Strawberry & Coconut Oat Muffins

ok, so this is another muffin post. i do make more than muffins i promise, but i couldn't wait to share this one with you because the results were... well... AMAZING! coconut and i go way back, we're old buddies. it's been one of my all time flavours since i was knee high to a grasshopper. as far back as i can remember my favourite chocolate bar was bounty and my favourite biscuit was coconut macaroons. i love coconut milk/cream in cooking like Thai curries or even banana bread, and have recently discovered Lindt 70% coconut intense dark chocolate. DROOOOOL!!!!

anyway, enough of me ranting about coconut, onto these little gems. i came across a blender recipe for oat muffins, that sounded ok and because i wanted something fairly clean and nutritious i figured i'd give them a whirl but give it my own touch. i had a punnet of strawberries kicking around in the fridge - i LOVE strawberry season, huzzah! - so decided to chop them up and mix into the recipe. problem was, once i had made the mix i just felt that something was lacking. it need a bit more OOMPH. something with a strong enough flavour and texture to make it more interesting, but not so strong as to overpower the strawberries. after thinking about it for, oh let's say 3 seconds, i settled on dessicated coconut. nom.

for this recipe you will need a blender, a big bowl for mixing, and:

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 cup of low fat Greek yoghurt (strawberry or plain)

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

dash each of cinnamon and vanilla essence

1/2 cup dessicated coconut

1 punnet of fresh strawberries, sliced

preheat the oven to 180 celcius and spray your muffin tin with oil (you could use liners, but avoid paper liners as oat mixtures tend to stick to them badly). place all ingredients except for the strawberries and coconut in the blender and whizz up until smooth. transfer to a large mixing bowl and stir in the coconut and most of the strawberries leaving a few in reserve so you can add them to the tops. spoon mixture into the muffin tin and top each muffin with one or two slices of fresh strawberry and push it in ever so slightly so that it doesn't sit too high on top. place in the oven and bake for approx 18 minutes (your oven may need a little more or less). once cooked (check using the old toothpick test) allow to cool in the tray for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

i chopped my strawberries into quarters as they were smallish, but the chunks were pretty chunky so if you want smaller pieces then slice them smaller, though they will mush up a bit more that way. i used a mix of strawberry chobani and plain chobani, approx 1/2 cup of each as i only had a little sachet of the strawberry flavoured one - i think it lent a bit extra sweetness and strawberry-ness to the muffins, so if you want more of that flavour then use all strawberry if you wish! i also found removing them from my allegedly 'non-stick' muffin tin a little tough, and found a dessert spoon worked best to gently prise them out - it didn't gouge into them like a knife did. i can attest to the fact that these are amazing when warm - the strawberry is still soft and gooey! best enjoyed outside, sitting on the lawn in the sunshine, with a cup of tea ;)

Spiced Banana Zucchini Muffins

these little bad boys were the result of a mid-study urge to distract myself with something more pleasant and creative, and i was in desperate need of a little warmth and comfort. those two words often mean cinnamon for me, i can't get enough of the stuff, it ends up on most of my breakfasts and in most of my cakes and baked goods!

after a quick rummage around in the kitchen, i had decided to raid the stash of bananas and use up an old zucchini that i had bought with more 'savoury' intentions but never quite got around to actually using. yep, that old chestnut. so, armed with my chief ingredients, i set about guesstimating what would be needed and worked my way from there.

3/4 cup wholemeal flour

3/4 cup self raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

2 eggs

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup low fat Greek yoghurt

1 tbsp vegetable or olive oil

2 small-medium bananas

1 small-medium zucchini

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

mash up the bananas until well mixed and not lumpy. add in the other wet ingredients (eggs, yoghurt, oil) and whisk to combine. add in the sugar and spices, and whisk to combine. add in the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder and soda, salt), and stir to combine, then finally stir in the zucchini. be careful not to overmix or the batter will become tough.

line a muffin tray (mine has 12 cups) with liners (i just used large paper cupcake liners, whatever size fits your muffin tray best) and spoon mixture evenly among the liners. they should be about 3/4 full. at this stage i added a little sprinkling of a cinnamon sugar mix (about 1 tbsp caster or raw sugar mixed with 1 tsp cinnamon) to the top of each muffin. bake at 180 celcius for approximately 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. leave to cool in the tray for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. or you could do as we did, and wait only 2 minutes before having a warm one with a cup of tea in the sunshine in the backyard. word of warning - the downside to this is that they stick to the liner more when they're warm, so be prepared to lose a bit, or get very messy.

Super Simple Almond Butter

i don't know about anyone else, but i am a big fan of peanut butter. BIG fan! it's kind of salty and savoury but slightly sweet, sticks to the roof of your mouth yet is gooey and melty all at the same time. i do like it a LOT! i haven't gone so far as to start incorporating it into smoothies and biscuits and cakes and whatever else i can think of, partly because i prefer it straight, and partly because, well... it's not that great for you in larger doses. well, ok, even smaller doses aren't that great either. despite many sites claiming it to be high in protein (and it is!) and therefore good for you, i tend to disagree, largely because while the protein content is pretty good, it's not much chop for anything else. it doesn't have the range of nutrients that other nuts have (leaving aside the fact that it isn't a true nut, but a legume, but hey, we call it a nut and treat it like a nut so i may as well go with the flow!) and as it is so high in fat and calories, you want good nutritional bang for your buck. so... what are the alternatives? other nut butters of course!!!

so off i merrily go to the local supermarket to hunt me down some nut butter, and lo and behold, one tiny jar costs more than double my jumbo jar of peanut butter. i mean, $10 for 375g?!?!?! i do NOT think so!!!! so home i head with a large bag of whole almonds, thinking 'stuff it, i'll just make some myself, surely it can't be THAT hard'! and it's not... but it is time consuming, so bear with me...

you will need... almonds and a food processor. really.

i started with 2 cups of almonds, i wasn't sure if my little old food processor could handle any more, but i think you could easily do anywhere from 1 to 3 cups at a time depending on the capacity of your food processor. i lightly roasted them in the oven for about 10 minutes to get the oils going and firm them up a bit. it gives the resulting paste a slightly deeper flavour, but you could do them untoasted for more of that raw nutty flavour. once cooled, add into the food processor and start blitzing!

it will be very noisy at first but this only lasts a few seconds, as the processor starts to break down the nuts. keep the food processor on for a good minute or two, then check.

this is when you will need a spatula. scrape down the sides of the processor and check to make sure the blade is still touching the bottom (mine started to lift a bit and the almonds started to gather underneath meaning they weren't getting processed at all). turn on again for another minute or two, then re-check, scrape, and repeat.

keep processing, stopping occasionally to check and scrape. it seems like this will go on forever and that the processor isn't breaking them down. stay with it. after a good 5-8 minutes the almonds will start to release their oils and the mixture will gradually start to clump.

keep processing. you shouldn't need to stop and scrape so often now. keep going for another few minutes.

it will eventually start to resemble a speckly paste and look oily and buttery. keep going for a few more minutes, i promise it will continue to break down.

after a good 10-15 minutes (depending on your food processor) it will start to look glossy and smooth. this is where i stopped. or rather, this is where my food processor could go no further. you see, after some googling, i learned that eventually it should thicken up even more and truly resemble peanut butter. but mine never did. it just stayed a thick glossy paste no matter how much extra processing i gave it. and that's ok, i'm more than happy with that! you can now give your food processor a rest, and using the trusty spatula scrape/pour it into jars (as you would with jam) and let cool. once cooled enough to handle you can pop them into the fridge where they will keep for a good month or two.

lastly, you can FLAVOUR the almond butter! YUM! so with my batch, i decanted half the mixture plain, then with the half left in the food processor i added in about a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a teaspoon of vanilla essence and half a teaspoon of vanilla paste. approximately. as always, i didn't really measure, i just went by taste, i wanted something relatively subtle that wouldn't overpower the almond-ness. experiment. follow your tastebuds. i imagine honey or nutmeg or cardamom would all work well! and you can keep your $10!