Kitchen Adventures: Toddler Approved Apple Muffins

Mealtimes at my house have become a battle of wills and I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm generally on the losing side of them. I guess that is when you know you are the parent of a toddler. It seems like every play date I go to these days always ends in the "what is your baby eating these days" conversation. Which is great because then I don't feel so alone. Recently, a friend sent me this recipe for apple muffins and the little man LOVES them. I'm not sure where this recipe originally came from so if you are the source, please let me know and I will make a note of it in this post. 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup vanilla yogurt (one 6 oz container)
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup chunky applesauce (I have used both sweetened and unsweetened applesauce)


Directions:

Preheat oven to 400.
In a small bowl, mix yogurt, baking soda, and baking powder. 
Set aside. 
In a large bowl, mix all dry ingredients (except baking soda and baking powder, which you've already put in with the yogurt).

The yogurt mixture should be slightly puffy by this point. 

Add the applesauce and eggs to it and stir.

Mix wet ingredients into dry.
Pour into greased muffin cups (or use liners). 
Fill muffin cups about 1/2 full. (I like to only do half b/c then the muffin doesn't come out of the top of the cup and overflow the edge.)
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until tops are golden brown, with cracks in them.
Let cool and serve! 

The last batch I made actually resulted in 16 muffins so its up to you and how much you fill up the cups. I have also frozen these and defrosted them as needed. I hope you and your family enjoy these muffins as much as we do.

Kitchen Adventures: Lightened Up Version

Like everyone else, we are trying to cut back here as we recover from the gluttony of the holidays. I've been scouring my cookbooks and magazines to find a few healthy recipes for us to try. I recently found a great recipe for Salsa Chicken from Cooking Light's website. It was simple and easy to prepare. Plus it was perfect for a weeknight since it only took me about 25 minutes to fix. 

I served it with a side of black beans and salsa for a perfect and healthy dinner on a weeknight. I would love to hear if you have found any quick and easy healthy meals to start off the New Year. 

Kitchen Adventures: Bourbon Brown Sugar Steak

A few weeks ago, I committed to trying a new recipe a week. So far, some of the recipes have been a success and some have not. To start out my "Kitchen Adventures" series on a successful note. This recipe was a collaborative effort since my husband is the grillmaster around our house. 

We don't eat red meat that often so when we do its a real treat. We've been experimenting over the last year with flank steak and so far we've found a few great ways to make it but this might just be my favorite. You can find the recipe for the steak at food52. I just marinated the steak for about 2.5 hours before grilling it. We also through some asparagus on the grill with the steak and baked a few potatoes in the oven to finish off the meal. The steak had a slight bourbon flavor and smell so if you like bourbon this is a dish for you. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. 

Happy Cooking!