Spinach Muffins

Featured Ingredient: Spinach

Thanks to everyone who put forward a guess of the main ingredients for these green powered muffins. Surprisingly, the first person (Jessica) was the one who guessed correctly: Spinach, Banana and Whole Wheat Pastry Flour. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy the round recipes in my new cookbook Muffin Tin Chef.

If you’re not thrilled with lunch salads, these are a fun way to get some greens into your daily diet and are sure to be the talk of the office. Trust me, even though these are more “earthy” than sweet, you only get a slight hint of Popeye’s favorite green. The combination of spinach, chickpeas and whole grain flours provides a healthy dose of fiber to help keep you feeling full throughout the afternoon. Actually, the pureed chickpeas are a great binder in lieu of eggs. The addition of up-and-coming quinoa flour makes these green giants even more nutritious, but you can use straight up whole wheat pastry flour if you don’t have it on hand.

Green Monster Muffins

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup quinoa flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup tightly packed spinach

1 cup canned or cooked dried chickpeas (garbanzos)

1/2 cup plain yogurt, preferably not fat-free

1/3 cup coconut palm sugar or other sugar of choice

1/3 cup melted coconut oil or other oil of choice

1 ripe banana

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, stir together whole wheat pastry flour, quinoa flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg and salt. Using a food processor or blender, whirl together spinach, chickpeas, yogurt, sugar, oil, banana and lemon zest until smooth. Ad wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix gently until everything is moistened. Divide mixture among 10 medium sized muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool several minutes before unmolding.

Serves 10

Switch hits

• Replace quinoa flour with coconut, oat or other flour of choice
• Try applesauce instead of yogurt to make these vegan
• Swap out walnuts for chopped pecans