Snacks

Ah-mazin Craisin Muffins

/ runningchickago / 9 Comments

Could this title be any cornier?

…sorry I’m not sorry…I love puns and corny jokes…

Anywayssss, as you can tell by the title, today involved craisins.  And raisins.  I wanted to bake some raisin bran muffins and this morning was the perfect day to do so.  Usually I like to wake up early to get in a workout, but today I switched it up.  I slept in and baked all morning.  Booyaa.

As much as I love raisin bran muffins, they are usually loaded with fat and are approximately a zillion calories.  One muffin isn’t worth all those calories to me (froyo > muffins).  After much googling, I was able to find a recipe that looked pretty solid.  I mean, a recipe that has 5 stars and 829 reviews, and ingredients that aren’t completely terrible?  I think I’ll take it.  🙂

I used this recipe, but changed a few things around (like using whole wheat flour instead of regular, soy milk instead of buttermilk, etc).  Here’s my take:

Craisin Raisin Bran Muffins

hello, delicious

Ingredients
1 & 1/2 cups Cascadian Farm Organic Raisin Bran Cereal
1 cup soy milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup Trader Joe’s whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup craisins (I used some from Trader Joes)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375F.  Grease muffin pan.  Mix together cereal and soy milk.  Let stand for 10 minutes (or longer…I kinda ate breakfast and did other stuff while baking 0:) )

warning: if you make this recipe in the morning, it’s incredibly tempting to eat this as normal cereal instead of using it to make the muffins. good luck.

Beat oil, egg, sugar and vanilla together.  Add the oil/egg/sugar/vanilla to the soy milk/cereal.  Mix together whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Add dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.  Add craisins (yum!) and pour batter into muffin tins.

ready for bakin’

Bake 15-20 minutes (my oven took 15) or until toothpick comes out clean.  Enjoy!  And try to not eat the entire pan.

check out the inside of the muffin! omnomnom

These muffins were so incredibly moist and delicious.  Honestly, they are the best-textured muffins I’ve ever had.  And, not completely unhealthy.  Wanna know some facts?  186 calories. 7 grams fat.  1 gram sat fat.  2.5 grams fiber.  I think I’ll be making these pretty often…and before races!

I even got my Mom to eat a muffin (she pretty much never eats muffins) and she said she’d be eating some more this week.  Winninggggg (remember when everyone used to say this?)

Well I’m off to go camera hunting with Joe!  So many awesome cameras, so little money time.

Have a great night!

Question for you:
What’s your favorite type of muffin?

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Is this heaven?

/ runningchickago / 19 Comments

…no, it’s peanut butter.  But it tastes like heaven.

Butter Toffee Peanut Butter = ❤

 

On all of the blogs I read, I haven’t heard much about Naturally Nutty.  They have a variety of nut butters and even a seed butter!  The company also has a great story, which you can read about here.  Because I love them so much, I wanted to spread the word and let you guys know about how good this stuff is.  It also gave me an excuse to eat lots and lots of it for “experimenting”…so…

Anyways, ever since my trip to Traverse City, Michigan for The Bayshore Marathon, I’ve been putting this peanut butter on everything.  My Aunt Kathy introduced it to me a few years ago and I’ve been in love with it ever since.  It had been about a year or so since I last had some, so I knew I had to stock up on some once I made it to TC.  Of course, you can buy it online (which my fam has done in the past) but I decided to hold off until race weekend to make it that much more special.

Now that my love peanut butter and I are reunited, I’m taking advantage of it.  With delicious treats such as:

Peanut Butter Banana Waffles

Van Waffles + Naturally Nutty Butter Toffee + Banana

I used Van Waffles Wheat Free/Gluten Free Flax Waffles, along with 2 TB of Butter Toffee Peanut Butter (1 TB per waffle), and sliced up a small banana on top.  This breakfast was so sweet and tasty that I couldn’t help but make it a few times last week.  If only there were more waffles in a box…then I could have had it every day…

Butter Toffee PB Granola

can’t wait to put this on my yogurt…

This was my first attempt at making granola.  Did it turn out perfect?  Sure, if you don’t like your granola super crunchy.  Generally I do, buttttt I love the flavor so much that I’ll let it slide 😉  I used Peanut Butter Finger’s peanut butter granola recipe to get a general idea of oven temperature, cooking time, etc.  Here’s my version:

Ingredients
2 TB Naturally Nutty Butter Toffee Peanut Butter
2 TB Jif Natural Peanut Butter
1 Cup Oats

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 F.  Melt the Naturally Nutty and Jif peanut butters in microwave (note: Naturally Nutty Butter Toffee doesn’t melt too much, so don’t worry.  That’s why I used the Jif- to make up for it and be super melty).  Add oats to melted peanut butter and stir until coated.  Bake for 7 minutes.

Thoughts
Julie (Peanut Butter Fingers) had honey in her recipe, but I didn’t want to add it to mine because the Naturally Nutty Butter Toffee Peanut Butter is already sweet.  I think the honey may have helped add a crunch-factor to the granola, but the soft granola tastes delicious.  If you try this recipe, let me know if you added the honey- and if it added a good crunch/taste to the granola!

I plan on putting this granola on top of yogurt, adding it to nuts/craisins/etc for a trail mix…and just eating it straight out of the bag.

I also plan on googling many more peanut butter recipes and seeing how they turn out with Naturally Nutty’s Butter Toffee Peanut Butter.  Pretty sure I will be using their Peanut Butter Pancake recipe tomorrow 🙂

Alright, I’m off to go run some errands!  I’m looking to buy a new camera so tonight I’m starting the hunt. 🙂

Questions for you:
I’m thinking about buying a DSLR camera, do you have one that you would recommend?  I’m looking for one that (obviously) shoots great pictures, but also isn’t completely ginormous.

Back to peanut butter, what’s your favorite peanut butter recipe? 🙂

Have a great night!