Smoothies

Now that the weather has warmed up -- and because Jarrett and I have started drinking protein shakes most mornings -- it seemed a good time to introduce smoothies into Elsa's breakfast repertoire. Below is a recipe I threw together, but the beautiful thing about smoothies is that you can really play around with them and make them new every time.

Elsa's Breakfast Smoothie

Servings: Approximately 2 child-sized portions

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup whole milk plain yogurt

1 banana

1/2 cup frozen berries

1/2 to 1 teaspoon honey

Combine all ingredients together and blend until smooth (I use a handheld immersion blender, but obviously any blender or food processor would do the trick). Pour into cup appropriate for child, throw in a straw, and voila!

Great additions to this would be flax seeds, hemp protein powder, chia seed powder, a few greens, carrots, etc. I plan on playing around with ingredients as the months go on.

Grandma's Oatmeal Pancakes

I made these pancakes over the weekend with the intention of giving Elsa a nice, warm breakfast since she has been sick over the past week or so. Unfortunately, with her sickness has come even more of a decreased appetite, so she did not each much of what I offered her, but ate at least some. Jarrett and I, on the other hand, enjoyed them very much.

This is a recipe handed down from Jarrett's mom, and the pancakes were a favorite of Jarrett's during his high school/college years. They really are quite delicious. I think next time around I might try using brown sugar rather than the regular ole white, granulated variety. We served ours with a variety of toppings -- butter, pure maple syrup, pumpkin butter, and blackberry preserves.

Oatmeal Pancakes

2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups quick oats (uncooked)
1 cup all purpose flour (I used white whole wheat, but have also used regular whole wheat and half whole wheat/half all purpose)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (be sure it doesn't have aluminum in it)
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I use canola oil)

1. Pour milk over oats and let stand.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. (Be sure to add the flakes that get sifted out back into the flour mixture if you use whole wheat flour.)

3. Gently stir eggs into oats/milk mixture.

4. Add sifted dry ingredients.

5. Stir in oil.

6. Bake on nonstick or lightly greased griddle until golden brown, turning only once.

7. Serve hot with syrup, preserves, jam, etc.

Variations:
Sprinkle one of the following on the pancakes before turning:
Chopped apples
Blueberries
Dried sweetened cranberries
Sausage or ham

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

Last week was a muffin-baking-kind-of week. So, in addition to the cherry pecan muffins, I also made some whole wheat blueberry muffins. This recipe is based on Cook's Illustrated's Best Blueberry Muffin recipe, with some changes -- the most important being the substitution of King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour. The beauty of this flour is that it bakes just like all-purpose flour, so you can use it with ease in all different recipes. I love blueberry muffins, and I think these are fantastic. All other partakers seemed to enjoy them as well, including, of course, Elsa.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins
Makes 12 to 16 muffins

3 cups white whole wheat flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/4 stick), softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries, defrosted and drained of excess liquid
1 Tablespoon flour

1. Adjust oven rack to the lower-middle position. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a standard 12-muffin baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

3. Coat defrosted and drained frozen blueberries with 1 Tablespoon of flour.

4. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one. Beat in the grated lemon peel.

5. Beat in one-half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one-third of the yogurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. Again, be careful to beat until just incorporated to avoid overbeating. Fold in the berries.

6. Distribute muffin batter equally among the cups. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a toothpick or bamboo skewer to make sure the centers of the muffins are done. Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the tin and serve slightly warm.

Cherry Pecan Bran Muffins with Flax

With a dreary, rainy day well set in, what else was I to do but bake muffins? The following recipe is an adaptation of the one posted on a blog I read fairly regularly, Pinch My Salt. Both Elsa and Jarrett deemed them quite tasty, and I think they will make an excellent breakfast/snack option this week. Obviously you will only want to feed these to your child if you have already introduced nuts into their diet.

Cherry Pecan Bran Muffins with Flax

1 cup oat bran
1/2 cup flax seed meal
1/2 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup dried tart cherries, roughly chopped
1/2 cup chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin with butter, nonstick baking spray, or paper liners.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together oat bran, flax seed, and boiling water; set aside. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. When the oat bran/flax mixture has cooled, whisk in the egg, milk, oil, and brown sugar. Pour wet bran/flax mixture into the flour mixture and stir with a large spoon until just combined. Fold in the chopped cherries and pecans.

3. Divide batter evenly between the twelve muffin cups. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Delicious Oatmeal

We are blessed with a wonderful pediatrician. Dr. Herrmann loves to share articles and information on all sorts of parenting topics, including nutrition. A while back she gave us a recipe for quinoa, which I learned is a "pseudocereal" alternative to more common cereals such as wheat or oats. I thought it sounded good, so I went to the Farmer's Market in search of this new grain. I found it without much trouble, but it seemed really expensive, so I decided to adapt the recipe using steel cut oats instead. I also made a few other changes, such as increasing the blueberries and using golden raisins. The resulting purple oatmeal has been a hit with Lily since I first gave it to her.

Delicious Oatmeal

1 c steel cut oats

3 c water

1 c apple juice

1 t cinnamon

1/2 t allspice

1/4 c dried cranberries

1/4 c dried apricots, chopped

1/4 c golden raisins

1/2 to 1 c frozen blueberries (or 1/4 c dried blueberries)

Combine the apple juice and water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir in the steel cut oats, the fruit, and the spices. Reduce the heat to low. Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 25-30 minutes, or until the oats are of desired consistency.

I like to let this cool and spoon leftovers into an ice cube tray to freeze. I cover the tray with a piece of aluminum foil, freeze it, and then dump the cubes into a freezer bag to save for later. I pull out two or three and thaw them in the microwave for a quick and delicious breakfast.

Old Reliable

For the first recipe posted to this blog, I will lean on the old reliable recipe for mini banana apple bran muffins from one of the cookbooks I turn to quite often, The Petit Appetit Cookbook, by Lisa Barnes.


If you are looking for a healthy, yummy muffin recipe for your child (or yourself!), I highly recommend this recipe. I have made these several times, and Elsa is quite the fan of them, though I have to be careful not to over serve them, as she does become bored after awhile. As a word of warning, I realized the second time I made these that I actually made them incorrectly the first go around by mashing all three bananas and mixing them into the batter rather than mashing just one and slicing the others to place atop the batter once poured into the muffin cups. Regardless, they were still tasty, and I usually forgo the slice on top now, as Elsa usually won't eat it anyway. I also make these in large batches and freeze them, simply defrosting them by throwing them in the microwave for 30 seconds or so prior to serving. You can make them in mini or regular size, and they make for a fantastic, healthy snack or breakfast item -- or even served as a side to a lunch or dinner meal.

Mini Banana Apple Bran Muffins

Makes 24 mini muffins or 12 regular muffins

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oat bran

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

3/4 cup applesauce

3 medium bananas, 1 mashed (about 1/2 cup) and 2 sliced

1/2 cup packed brown sugar (the recipe calls for light, but I only had dark on hand, and they turned out fine)

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 24 mini muffin cups or 12 regular muffin cups.

Combine flour, bran, baking soda, and salt in a small mixing bowl. Melt butter and combine with applesauce, mashed banana, sugar, and eggs in a large bowl. Add flour mixture to applesauce mixture and stir until just blended. The batter will be lumpy and very moist.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling two-thirds full. Place banana slice on top of each muffin. Bake for 12 minutes, or until golden brown and set. Cool muffins on a wire rack for five minutes before removing from pan.