Muffin Mondays: Morning Glory Muffins

 As I live and breathe, right? I haven't blogged in forever; the last time I blogged was 2 (almost 3) weeks ago! And, in the meantime, life has continued to weave its web. Things have happened, some good, some sad, some funny, and such is life. I didn't intend to take such a break from blogging or I'd have put up a "gone fishing" sign over here. Things just spun out of control, and blogging didn't even enter my mind. I love a metaphor and I thought maybe the state of my desk would be a good metaphor for the craziness in this singleton's world as of late. 

This is my desk. I love my desk. I used to have a very cute little desk, but it was more of an escritoire, a fancy French word for a tiny little secretary's desk. Meaning:  there is hardly any room for books, papers, bills, pictures, and random things that tend to pile on my desk. Sooooo, when I was getting my things together to go back to school, I decided a  new desk was definitely in order. I orginially wanted a gianormous antique dining room table (ideally, that's how big my desk would be). There were a couple of problems with this:  I knew I'd never be able to get it up the stairs of this little DC row house and no drawers! Drawers are kind of a must for me -- I must have a place to put things! So, then I decided that I'd get a plain door (without hinges or a knob) and place it on 2 filing cabinets. My dad loved this idea, and he took me to a millwork store and we picked out a door made out of birch (side note:  this thing is no joke -- it's HEAVY). The man who helped us was fairly amused that we were just there to buy one door, and that I wanted to use it as a top for my desk. Much to my dad's horror and chagrin, I painted the beautiful birch wood cherry red, and now I have a red desk. I remember when I went with my mom to get the filing cabinets, I was explaining my desk to the lady at the store, and her response was something like, "what on earth are you going to keep on a desk that big?" My response was, books, papers, etc. but I was really thinking that if you have to ask, you really don't understand. 

Meaning, school and life just tend to take over my desk, but I never intended for school and life to try to eat my cute red desk! I'm at a loss to say when or how this happened, but I suppose, in fairness, the desk never really recovered for the end-of-semester crunch last December. When I'd clean the rest of the house, mail, books, etc would all end up on my desk. For the longest time, there were sort of organized piles, but sometime in February the piles started to resemble the Trash Heap of Fraggle Rock fame, only without the all-knowing wisdom bit. The desk was a crazy, unorganized, hot-mess of everything, and I had to clean it off.

So, what does my desk have to do with these lovely Morning Glory Muffins? Not a whole lot, it's just a random metaphor for all of the things going on in life, that kind of make a big 'ole mess, and then you have to sort through and organize before you can move forward. You also need some fuel for the task, and the muffins are tasty and healthy for that purpose! The recipe for these muffins comes from the King Arthur Flour website -- I love browsing their recipes for all sorts of fun baked goods! 

Of course, I made a couple of small changes to the recipe. I subbed 1/3 nonfat Greek yogurt for half of the vegetable oil in the recipe, and I left out the raisins (shudder). I love that these muffins call for whole wheat flour and wheat germ, though. Somehow I have an abundance of wheat germ in my freezer right now, so I'm constantly looking for recipes to use it up (this is why I'll definitely make last week's TWD honey wheat cookies SOON!). I didn't have any sunflower seeds, but I will definitely make these again with some of the seeds and the wheat germ. These muffins have a pleasant crunch due to the wheat germ, and they're sweet, but not too sweet. The carrots, apple and coconut all add great flavor and texture to the muffins, and I loved them fresh from the oven and after a couple of days. In short, this is a wonderful muffin recipe, and I know it will be a repeat. The recipe says the yield is 12 muffins, but I got 12 muffins and a mini loaf out of this batch. I think I probably could've filled up the muffin tins a bit more, but I've had some serious overflow issues lately so I decided to play it safe here. 

 

Morning Glory Muffins

King Arthur Flour

1/2 cup (2 1/2 ounces) raisins
2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) King Arthur whole wheat flour, traditional or white whole wheat
1 cup (7 1/2 ounces) brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups (7 ounces) carrots, peeled and grated
1 large tart apple, peeled, cored, and grated
1/2 cup (1 1/2 ounces) sweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup (2 ounces) chopped walnuts
1/3 cup (1 1/2 ounces) sunflower seeds or wheat germ, optional
3 large eggs
2/3 cup (4 5/8 ounces) vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup (2 ounces) orange juice

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tin, or line it with papers and spray the insides of the papers.

To make the muffins: In a small bowl, cover the raisins with hot water, and set them aside to soak while you assemble the rest of the recipe. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, spices, and salt. Stir in the carrots, apple, coconut, nuts, and sunflower seeds or wheat germ, if using. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and orange juice. Add to the flour mixture, and stir until evenly moistened. Drain the raisins and stir them in. Divide the batter among the wells of the prepared pan (they'll be full almost to the top; that's OK).

To bake the muffins: Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, until nicely domed and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven, let cool for 5 minutes in their pan on a rack, then turn out of pans to finish cooling.

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You might be wondering about my desk, right? Did I ever clean it off? I did, actually, and I have picture evidence. So, if the desk serves as a metaphor for life, perhaps things are ready to proceed at a more reasonable, less frenetic pace for a bit? Maybe not, but we can hope and try, right?