What's The Story, Morning Glory?

Since yesterday was Tuesday, we didn't have school. Most of the time I love this. Seven days into quasi-single parenting it? Um. The day stretched out ahead of us like an obstacle course of melt downs, overblown demands and petulant sass (oh yeah, it's been fun lately). But then, as I was shifting things around on my counter to accommodate the excessive amount of apples we picked on Sunday, I spied the back of my bag of flour (score one for not putting things back into your pantry after you bake zucchini muffins 4 days ago! Laziness pays off! woo hoo!), and found a recipe for the most glorious muffin of all.

I had never had a Morning Glory muffin before moving to Los Angeles. I discovered them at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (and documenting my grief that there's no Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf up here in the Bay Area is a whole other blog entry, so let's not even go there). If you've never had one (I pity the fool), they are this sort of almost carrot cake but with apples and raisins and coconut (COCONUT!!!) and almonds along with the carrots and every bite is the most perfect combination of tastes and zOMG, its hard to believe I bother to eat anything else, really.

And then we moved up here and I bid a tearful goodbye to my morning glory muffins; I found one little coffee shop up here that makes something they label "morning glory" but um. More like "morning meh". So I *might* have SQUEEEE'd out loud (twice in 3 days! yay!) when I saw a recipe for the "Glorious Morning Muffins" on the back of the flour bag. So! excited!

So while Ethan was in his play room, "cleaning" (don't even get me started), I whipped up a batch.

The ingredients:
I wish my kitchen had a wall of window; the lighting is dungeon-esque in our kitchen and all of my kitchen pictures are depressing. Even with a giant bag of brown sugar in them.

Don't forget the entire counter full of apples:

I got to shred a lot of things, which always makes me happy:

zOMG, apples, and carrots and coconut and almonds, oh my!:

It wasn't until the first batch was in the oven that I realized that in my excitement about the carrots and apples and coconut and almonds, I totally spaced out about the raisins. Ooops. I had enough batter for 3 more muffins after the first batch, so I loaded them up with raisins.

Someday, I will learn how to fill muffin cups evenly. Really:

Voila!!!
They are, if I say so myself, every bit as ahhhhhmazing as the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf's version, just smaller and less fat-ifying because of that. Ethan is loving them and let's see--that get him carrots, apples, and raisins all in one serving. Getting Ethan to eat fruits and veggies is not a bit struggle for us, but if it were, this muffin would be a life saver.

If you're so inclined, the recipe, from the back of the Gold Medal Organic All-Purpose flour bag, is:

2 eggs 2 tsps cinnamon

3/4 c veg. oil 1 & 1/2 c shredded carrots

1/4 c milk 1 c shredded apples (I left peels on)

2 tsps vanilla 1/4 c coconut

2 c flour (I used whole wheat instead of white) 1/2 c raisins

1 c packed brown sugar 3/4 c sliced almonds

2 tsps baking soda

It also calls for 1/2tsp of salt, but I never put salt in my baking--I'm really sensitive to sodium because of my blood pressure and honestly, I've never missed it in anything I've ever baked.

1. Heat oven to 350. Use muffin cups or lightly grease muffin pan.

2. In large bowl, beat eggs, oil, milk & vanilla together until well-blended. Add flour, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon & salt; stir until dry ingredients are moistened. Stir in carrots, apple, coconut, raisins and 1/2 c of the almonds.

3. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Sprinkle remaining almonds over the top of the batter in the cups (I didn't do this; I just chucked all the almonds into the batter when I was mixing it up).

4. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

EAT THEM!

If you're anything like Ethan, you'll enjoy yours paired with of mama's strappy sandals and a jaunty little evening-out wristlet, perfect for your ID and lipstick.