Wild Violet Muffins with Wild Violet Sugar #MuffinMonday

Tender light muffins sweetened with wild violet syrup and sprinkled with wild violet sugar. Edible flowers baked into a Spring floral treat.

I'm reposting this recipe because the violets have appeared in the yard. Enjoy!

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About the only thing worth foraging in my yard these days are violets.

The garlic has woken up from it's deep winter slumber though it's nowhere near harvesting. The chives and raspberry canes are just beginning to stir. Some red leaf lettuce and celery from the compost miraculously survived the winter and is peeping up from a raised bed--though I suspect bunnies might nibble it off.

My spouse took this bug's view of a violet in our front yard yesterday.

I'm pretty much over playing with the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve, and I'm sick of eating down the put up vegetables in the freezer and pantry before we move. I want to forage with something fresh.

Wild violets it is.

Peach Zucchini Muffins #MuffinMonday

Chunks of peaches combined with shredded zucchini in this peach jam-sweetened whole grain muffin.

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Necessity is the mother of inventive recipes I am sure. Why else would anyone combine zucchini and peaches? Sure, food that is ripe at the same time generally pairs well together (tomatoes + basil, cucumbers + dill are two good examples) but it seems a little crazy to combine peaches and zucchini in a muffin.



Call me crazy. I've been a canning fool (you can see on my FB page) and when I realized I had a jar of peach jam left in the pantry from a previous . . . ahem . . . home . . . I decided to use it in a muffin.  [What happens to jam after a 23 months in a cool dark place? Well, not much. The top of the jam was a bit darker than the rest, but the jar remained sealed and it tasted delicious. I just wanted room for all the peach raspberry jam I canned this year. Out with the old. Into a muffin.]

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This muffin uses whole grains--whole wheat flour and cornmeal. The first and third batches were made using white whole wheat flour and are a bit lighter in texture than the second batch, but using your standard whole wheat flour works fine as well.

Pineapple & Sweet Potato Muffins #MuffinMonday

These sweet muffins are packed with fruit--pineapple--and vegetable--sweet potato which add depth and character to a tender breakfast treat. Topped with maple sugar for crunch, this muffin is an all around satisfying snack.

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Welcome to Muffin Monday! I've been having so much fun baking muffins for the Detachment that I'm bringing a new one for you this month--a sweet potato muffin with pineapple in the batter.

The inspiration for this muffin came from the growers of these Stokes purple sweet potatoes--Frieda's. My first exposure to purple sweet potatoes came via the Mile Creek Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. I had so much fun combining orange and purple sweet potatoes in my Overnight Sweet Potato Monkey Bread and playing with the vivid colors to make my Mardi Gras Braided Bread that I searched all over my new city until I located some purple sweet potatoes at my local natural foods coop.

Sugar Free Banana Pecan Muffins #MuffinMonday

A naturally sweetened whole grain muffin full of bananas, dates, and toasted pecans.

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Today's muffin is a a delicious blast from the past. As my daughter was revising my drop down recipe index during her Spring Break she commented, 'you have a lot of muffins'. Since she's been the beneficiary of most of those muffins, I rolled my eyes at her and went back to my book. However, it did remind me that I've been wanting to share this recipe for Muffin Monday.


This recipe does not use granulated sugar. Nor does it use any sugar substitute your grandma wouldn't recognize--unless your grandma lived in the 1800s in a northern climate away from rail transportation and never saw a banana. Most folks alive and reading this on a screen probably have grandmas who grew up with dates, too. These fruits are what I used to sweeten this muffin, on purpose, and I think they make an excellent combination.

Healthy Apple Cider Muffins for #MuffinMonday

Apple cider and nutmeg-spiced whole grain baked treats covered with cinnamon sugar are a lightened-up version of the popular fall donut.

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Eating with the seasons means that change is constant. Come to think of it, being a military spouse means the same thing. Being a parent means the same thing--once you get a handle on one age, growth and development means your newfound knowledge is sorely lacking. Again. Heck, I guess being human means that change is constant. I'm getting off track.

This website focuses on using seasonal produce, and it's Fall, so we're talking apples, apple cider, buttercup and butternut squash, and that's just the start of the alphabet. As the seasons change so does the offerings in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share and at the farmer's market. Just like my dogs warmly greet me even if I just ran upstairs for a pair of socks, I warmly greet the arrival of each new season (although with considerably less tail wagging).

Easy Toffee Apple Muffins #MuffinMonday

An easy blender muffin recipe combining apple chunks and toffee chips in a cinnamon-laced batter.

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I'm still exploring my new stomping grounds. Over the weekend we hiked around the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, part of the University of Minnesota--those geniuses behind the Honeycrisp apple and the apple I used in today's muffin recipe--the SweeTango. My first bite of this apple I thought 'hmm, nope, it's a bit too tart for my tastes' but it's grown on me as I work my way down to the bottom of the bag. I have a couple left and will make apple crisp out of them, but I can already tell that they're good for baking since they make a tasty muffin!

Strawberry Banana Muffins #MuffinMonday

This whole wheat treat combines the sweetness of fresh local strawberries and ripe bananas with the tang of sour cream while using less sugar than you'd expect.

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You know how seeing one of those cooking videos ignites a craving? That's what happened here. I kept seeing a video for strawberry banana bread in my feed, or strawberry banana smoothies at the store, and the next thing you know I've got a hankering to make Strawberry Banana Muffins.

Conveniently I had fresh local strawberries from the farmer's market and ripe bananas on hand, plus the the endurance to make muffins. You see, while we're mostly unpacked in our new home, very little is set up exactly how it's going to stay. That means every time I cook something it involves finding the right ingredients, locating the proper tools, and doing a lot of  'hmmmm . . . this would work better over there, which means I should move that to this other place, and stick that other thing in a pile by the stairs to figure out where its new home will be . . .'.  It's the standard dance of the military family in a new place--finding the best way to arrange our stuff to quickly make a house into Home.

Healthy Carrot Cake Whole Grain Muffins for #MuffinMonday

Carrots, raisins, and dates--sweetened with honey and maple syrup--combined with whole wheat flour and rolled oats for a deliciously sweet treat

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Updated 3/2018
As much as I enjoy baking in my kitchen, fixing goodies for my family or something just for me, it's a treat to go out for a snack.  Choosing amongst the variety of offerings in the bakery case is Big Fun for me, and that's how I was inspired to make these muffins.


Our local military spouse group met for coffee at the grocery store down the street.  As previously mentioned, I'm a tea drinker and fancy coffee drinks are just plain lost on me. However, I like the conversation--I always learn something new that makes my life smoother. Military spouses bring a wealth of life experiences to the table, and we're a formidable asset to any community. Recently my fellow spouses have helped me prepare the house for market, and wow what a difference fresh eyes bring to your place!


I was peckish, so I scanned the muffins in the Bakery Case and saw Good (or Better?) Morning Muffins. The muffin was yummy, and got me wondering why I haven't combined my finely shredded Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share carrots into a muffin before. I played around with my key muffin recipe to come up with these, and the result is a whole grain muffin using honey, maple syrup, raisins and dates for sweetness.

I'm not normally one to throw the word "healthy" around, because I believe it can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways and I'm not about to say which way is best--and it's not a One Size Fits All definition anyway. I'm confident in saying that a baked good which tastes as good as these muffins, that doesn't happen to contain refined sugars and does pack in some protein and fiber, is healthy--at least compared to a slice of iced carrot cake that is, and if you're not allergic to the components of the muffin, that is.  And since it's got some of my favorite parts of carrot cake--I'm going with an easily searchable recipe title though I hope I don't prevent myself from making an even carrot cakier type of muffin!

Cocoa Beet Chocolate Chip Muffins (#MuffinMonday)

Shredded beets combined with cocoa powder and chocolate chips in a buttermilk-soaked oatmeal muffin. Farm share beets become a sweet treat!

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This recipe is a fine example of how I put up my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) vegetables during the season to feed my family all year long. I've fixed these muffins for folks to enjoy at the first CSA pick up of the season as well as in the middle of winter for a pink Valentine's day treat.

I'm sharing them now because beets are one of the handful of items still left in my freezer, and because my half bath is painted a vibrant color--although not as vibrant as these beets. The swatch said Sun-kissed Apricot but we've renamed it Nuclear Sun-kissed Apricot. With the light on and the door open in the half bath an orange glow covers the foyer.  It's creepily bright.

We found the mirror at an antique store--it's narrow, like the pedestal sink it sits above.

Blueberry Banana Muffins with Steel Cut Oats #MuffinMonday

Bananas and blueberries are the sweet fruit and steel cut oats are the hearty grains packed into a healthy breakfast treat to power you thru until lunchtime. These muffins contain whole fat dairy instead of oil.

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I think I'm more fond of baking with bananas than eating them fresh. There's a small window of banana perfection for me--I prefer mine just barely ripe with a bit of green on the stem. Once the bunch of bananas has moved on to full ripeness I'm more likely to make a Banana PB and Spinach Smoothie, or Banana Blender Waffles, or a Ham & Banana Pizza. Or muffins!

It's easy to store ripe bananas in the freezer--just open the door and slip them inside! There's no need to remove the skin and store in a different container, since the banana skin is the perfect covering for the banana no matter what the outer environment is like. That's better for the environment as well. Bananas take just a few minutes to thaw on the counter (put them on a plate if you think they'll get weepy) and they are ready to use in all sorts of baked goods. I made a video about how to deal with overripe bananas, another in my Cooking Hacks series. Please enjoy!

Apple Butter Muffin Tops for #MuffinMonday

Sweetened with apple butter, chewy from steel cut oats, and studded with chunks of apples, these make ahead delights are a quick breakfast, afternoon, or bedtime snack. No muffin pan? No problem!

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Ever look at something familiar with fresh eyes and see it in a whole new way? That happened to me with this recipe. Each month I join the Muffin Monday bakers to bring you an original recipe using seasonal ingredients. When I saw Karen's Blueberry Muffin Top recipe, that she comprehensively baked on a cookie sheet in addition to her muffin top pan, I started thinking . . .

Why do I have to bake my muffins in a muffin pan?

What if I make a muffin batter and just scoop it out onto a cookie sheet?

I did it. The world did not end.

Since I cook and bake using the ingredients from my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, I've got local apples and my "cook's portion" of Slow Cooker Apple Butter in the fridge. I decided to #usethedamnjamalready and make an apple butter flavored muffin top with chopped apples for grins and giggles. For more grins and giggles, turn up the volume and check out the outtakes from the Facebook teaser video!

Sweet Potato Casserole Muffins #MuffinMonday

Sweet Potato Casserole muffins combine roasted sweet potatoes and cinnamon chips in a wholesome whole grain treat. These muffins would be terrific for a holiday breakfast or a quick sweet bread alongside a holiday dinner--plan ahead and bake an extra sweet potato to make them!

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I like to make festive muffins using the seasonal ingredients from my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. One of the reasons I enjoy participating in Muffin Monday is the creative stretch to come up with something new each month. When I made these muffins last winter, I carefully hoarded the recipe in my Mobile Office until sweet potato season returned. Now that my farmers' sweet potato crop has been dug and is curing, I'm glad to share these muffins with the Muffin Monday crowd.

Whole Grain Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins #MuffinMonday

Buttermilk-soaked rolled oats and whole wheat flour, combined with pumpkin puree and a handful of chocolate chips for flair, make these less-sugar muffins sweet yet wholesome.

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As I think about my favorite recipes using farm fresh ingredients, I'm realizing how often I feed my family muffins.  Muffins for breakfast.  Muffins for after school snack.  With dinner.  Muffins to school or work or social functions.  Pretty much if there's an occasion to bring food, I've probably made muffins.  In addition to this recipe, you can find all my muffin recipes, from Apple Cider Forgot the Sugar to Zucchini Nutella,  to your right in desktop view, or  down below in mobile view----> in my Recipe Index by Category.

I get this desire to feed the world muffins from my mom.  She has a couple of friends from school who made a muffin cookbook (Amazon affiliate link) that I refer to when I feel like making muffins but need inspiration. My current favorite muffin recipe, though, is cobbled together from my experiences making these waffles, these muffins, and always having buttermilk on hand. I love these muffins because they are whole grain, not too sweet, but have a little hit of chocolate that makes the kids think it's a treat. I've played with many iterations of this muffin base, using soaked oatmeal, but this recipe is the one that started it all. For Muffin Monday today, I've gone back to the beginning.

I know lately it seems that the switch has been flipped to All Things Pumpkin, and I am not usually one to jump on bandwagons, but my reason for using pumpkin is simple. I've got a lot of volunteer pumpkins on hand this Fall.  The garden has been crazy productive, thanks to the squirrels planting pumpkin seeds everywhere and my inability to deny food the right to grow wherever it shows up. Check here for how to Process a Pile of Pumpkins (and the mystery winterish squash in the background).

Apple Cinnamon Muffins #MuffinMonday

Buttery chunks of sweet fresh apple in a wholesome whole grain muffin.

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There's nothing better than a local apple, grown for flavor--not the ability to step off the truck looking enticing. I'm delighted to get an apple share with my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. Just like berries in Spring, and melons in summer, we look forward to the changing of the seasons with the arrival of apples heralding the advent of Fall.

This time of year I am the proverbial Ant of Ant and Grasshopper lore. I spend my days off harvesting, chopping, mincing, slicing, roasting, dehydrating, freezing and canning the local summer abundance. I do this for three reasons. First, I hate to waste food so permitting produce to spoil because I haven't gotten around to eating it is unacceptable to me. Second, I like to eat locally sourced food--and there's nothing more local than my backyard!  Third, I'm a frugal sort. If I'm overrun with tomatoes in August, why not put them up now so I avoid paying money later when I want to make my Creamy Tomato Soup for my daughter's lunch?

Banana Cookie Butter Oatmeal Muffins for #MuffinMonday

These whole grain banana oatmeal muffins are sweetened with cookie butter. Add cocoa powder if you'd like an even richer treat!

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You know "those cookies you get on airplanes"? The sweet, crumbly type in the fiddly little red & white wrapper? That's how my mom described Biscoff cookies the other day, as she was offering snacks during our car trip. This description rang true for me, as I've only eaten Biscoff cookies while fighting for command of the arm rest with a complete stranger and trying to quietly read with my knees practically in my chest due to the ever decreasing leg room. Apparently the FAA is gonna get involved with that. I'm not holding my breath. Instead, I'll just grab my pantry staple jar of Cookie Butter and make a batch of muffins for Muffin Monday.

I've made these muffins 2 ways--both with and without cocoa powder in the mix. I prefer them with the cocoa powder--both the deep color and the rich flavor of the muffin hit all the notes I like in a muffin. You can see the different versions in the photos above and below this paragraph. As is my custom, these muffins aren't as sweet as your usual bakery muffin. I cut back on the sugar even more since I was boosting up the sweetness with cookie butter.

What do you do if you can't find Biscoff cookie butter in your grocery store? (Hint--I find it over near the bakery in my local Kroger, never on a shelf by the peanut butter which is where my organizational heart thinks it belongs.) Trader Joes makes their own brand of cookie butter which is perfect for this application. You can also order some from Amazon, I'll throw up some links below the recipe. This post is not sponsored by the Biscoff or Trader Joe's folks. Just sharing what I've used to make my muffins.

Black Raspberry, Brown Sugar and Oatmeal Muffins #MuffinMonday

Black raspberries and brown sugar sweeten this oatmeal muffin recipe. A summer treat when berries are in season, or use frozen berries to enjoy summer flavor year round.

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I grew up in a household that produced some of the food we ate, and that is a value I've carried with me into adulthood. Because we move around, in some homes the food production has been small--a few pots of basil and rosemary by the kitchen window, or mint in the ground next to the air conditioner (condensation means I hardly needed to water).

Currently my backyard garden, my Edible Foodscape, is the largest it's ever been--and that's probably small by most folks' standards, but I've got a postage stamp size yard and am making much with it. I've got 5 raised beds, each about 2 feet by 5 feet, made by my spouse from an upcycled cedar privacy fence. In these beds are garlic, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, spinach, cucumbers, basil, peas, dill, and the volunteer squash for the season. I've got a perennial herb area interplanted with perennial flowers, a small strawberry area, peach trees and an ever-expanding raspberry patch.

Garlic Scape Pesto & Ricotta Muffins #MuffinMonday

These savory muffins are flavored with garlic scape pesto & ricotta cheese. They bake up quickly for an easy bread to serve alongside pasta, chicken, or fish.

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Ever make a main dish and think at the last moment, "you know, some hot bread would be great with this"? That's one of the reasons I like muffins--they come together quickly (as in, thrown together while an entree is baking) and usually require just pantry ingredients. Simply pop them into the already hot oven and a few minutes later you've got yourself a hot bread to accompany your meal.  Take that, yeast breads!

I envisioned these muffins alongside a plate of lasagna, spaghetti & meatballs, or a crock pot pizza casserole where the pesto-ricotta combination can enhance the entree. They'd be terrific with my Pesto Ricotta Baked Swai recipe or my Chicken Spinach Artichoke Pesto Pasta recipe. When I made them I was just craving a savory quick bread I could slather in buttery spread and snarf down while standing in the kitchen with my wiener dog, Vincent, at my feet catching the crumbs. True story! These muffins assuaged the craving.

I was not interested in having a full pan of muffins to feed a larger group--I just wanted enough for our family--so I filled my muffin cups much fuller than usual. The resulting large muffins took a few more minutes to bake, but Vincent and I didn't mind. This recipe could be stretched into a dozen if you make them smaller than I did.

the wet ingredients

Seasonal eaters will delight in the inclusion of garlic scape pesto in this recipe. If you know what it is and you've got some--go for it. If you're not sure where in the grocery store you'd buy garlic scape pesto, let me give you a Top Tip: it's not there. Use a prepared pesto instead, and check out this Garlic Scape Recipe Round Up to learn more about the wonders of garlic scapes.

Asparagus Goat Cheese Muffins #MuffinMonday

A savory dinner muffin bursting with bright lemony asparagus and tangy goat cheese.

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It's funny how, when Spring hits, you feel all fresh and new inside when in a brown reality you're surrounded (barely) by bits of buds and shoots. There's not much green around! The local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share food I'm currently feeding my family is the last of the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve out of my basement plus whatever I've canned and/or frozen during the past year.


That doesn't stop me from craving green things. Grabbing a bag of local spinach out of the freezer to make a Peanut Butter, Spinach, and Banana Smoothie helps, but I need fresh green vegetables in my life, too! This craving for fresh greens is yet another way eating seasonally from the farm share has changed my life.

I've never gardened in one place long enough to even think about growing asparagus until it's too late. It's always in hindsight that I think "you know, if I'd planted an asparagus bed our first year here, we could have harvested some before we moved". I've read that "military spouses plant annuals for themselves, and perennials for those who come after them". That's sure been my experience. I've left strawberry patches, daffodils, and/or mint beds all over the globe, but I've never moved to a home that had an established asparagus bed. Maybe someday.

These muffins were inspired by a ravioli I make at work. I kept some key elements and turned them into a savory muffin. This would be good with chili, stew, or a Spring/Summer soup like my Finnish Summer Soup with Kale. I tend to think most muffins are enhanced when served warm with butter, but these were pretty nice served to my classmates at room temperature without any butter. We had wine, though, so that possibly made a difference. Who knows?

Apricot Pistachio Matcha Muffins #MuffinMonday

Chunks of dried apricots and chopped pistachios flavor these delicate green tea muffins for fruit and nut muffins with a twist!

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Since I bake muffins many times a month (I think our family's Friday Night Pizza Night pizzas are the only items I fix more consistently) I like to play around with themes. I was going for a festive St Patrick's Day muffin here--naturally green colored with chunks of orange to echo the Irish flag. Clearly, I'm not Irish, but I'm happy to eat and drink and celebrate anyway! While I admit I failed with the color, the flavor of these muffins makes them worthy of a Muffin Monday post.

After my success with naturally coloring pizza dough green with spinach, and naturally colored green, gold, and purple braided Mardi Gras bread, I figured green muffins would be a cinch. However, something about the quick nature of muffin batter does not lend itself to the deeper colors, I'm afraid. Much like my Beet Horseradish Muffins, the batter color bakes out into an orange muffin with a tinge of my goal color--green. But hey! No artificial dyes in these muffins so there's something to hang your . . . apron . . . on!

Robert Barker remains hungrily hopeful that I'll have a catastrophic accident on the way to the oven.

If not a vibrant green color, what do these muffins have to offer? Simple--they are a refreshing fruit-and-nut muffin, great for breakfast or a snack. We prefer them served warm with plenty of butter. They're lightly sweet, with a nice bit of crunch from the pistachios and a tender bite from the apricots.  They're unexpected--I've been craving raisin walnut bread and these muffins are a faster way t get that fruit/nut flavor while my bread dough was rising . . . and rising . . . and rising. [Yes, I baked a loaf of apricot walnut cinnamon chip swirl bread while also making these muffins. I need to work on my swirling technique, but boy does the toast hit the spot!]

If you'd like to make a non-traditional nod to St Patrick's Day, give these a shot. After all, you can't eat corned beef and cabbage for breakfast . . . or can you? I went there with these Corned Beef Hash Waffles, so I suppose you can.

Healthy Tiramisu Muffins #MuffinMonday

Inspired by the traditional dessert, these muffins have the flavors of tiramisu in a whole wheat breakfast treat.

Hey ho! Before I get into today's Muffin Monday post, I'd like to remind everyone that the KitchenAid Mixer Giveaway ends tomorrow! Click here to find out more info. I'd also like to direct your attention to my How To Eat Local This Year series of posts. Thanks for your time and attention!

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Let's get one thing straight off the bat--there are no ladyfingers in these muffins. This is not the traditional Italian dessert made individually in muffin cups. It is Muffin Monday and I had the idea to take some tiramisu ingredients (namely mascarpone cheese, espresso powder, and chocolate) and bake them into a muffin. I got these ingredients after our local grocery store finished their Taste of Italy promotion and everything was marked down. Half price imported espresso powder and mascarpone cheese? I'm so in.

I like my baked breakfast goods to be on the healthier side, however, so I chose to make these with white whole wheat flour. Even though I prefer less sweet muffins, what with the chocolate chips I opted to go big and bump up the sugar a bit from my standard ¼ cup up to ⅓ cup for the dozen. I mean, this is definitely a treat. I was thinking these could be a sweet start to a Valentine's Day celebration.