Broccoli and Cheese Muffins

Makes 12 Muffins. Recipe can be doubled to have extra for freezing.


Searching for a veggie muffin recipe to get my toddler to eat some 'hidden greens', I picked up a rarely used cookbook '750 Best Muffin Recipes' by Camilla V. Saulsbury and quickly found her 'fresh broccoli and parmesan muffins' recipe. And I had almost all the ingredients. I added green peppers (as didn't have quite enough broccoli left) and pinenuts and substituted leek for her green onions (scallions) and honey for her sugar. Like she wrote though, it's a versatile recipe that suits a variety of cheeses, and, I think, a few extra veggies too! I used Comte cheese and it worked well. She said she made them successfully with Cheddar, Swiss, Gruyere, Blue cheese, goat cheese and manchego.
The verdict? Family, toddler included, gobbled them up happily!

Ingredients

1 cup finely chopped broccoli
1 leek (1/2 - 3/4 cup), washed and chopped finely
50g pinenuts (optional)
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour (or use all normal flour)
1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 Tbsp honey
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 cup (divided) coarsely grated strong cheese

Method

1. Grease a 12-hole muffin tin and dust with flour. Preheat oven to 200˚C (400˚F).
2. In a frying pan or similar, sauté leek in a little olive oil till becoming tender. Add broccoli (and any other veg you're using) and stir fry a couple of minutes till tender, adding a dash of water if needed to stop it browning. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flours, oats, baking powder and salt.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together honey, eggs, milk, oil and mustard until well blended. Stir in the vegetables, pinenuts and half a cup of the cheese.
5. Add the egg/vegetable mixture to the flour mixture and mix until just combined.
6. Divide mixture evenly into muffin tins. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
7. Bake 12-15 minutes or more until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Let cool in muffin tins on a wire rack for 5 minutes then transfer onto the rack. Serve warm or let cool. Once cooled can be frozen and later rewarmed in oven or left to defrost at room temperature.

Pulp Kitchen

These teacakes/densish muffins were just the thing to use up some of our sweet juice pulp. With vegetable juice pulp I've been making soups, fritters etc. I made a chocolate cake the other day with some carrot, silverbeet, celery and parsley pulp which was great too - Still very chocolatey but moist and with, you know, depth of flavour - from the parsley esp I think. I just reduced the amount of flour I used a bit and added the pulp at the end (as in this recipe).

These muffins I adapted from a recipe from Breville Juicers. I thought mine looked better! It calls for pulp made from apple, carrot and ginger but Luc's not a big fan of ginger so I left it out even though it would have been nice. I added freshly ground cardamom which I think goes really well with carrot. I just forgot Luc also isn't a fan of carrots in baking so the whole thing was wasted on him! I loved them though (still haven't finished actually as it's hard to eat a whole batch of filling muffins by oneself! - need to make friends here to invite for tea-parties!).

They are moist but not too wet (may depend on fruit and type of juicer - how moist the pulp is). They are dense but in a good way, not heavy little rock cakes or anything. I used wholemeal flour which I think is more flavourful. I topped one with frommage frais for dessert and had another with natural yoghurt for breakfast but they are great on their own, too.

Carrot, Apple and Ginger Spiced Tea Cakes
Makes 12 tea cakes. Vegan and health-conscious substitutions given

Ingredients

2 cups carrot, apple (and ginger) pulp (juice recipe follows)
1½ cups flour (all purpose or whole wheat, or a combination)
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon cardamom (or ground seeds from 5 cardamom pods)
½ cup sugar (or ¼ cup of: maple syrup/honey/agave syrup*)
¼ teaspoon salt
1¼ cups milk (or rice/soy milk)
125 grams unsalted butter, melted (or ¼ cup canola oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) and set the rack in the middle of the oven. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin (or line with paper baking cups).

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cardamom and sugar in a large bowl and stir with a whisk or a fork.

In a smaller bowl, combine oil/melted butter, milk and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and gently combine, being careful not to over mix. Fold in the pulp.

Scoop into muffin tins and bake for 18-22 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, before removing tea cakes to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Enjoy warm or at room temperature. Nice served with natural yoghurt or frommage frais.
*If using honey, agave or maple syrup, slightly decrease the amount of milk you use to keep moisture content consistent. Also, you may add more sugar if you wish but remember the apples and carrots will add some sweetness too.

Carrot, Apple and Ginger Juice
Makes 2-3 servings.

6 medium carrots, peeled and trimmed**
5 crisp apples (such as Granny Smith), peeled, cored, and quartered**
1 small knob of ginger, peeled
Juice all ingredients and pour into glasses for serving.

** I buy organic fruit and veg (whenever I can) and so just washed mine and removed the stems from the apples. Our (Breville) juicer advertises it juices whole apples, so that's just what we do, unless they're enormous and need chopping in half.