Muffin Mayhem

I spent the morning in the kitchen experimenting with different kinds of muffins. One important lesson was learned. The kind of rice you use to make the flour is very important! I've been using a short grain brown rice and it's worked wonderfully. Earlier today, I picked up a bag of sweet brown rice thinking it would be good to try for "sweet" foods like muffins. That assumption was WRONG. The sweet rice was way too sticky and I ended up with a gooey mess where I wanted blueberry-apple muffins. Oh well. Next time, I will have my blueberry-apple muffins! For now, I'll have to settle for Pumpkin-Quinoa and Pumpkin-Zucchini (I had pumpkin I needed to use up). On to the recipes ... which I actually wrote down as I baked to verify. For the record, I use a cheapie coffee bean grinder to make my own flours for my son's sake. I use Lundberg Short Grain Brown Rice and run the grinding cycle a few times to get the flour a little more fine. This is a textured muffin.



Instructions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a single bowl, mix together the ingredients of one of the following muffin types. Pour batter into a lined muffin tin. The muffins will stick to the pan, so liners are very important. Each recipe makes 6 muffins. I like to mix and match my muffins, so I keep the batches small. For full size muffins bake for 20-25 minutes. Mini-muffins take about 12-15 minutes.

Any Flavor Muffins

• 1 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 3/4 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 C water
• 1/4 C add-in ingredient of your choice (blueberries, apple, chocolate chips)

Rice Quinoa Pumpkin Muffins

• 3/4 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C white quinoa flour (also home-made in a coffee bean grinder)
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 C canned pumpkin
• 1/3 C water

Rice Pumpkin Zucchini Muffins

• 1 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 C canned pumpkin
• 1/2 C grated zucchini (I use a food processor)
• 1/3 C water

Back to Bentos 1

I love looking at other people's bentos online. So many beautiful colors, textures, and shapes masterfully arranged. Unfortunately, I tend to get discouraged with my own creations, but like everything in life, I need to practice in order to improve. So here goes it ...


For breakfast today, I had:

• A homemade Rice-Quinoa-Pumpkin Muffin w/ earth balance spread.
• Turkey Bacon
• Strawberries & Blackberries
• I was supposed to have rice milk to drink, but I forgot! D'oh!

For Lunch:

• Brown Rice
• Carrots & Hummus
• Refried Black Beans
• Plum, Avocado & Okra

If you'd looked in on my lunch today, you would have seen me eating the refried beans w/ chopsticks. Somehow it seemed wrong. Fun, but wrong.

Senorcito's Food for School:

• Breakfast was 2 mini Rice-Quinoa-Blueberry Muffins and a Nectarine.
• Lunch was Brown Rice, Turkey, Avocado, Okra and Carrot Stars.
• Snack was a portion of Golden Apple and Blueberries plus his Quinoa O's.

Dinner made it's way to tomorrow's bentos (already packed!). I've found a new bento sharing blog called What's For Lunch Wednesday :)