WINDY DAY GOOD FOR BAKING MUFFINS

The wind is crazy today. Wind and storm warnings all over Puget Sound. Sometimes the walls shake and the windows rattle and the noise sounds spooky. The cats hate it. I was at the Y when they opened at 7. That's the only way to guarnatee you get a good machine. Even the short ride from here to there rocked my car left and right. When I got home and got out of the car, a gust hit me and had to bend into the wind to make it to the house.

But I've been going ever since I got up at 6. Once home I whipped up a natch of healthy muffins to take to a card party later. This is a recipe I found on a sweet potato website. Last week I made the sweet potato version. Very good. Today I had to use up ripe bananas and again, very delicious. No white sugar, oat bran, whole wheat flour, no oil, fat free plain yogurt, etc. Good for you and tasty. Here is the recipe. Replace banana with fresh, mashed sweet potato for a delicious alternative. Sweet potatoes are very good for you and I love them. I've retained the original recipe and in parenthesis included my alterations.



Apple Cinnamon Sweet Potato (Banana) Muffins

3/4 cup oat bran
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup sugar (I used almost 1 C brown rice syrup and 1/2 C honey)
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon (I added 1 tsp. nutmeg, 1 tsp. cardamom)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup apples, skinless, finely chopped
1 cup mashed fresh sweet potato (banana)
1 large egg
2 large egg whites
3 tbsp. vegetable oil (I used 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce)
2/3 cup plain yogurt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, combine bran, flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and apples. Add banana, egg, egg whites, oil, and yogurt. Stir all ingredients thoroughly. Spray muffin tins with vegetable cooking spray and spoon 1/4 cup of batter per muffin. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until done. Makes approximately 20 muffins.

I made one dozen bigger muffins the first time I tried this using sweet potatoes and today I made mini muffins and tried to mini loaf pans. This is a wet batter and the muffins are very moist but not heavy. I think muffins work better than the mini loaves. I suppse a bit more flour could be added if you need a loaf or perhaps replace one of the liquid sweeteners with a granular version (non white preferably). Experiment.