkin muffins. Then, I changed my mind and decided to make some pumpkin and feta cheese muffins. Why? Again, I don’t know, I wanted to make something different. But after making them, I remembered that I saw these muffins in 101 Cookbooks. Anyway, mine is different, but the idea is the same.

And purple carrots? It was pretty straightforward to me, because purple carrot is still a carrot (or parsnip, I don’t know), and carrots are meant to be in a carrot cake. So, I decided to make some purple carrot muffins!

So, what I basically did was to use my famous carrot cake recipe for base. I actually use this recipe for all my cakes and put the desired fruit/vegetable instead of carrots. It’s my ultimate cake base that I’m very proud of!

For pumpkin feta muffins, I excluded the sugar from the recipe and instead of 3 cups carrot, I put 3 cups boiled and mashed pumpkin. I also added about 100 gr (3.5 oz.) crumbled feta cheese and some salt to make the muffins savory. The rest of the recipe is the same, and the result was a nice breakfast cake.

For purple carrot muffins, I used my exact carrot cake recipe, and I really liked how purplish my muffins turned out! But my purple carrots were purple on the outside and white on the inside, so when peeling the carrots, I tried not to peel off all the purple areas, because purple muffins was exactly what I wanted to get.

Since purple carrots taste a little bitter than regular carrots, I suspected that the muffins may not have that unique “carrot cake smell”. But no, they actually did! It was a real carrot cake with a slight different taste that is unnoticeable. So, go ahead and do it, why not use different colors when there are different color options?

Here’s my morning snack for today:

By the way, I roasted the remaining sliced pumpkin and made a really simple pumpkin soup. The recipe is coming soon..

Yeah, ı was supposed to celebrate my first year with carrot muffins but I was late, I had tons to do. So these are the late celebration (1 year 1 month=1.08 years) muffins that I decorated with whipped cream and cinnamon carrots & “1″s. Just enjoy the photos…

First, I baked the cakes using my “famous” carrot cake recipe:

Also, I prepared a “1″ and a carrot shaped mold:

Then I spread some whipped cream on tops:

Finally, I made my carrot and “1″ decorations!!

And, of course I ate immediately!

Ok, so I was wrong about nut butters. In fact, it was a big mistake to eat nut buttered breads every morning. Result? Pimples on my face! I think my face couldn’t tolerate such amount of nut butter. I don’t know, I gave up eating them for now.

But now I have a new candidate! These breakfast muffins are nutritive yet not so fatty as nut butters. My mom really love them, so do I, which is an unusual thing because I normally don’t like savory muffins that much, but they have potatoes and goat cheese in them, and I’m a huge potato lover- who doesn’t like potatoes anyway? So, here’s my updated breakfast. Enjoy!

Breakfast Cake with Potato and Goat Cheese

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup mashed potatoes*
• 1/2 cup low-fat milk
• 50 grams goat cheese
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Salt

* I mashed the potatoes with one tablespoon of milk, half tsp allspice, half tsp curry and some pepper.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Beat the eggs, add milk and potato purée and mix them.

In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients and add it to the liquids.

Mix a little until you get an even enough batter.

Pour the batter in muffin cups and bake for 25 minutes, or until cooked.

I don’t know how to name these muffins. The idea popped into my mind while I was trying to sleep (I think a lot about these kind of unnecessary things before I sleep). I thought about putting a layer of sugary-apples between the muffins, and make some apple “layer” muffins. Enjoy!

Apple Layer Muffins

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 ¾ cups whole-wheat flour
• ¾ cups brown sugar
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• a pinch of salt

For the apple layer:

• 3 apples
• 5 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• ½ tablespoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Dice the apples. Add lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon, and blend well.

In another bowl, mix together eggs, sugar olive oil, yogurt and vanilla. Add flour, cinnamon, salt and finally baking soda, and mix well.

Prepare the muffin cups, and pour one layer of muffin mixture, then the apples, then the muffin mixture again to each of the cups.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until cooked.

OK, I know I’ve made a lot of muffins recently, but I love to make them. I am experiencing the results of adding honey to my muffins. Well, as far as I noticed, honey makes the muffins look smoother and the edges brown as if you brushed it with egg yolks. Even though my mom claims that the vitamins in honey are vanished when heated, I think it’s still better than processed sugar, which makes these muffins healthier than my carrot cakes. You obviously cannot get the same taste, but you save calories (6 tablespoons of sugar is about 400 calories, while 3/4 cup sugar required for the carrot cake recipe is 600 calories) And this lighter version tastes “acceptable”. In fact, my aunt thinks these taste better than my regular carrot cakes.

Carrot Muffins with Honey

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup low-fat milk
• 2 cups carrots, grated
• 6 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• ground nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 4 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, oil and honey.

Stir in vanilla, flour, and spices, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda (powder) and stir. Add the carrots.

Pour the mixture into muffin cups, and bake for 25 minutes, or until cooked.

This is another impromptu cake I just made up and it didn’t disappoint me. I came by some ripe bananas in the kitchen the other day, and decided to use them in what I do best: muffins! I also added the chocolate chips I’ve recently bought from the coffee shop (I usually use chopped chocolate instead of chocolate-chips, but the girl in the coffee shop insisted me to buy them and I gave it a try). I didn’t want to add sugar to the cake, so I used honey. I don’t usually use honey in my cakes, but this time it really worked and the muffins were neither too sweet nor vapid. This has become one my favorite muffin recipes.

Chocolate-Chip Banana Muffins with Honey

makes 20-24 muffins

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3-4 tablespoons honey
• 4 tablespoons yogurt
• 3 (200 gr. – 7 oz.) bananas, mashed
• 50 gr (1.7 oz.) bittersweet chocolate, chopped (or chocolate chips)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Mix together eggs, honey, olive oil, yogurt and vanilla in a bowl.

Add flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda, and mix well.

Finally add the bananas and chocolate chips, and mix until you have an even mixture.

Pour the mixture into muffin cups, and bake for about 30 minutes, or until cooked.

It was another boring night with nothing to do, and apples on the kitchen table. So, it was a “must” to take a risk and make something totally improvisational. I mixed everything that comes into my mind to make a cake, and this is the result. Try!

Semolina Muffins with Apple and Coconut

makes 24 muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 cup milk (I used low-fat)
• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups semolina (you can use 2 cups flour and 1 cup semolina instead)
• 3 apples, grated
• 1 cup coconut flakes
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• pinch of ground nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 lemon’s zest
• 4 teaspoons baking soda or baking powder

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, milk, oil and sugar.

Stir in vanilla, flour, semolina and coconuts, and mix well.

Add cloves, salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Then, add the apples and pour the mixture into muffin cups.

Before cooking the muffins, sprinkle the tops with lemon zest, and bake your muffins for about 25 minutes.

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