In honor of today’s weather, I thought I’d let my blog posts act like the weather. One day it’s 60 degrees and sunny; the next, we’re playing in snow. One day, I share a recipe for Candied Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies; the next, I review a cookbook about healthy Southern cooking. Mississippi – we’re just full of surprises.
I received a review copy of Southern Living’s new cookbook, Southern Living Slim Down South Cookbook: Eating well and living healthy in the land of biscuits and bacon
, just in time for the January rush to get back in shape and eat better. The book, written by Carolyn O’Neal, is beautiful and filled with lightened-up Southern classics. Think shrimp and grits, pound cake and fried chicken. It also has some new takes on Southern cuisine.
The photos are beautiful, and the instructions clear and easy to follow. Healthy eating tips from chefs and other Southerners fill the pages. There’s even a 14 day eating plan to jump start your healthy lifestyle.
As I am always on the lookout for healthy, delicious and EASY breakfast ideas, I decided to try the recipe for Carrot Cake Muffins from page 38. It was easy and simple for me and would have been more so if I’d had pre-shredded carrots and crushed pineapple. Because I didn’t, I just put those ingredients in my blender, and it worked just fine!
This is the recipe I followed:
And, this is how it turned out:
Yáll, these are delicious! Moist and flavorful and perfect with a cup of coffee or tea. My little ones loved them. Well, the three youngest did. The oldest seemed to think it strange to have carrots in a muffin and wanted no part of it. (That will probably change as she was really in a foul mood over the fact that before about 10 a.m. or so it seemed like all we would see today was ice. Everything, including carrot-containing muffins seemed better after snowflakes started falling.)
While these were certainly sweet, they were not so sweet as carrot cake itself would be, and I added pecans to some of them, which added a crunchy element that I really like in muffins. I also think raisins might be a good addition, but I didn’t because a.) I didn’t have any and b.) I figured that if I kept adding ingredients the muffins might not qualify for Southern Living Slim Down South Cookbook
anymore.
If you’d like to give these a try, here’s the recipe:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. table salt
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
2 8-oz. cans crushed pineapples in juice, drained
2 large eggs
2 cups shredded carrots
Preheat oven to 350. Combine first five ingredients in a large bowl and make a well in center of mixture.
Whisk together oil and next 3 ingredients. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until moistened. Fold in carrots. Place paper baking liners in baking cups and coat with cooking spray. Spoon batter into cups, filling two-thirds full.
Bake at 350 for 22 to 25 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire wrack for ten minutes then remove from pans to wire wrack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Enjoy!
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