Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

I had ML get koosa* the other day, because I wanted to make a different kind of muffin. We've been rotating between making orange apricot muffins and cinnamon raisin ones from Michelle's recipe, and it was time for a change.

I remembered a Chocolate Zucchini recipe I'd gotten off of AllRecipes at some point, so I pulled that one up. Doubled it. Tweaked it a bit (would you believe the sugar below is halved? =-o). And it's a new staple. I love the fact that I can shred 1 kilo of koosa, use 1/2 of it, and freeze the other half for a batch later on (which I baked this morning).

This recipe makes enough batter for 24 large-sized muffins (i.e. with the cups full, rather than 2/3; you know, the way they tell you not to do when you're learning about portion control? what can I say? we like muffin tops...on muffins :-/) and 24 mini muffins. I feed my family breakfast and have enough to put up two bags for later breakfasts (or send to neighbors, as I did this morning), plus the mini muffins for hosting a social visit. This last option is wonderful. I love having something already baked to pull out of the freezer when I'm busy preparing the house. The other part (having family breakfasts made ahead) isn't too shabby, either.

*What? You don't know all of the vegetables in Arabic? Fine. I'll tell you. Koosa is squash. Or zucchini. Well, more like sqacchini. It's somewhere in between the two. I use it for squash in recipes that call for squash and zucchini in recipes that call for that. It's less moist than US squash, and more moist than American zucchini. Consider yourself educamacated for the day.

Makes 4 dozen

INGREDIENTS
• 6 eggs
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 cups grated zucchini (1 lb. or 1/2 k)

• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

DIRECTIONS
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• In an extra-large bowl beat the eggs.
• Beat in the sugar and oil.
• Add the cocoa, vanilla, zucchini and stir well.
• In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
• Mix into dry ingredients into wet ingredients until just moist.
• Pour batter into prepared muffin tins.
• Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes (10-13 minutes for mini muffins).

Today, I made this with olive oil, because, well, we didn't have any vegetable oil, and I'm trying to limp along without it, so I don't leave any to go bad while we're in the US. They turned out fine. I could taste the olive oil in the batter (when I was "cleaning" the bowl) but not in the finished product.

Stay tuned for the Applesauce Muffins I'm making soon. That should get us through breakfasts until we leave for the States. :-)

Blueberry (or other dried fruit) Muffins

Michelle over at No Spend Month posted a recipe on her menu thread on SL for Lemon Blueberry Muffins. I had dried blueberries, cranberries, and cherries thanks to a wonderful e-maginary friend who'd mailed me a care package (shout out to MelanieinWA!), so I chose to use Michelle's recipe as the base. We ended up not liking the "lemon" aspect, and I made a couple of other changes. Here's what I ended up with.

Blueberry Muffins

4 C all purpose flour
1 C quick-cooking oats
1 C sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 C skim milk (from powder is fine)
1/2 C canola oil
2 egg whites
2 tsp vanilla extract
8 oz dried blueberries or cherries or other dried fruit
or 2 2/3 C frozen blueberries, unthawed
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Spray muffin tin cups well with a non stick cooking spray.

In a small mixing bowl stir together the milk, canola oil, egg white, and vanilla extract.

In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

Pour the liquid mixture into the flour mixture and stir until just moist.
Fold in the blueberries. Pour batter into the muffin cups filling each 3/4 full.
Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown.

I'm actually feeling well enough these days to re-stock my freezer with breakfast foods like this, so we can have them on busy/lazy/ill mornings!

PSA: if you're going to get unexpectedly pregnant and there's any possibility you'll have morning sickness/lack of energy, make sure not to do so when your freezer is not stocked (as it normally is) with cooked meat and pre-baked breakfast options. :-/

Edited to Add: I made these this morning as cranberry-orange muffins, and they were yummy. I used the last package of dried fruit a friend had sent me, :-( and I substituted 2 C of orange juice for the milk. Tomorrow, I think I'm going to make cinnamon raisin muffins by using raisins (I know; surprised, aren't you?) and doubling the cinnamon.