Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Only a month after moving into my new apartment, I decided to finally start using my awesome new kitchen for what it's meant for... cooking (as opposed to using it as my diet soda storage/chilling room).

I decided to start by baking some grab and go breakfast foods! These apple cinnamon muffins can be found in the Everything College Cookbook. They're pretty delicious, if I do say so myself. 

Yes, I use my heart plates for pretty much everything.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 1/2 cups diced apple (I forgot to measure and just used one gala apple)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, Fahrenheit. Grease a muffin pan (or use muffin cups).
2. In a small bowl, add the egg and vanilla extract to the buttermilk and beat lightly. Add the oil and mix to combine. 
3.  In a large bowl, stir the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar into the flour and blend well. Stir in the cinnamon and nutmeg. 
4. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir to form a batter. Be careful not to overmix the batter; don't worry if there are still lumps. Stir in the diced apples. 
5. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins so that they are between 1/2 to 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes. 

Makes 12 servings

Nutritional Information (per serving):

• Calories - 162
• Total fat - 5.36g
• Unsaturated fat - 4.43g
• Carbohydrates - 25.46g
• Sugars - 10.75g
• Protein - 3.1g

Note: nutritional information may not be entirely accurate, as the values were found through some light Googling.  

Having these muffins around for breakfast will be perfect! Not only will it mean that I stop going by McDonalds for their Sausage McMuffin with Egg each morning on the way to work (which would be a guilty pleasure of mine if not for the fact that I have zero remorse about liking them so much), but it also means that I'll have an excuse to use my new individual muffin/cupcake carriers!

How perfect are these?

Next up: Pesto Chicken Pasta from the Everything Healthy Cooking for Parties Book. 

What's your favorite grab-and-go breakfast? Do you like that many McDonald's locations are now starting to serve a limited breakfast menu at midnight?Are you jealous that my new kitchen has an island and lazy susan cabinets?

Game Changers

After weeks of planning, I have finally done it. I have finally gone to the grocery store (I know, what an amazing feat I have now accomplished). I even rode my bike there! While this would usually be an extremely mundane event (and still is, in fact), I find it very significant in that it means that I finally have healthy snack food. More importantly, it means that I finally have some healthy grab and go breakfast options that consist of yogurt cups and bananas.

Nearly every morning since starting my new job (three weeks ago), I have been feeding myself in the morning with either a McDonalds Sausage McMuffin with Egg (plus hashbrown) or kolaches from this donut place I pass. This is upsetting, albeit delicious, on so many levels. Not only is this really unhealthy and therefore making it difficult to win my contest with Mom, but I think the guy that works the window at McDonalds is starting to recognize me. I even took a much longer route last Friday so that I could go to a McDonalds where no one knew me. I feel like that should really be my red flag that something is wrong. In fact, I remember promising myself that I would never become a regular at a fast food establishment when I was having lunch at Wendy's once and a 300 pound woman came in who already had her "usual" order basically waiting for her. She was apparently friends with the employees, and it seemed from their conversation that they had not previously been friends, but became friendly because she had eaten lunch there at the same time almost every day for so long. I even recall the cashier saying "I was wondering when you'd get here today!" I have been a regular at campus dining halls, campus wrap cafes, and San Antonio sandwich shops, which is bad enough, but a fast food drive thru? No thanks.

On the bright side, this trip to the store has already gotten me to make healthy decisions today. I grabbed a banana for breakfast and am drinking water in the morning (note to self: get soda with a lot of caffiene before afternoon meeting). I even brought a healthy lunch just in case my team isn't eating together today. (I don't like missing lunch with the whole team, but I also am tired of wasting money and calories buying lunch for just myself when we aren't eating together.)

This just might turn out to be a big game changer.