Quinoa Spuffins

You may be asking yourself, "What the heck is a SPUFFIN?"  Well, I made up that term.  Since my son and I can't eat normal wheat/white flour, we have to use alternative ones.  Even though I have a wheat intolerance, spelt is fine in moderate amounts for some reason.  But when you bake with spelt, the texture is thicker and more dense.  Thus, I call spelt muffins, "spuffins!"  They also go with my old nickname which is Spam-a-lama-ding-dong :)

Ingredients:

 1 Cup of uncooked Quinoa, rinsed (will use 2 cups of the cooked quinoa & have some leftover)

1/4 Cup of unsweetened applesauce (I just dumped in a single serving applesauce container that I put in my kids’ lunches)

1-3/4 Cup of gluten free all-purpose flour (spelt, rice flour, GF flour, ground oats, or whatever you like)

1/4 Cup of ground flax

1/8 Cup Chia seeds

1/2 Cup of brown sugar (maybe honey or raw sugar instead?)

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

¼ to ½ teaspoon cardamom

¼ to ½ teaspoon nutmeg

3/4 Cup of almond milk (could use coconut, soy, or cow’s milk)

1 Large Egg

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Directions:

1.                  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin tins with cooking spray and set aside. 

2.                  Bring 2 cups of water to a boil.  Add one cup of quinoa and cook on medium for about 12 minutes or until water is absorbed.  Turn off stove.  Stir and then leave it covered for 15 minutes away from stove.

3.                  In a medium size bowl, mix together sugar, egg, almond milk, flax, chia, applesauce, and spices. Mix in only 2 cups of the cooked quinoa (save any extra for another use or meal). 

4.                  Add flour(s), baking powder, baking soda and vanilla.

5.                  Divide batter evenly into a 12 muffin greased tin. Bake until toothpick comes out clean and tops are firm to touch. Approximately 20 minutes. Don’t overcook.

6.                  Depending on what flour(s) you use, the muffins will be pretty thick and heavy but delicious.  Served warm smothered with butter (or at least that is how my teenage boys and hubby like them).  These will spoil quickly due to the very fresh ingredients to eat within a day or two or store in the freezer.  I used 1 cup of spelt flour and 3/4 cup of brown rice flour because we're not allergic to those.

7.                  You can add nuts, raisins, diced fruit, chocolate chips, etc. if desired.  Probably about ½ cup if you do that.  They taste good plain though.

Nutritional Information for 1 muffin: (12 muffins per recipe)
Calories - 185
Carbs - 25
Fats - 5 (healthy fat though)
Protein - 6
Sugars - 6

Cake Balls

Here's a link to my friends blog post about making Cake Balls.

Pretty Healthy Oat Bars (no white flour)

WARNING - These are a work in progress.  They didn't stick together well.  I am going to try using spelt instead of the ground oats and see if that works better.

2 cubes butter, softened

1 cup canola oil

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

¼ cup honey

2 T milled flax seed

1 T chia seeds

9 T water

1 T dehydrated peanut butter

Orange essential oil

3 cups ground oats (or other flour)

3 1/2 cups oats

2 tsp. baking soda

1 cup shredded coconut

1-1½ cups chocolate chips

½ cup chopped pecans

Mix the butter, canola, honey and sugars.  In a little bowl, mix the flax and chia seeds with the water and mix well.  Add to the big bowl.  Add peanut butter, essential oil, ground oats, oats and baking soda and mix well.  Add coconut, chocolate chips and pecans.  Bake at 375 degrees in greased pan until done if you want thicker bars.  I had a hard time making sure they were completely done without getting too crusty so the next time I tried putting a thin layer of batter on a cookie sheet and made really, really thin cookie type bars.  If you make these as cookies, they are pretty dang flat and run together but you can sort of re-form them with the spatula and they still taste good.  But they are delicious though!

Could be used for a on-the-go breakfast if you take out the chocolate chips and use dried fruit or more nuts instead.  You can't really taste the peanut butter much but I wanted to add more protein.  Also, if you didn't have the milled flax seed and chia seeds, you could use 3 eggs instead and eliminate the flax and chia seeds and the water.

Spelt Muffins

1 1/4 cup almond milk
3 Tbsp. milled flax seed
9 Tbsp. water
(note, you can use 3 eggs instead of the flax seed and water)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp. coconut oil (or other oil of choice)
Cinnamon to taste
Cardamom to taste
1 Tbsp. baking powder
2 1/4 cups spelt flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray Pam on muffin tin.  Mix all ingredient together except for spelt flour and baking powder.  Add dry ingredients and mix just until moistened.  Put evenly in 12 muffins tins and bake for around 12 minutes or until done.

3 Weight Watchers PointsPlus Points per muffin

Healthy Oat Banana Cookies

There is no added sugar in these cookies.  Also no eggs, fat or flour.  For missing all those key ingredients, they are still yummy cookies.  Jonah's quote:  "They're not bad.  They're good."

3 ripe bananas
1/3 cup applesauce
2 cups oats
1/4 cup almond milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla (optional)

Bake at 350 degrees until done.  It took 9 minutes in my convection oven.

I may try adding the following items in the future:  nuts, coconut, chocolate chips, cocoa, etc.  I also may try subbing out greek yogurt for some of the banana to add protein and lessen natural sugars.

Cheesy Mexican Rice

This is a delicious side dish that a gal from our elementary school (Tara Phelps) makes every year for our Teacher Appreciation luncheon.  The recipe is so popular that we actually make copies of the recipe to distribute and the teachers would be so sad if we stopped serving it.

2 cups cooked rice
1 can cream of celery soup
1 can (4 oz) chopped green chilies
1 cup shredded cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. cumin

Mix.  Put in square baking dish.  Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.  Top with cheese and bake until melted.  Double recipe for a 9x13 pan.

I imagine you could add chicken to it and turn it into a casserole.  I'll try that out sometime.

Chicken Enchiladas

(original recipe from my dear friend and previous neighbor Raquel Larsen)

Flour Tortillas
Enchilada Sauce (red or green)
Green Chilies if you use green sauce, green onions if you use red sauce
Cilantro (optional)
Chicken
Sour Cream
Grated Cheese

I never measure amounts on this recipe. I simply add whatever quantities I feel like at the time. Cook chicken and shred. I like to boil the chicken so that it is really moist and shreds easily. Mix chicken, some enchilada sauce, green chilies (or green onions), grated cheese and sour cream to taste (should be fairly thick, not too runny). Pour a little sauce to coat the bottom of a 9x13 glass pan. Put mixture into tortillas and roll. Place formed enchiladas into glass pan and line them up tightly. Pour more enchilada sauce on top and then sprinkle cheese on top. Cover with foil and heat at 350 degrees until heated through (usually around 35-45 minutes).