Healthy Muffin Mix

Another staple breakfast at our house are homemade healthy muffins. I make some sort of muffin at least once a week so I created my own muffin mix to have on hand. My family loves these healthy muffins. We have our favorite variations, but you can easily adapt this recipe to use something you have on hand.

Here is the basic recipe:
2/3 cup oil (I have used canola and coconut oil, use what works for you)
1 1/2 cups honey (or sugar or sweetener of your choice. I have used less honey and added some stevia.)
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup oatmeal
2 tablespoons flax
1/2 cup sunflower seeds

Choose a variation for your muffin recipe:
Peach Muffins: add 1 1/2 cups mashed peaches. This tastes really good with the sunflower seeds!

Pumpkin Muffins: add 2 cups pumpkin and some chocolate chips. I love to used home grown butternut squash!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins: add three or so mashed bananas, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and chocolate chips. If you want to, you can leave out the chocolate chips and just have banana muffins. (These are also yummy with bran. I like to buy bran at Good Earth, pour hot water on the bran to soften it up while you mix up the rest of the ingredients.)

Blueberry: 1 cup of blueberries; you can add a crumble on top, with butter, flour, cinnamon and sugar.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins: 1 cup chopped apple (or applesauce), 1 teaspoon cinnamon; also yummy with a crumble on top.

Zucchini Muffins: Grate 1 1/2 cups of zucchini and add 1-2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Directions: Mix up and bake in greased muffin pans for 17 minutes at 375 degrees. This makes about 24 muffins, depending on the variation.

Buttermilk

Making buttermilk is super easy! You do need to start with a buttermilk culture from the store. Buy the smallest size container of buttermilk from the store. Pour 1/2 cup of the cultured buttermilk in a jar, fill it up the rest of the way with milk. Leave it out over night on the counter to culture all the milk. You now have buttermilk! Now you can use it or refrigerate it. I like to have 2 quart jars available in my refrigerator because I use it all the time! When one jar starts to get low from making pancakes, biscuits, muffins or anything else, I just fill it up again with regular milk and leave it out over night. Just be sure that you always leave about 1/2 cup of the start/culture in the jar before adding the milk. You can do it with dry milk that is reconstituted, 1%, 2%, or whole milk. Of course wash your jar every couple of times too!

                        The jar on the left has buttermilk. The jar on the right is the regular milk.

Now the jar on the left has the milk added to it and I will leave it out overnight to culture all the milk into buttermilk. This is so easy! Give it a try and see what you think. It is so fun the next morning to see how thick and creamy it is! You will love to make all your favorite buttermilk recipes with buttermilk that you have cultured yourself! Some recipes to try are: buttermilk pancakes, waffles, biscuits, buttermilk syrup (see my recipe), buttermilk scones (recipe to follow soon), buttermilk garlic mashed potatoes, homemade buttermilk ranch dressing, muffins, cornbread, buttermilk fried chicken is amazing, and don't forget desserts with buttermilk caramel, etc. Now you will never need to make fake buttermilk with lemon juice or vinegar again!

Cooking from Scratch: Making Pancakes

Learning to cook from scratch is super important if you want to start saving money in the kitchen. One of our favorite things to make from scratch is pancakes. Plus, it is one of many frugal recipes I will share with you on this blog. This is a healthy pancake recipe with whole wheat flour and blended flax seed (or eggs if you prefer. Don't forget that this makes an easy dinner on those nights when you have no idea what to make. Breakfast for dinner is yummy!

How to cook pancakes from scratch:

(for my family of 6 eaters):

4 cups of flour (I used freshly ground whole wheat)
1 teaspoon of baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 1/2 to 4 cups of buttermilk (see recipe for this)
1/2 cup of oil
4 eggs (or 4 tablespoons flax mix substitute)
2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat your griddle to 350 degrees F. Next mix all the dry ingredients together.

Then add your wet ingredients on top. I was out of eggs so I used my flax mix substitute.

Mix it all together and then scoop onto the griddle.

When you see the edges start to dry out and the tops start to getting bubbles, then the pancakes are ready to flip.

Like this! Then flip them and wait a minute or two, depending on how thick your batter was, and enjoy! Now you know how to cook pancakes from scratch!