Pumpkin Peanut Butter Muffins

This recipe makes about 15 muffins, depending on the size of your muffin tin cavities.
But first, a small disclaimer: Not all canned pumpkin purees are created equal. I used Trader Joe’s canned pumpkin for this, which has a higher moisture content than Libby’s or Whole Foods’ 365 brand. So you may need to adjust your liquids accordingly if you’re finding yourself with a bowl of concrete. I’ll test this with other canned pumpkin and report back.

Spray muffin tins with baking/cooking spray. (I used the Trader Joe’s coconut oil spray.)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees

In a large mixing bowl, combine:
1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix, just pumpkin puree)
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (or your favorite milk)
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter (I used this one, because it was on sale, but would probably suggest using one you don’t need to stir aggressively before measuring.)
1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract, minimum. Measure with your heart.
Whisk all the above together. Then add:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon cinnamon, minimum. Measure with your heart/add more if your cinnamon is old as hell.
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger (Or, look, you could replace the cinnamon and ginger with pumpkin pie spice, but I didn’t because I 100% knew I would end up giving half a muffin to Albert and dogs aren’t supposed to have nutmeg.)
Fold in the above with a spatula until combined. If your batter is aggressively thick, add milk by the Tablespoon until it seems less absurd. A cup of mini chocolate chips would also be great to add in here, if you’re a person who’s not making plans to share their muffins with The Goodest Boy.

Divide into greased muffin tins — either use a greased 1/4 cup measuring cup to fill, or use a scoop.

Bake at 400 for 13-15 minutes. Let cool a few minutes in the tins, then pop out to finish cooling on a wire rack.

In theory, these should stay good for about 5 days in an airtight container on the counter, but muffins have never made it 5 days here…

Zucchini banana blueberry lemon muffins

One day I’ll spend more than 3 seconds taking photos of the things I make. Not today.

What You Need for 24 Muffins:
Wet ingredients
2 large, very ripe bananas
2 cups grated zucchini (about 2 small zucchini)
.5 c vegetable oil (or canola or melted coconut oil)
.5 c unsweetened applesauce
1 c sugar
2 Tablespoons vanilla extract
zest from 2 lemons
Dry ingredients
3 c all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons powdered ginger
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1.5 teaspoons table salt
1.5 c blueberries

What You Need to Do:
Preheat oven to 350*
Line muffin tins with festive cupcake wrappers and give them a quick mist with your favorite non-stick spray (mine is a Target brand coconut oil spray).
Peel your bananas, throw the peels away, and put bananas into a large mixing bowl.
Mash bananas with a fork, pastry cutter, avocado masher, potato smasher, or your hands if you’re a complete anarchist. Whatever makes you happy. Just get a majority of the large lumps out.
Add applesauce, oil, sugar, vanilla and lemon zest.
Mix well.

In a second bowl, mix together the flour, ginger, baking soda and salt.
Add approximately half the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until combined.
Toss the blueberries in the remaining dry ingredients to coat.
Add the blueberries and remaining dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir gently until no visible flour is left.

Using a .25 c measuring cup or this handy-dandy scoop, fill prepared muffin tins.
Bake for 22 minutes. I suspect my oven runs slightly hot, so you may need a few additional minutes if you don’t have a raging heatbeast.
Let cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack until completely cooled you want to eat muffins.

A note: This recipe halves very easily, should you not need/want 24 muffins. But they also freeze well, which is a strong endorsement for making “too many” muffins.

How Long is This Going to Take Me?
Less than an hour, unless you grate your zucchini with a comically tiny grater. Which I did, because I didn’t feel like taking .005 seconds to grab the food processor/I needed this to double as an arm workout today.

Is it Even a Food Blog if There Isn’t a Story?
Here we go:
A few years back, I was accused of inventing zucchini bread. After “accidentally” buying somewhere in the range of 15 pounds of zucchini at the farmers’ market, I spent an entire week baking zucchini breads/muffins and bringing them into the office, where the general consensus was “overbuy squash more often.” There was one outlier, who was initially VERY suspicious of zucchini in a non-savory application and called her mother to see if she’d ever heard of zucchini bread, because how was this a thing? Eventually, there was acceptance that zucchini bread was, in fact, a thing. A DELICIOUS thing, dammit.

(AP, I will think of googling “zucchini bread” as proof it exists every time I make zucchini bread until I die. I adore you for dozens of reasons, but this is admittedly a huge one.)

Wednesday 11:26am

Albert: Hey.
Me: *working*
Albert: HEY.
Me: Oh, hey, buddy! How’s it going?
Albert: I notice you have some blackberries up there…
Me: …uh, yeah, yeah. I have some blackberries.
Albert: …
Me: Do you like blackberries?
Albert: What a question! What. A. Question. Do I *like* blackberries?! Blackberries are my most favoritest thing. They are the best snack, mom. I can’t believe you aren’t sharing.
Me: …so, what you’re saying is, you want some of my blackberries.
Albert: I mean, yeah. Obviously.
Me: Okay. So, if I give you a blackberry are you going to sit here and try to eat half the bowl?
Albert: Yes. Absolutely. They are my favorite and you already had some without sharing.

Buffalo Chicken Chili

Adapted from Juli at PaleOMG, who is a genius at creating dairy-free recipes

This is a good Sunday afternoon recipe. Shove everything in a slow cooker, give it a stir, and walk away for several hours. Maybe do laundry, since there’s literally always a load of laundry to do.

What You Need:
1 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 small-to-medium sweet potatoes, cut into small bite-sized chunks
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 medium-sized yellow or sweet onion, diced. (Bigger than a tennis ball, smaller than a regulation-sized softball.)
3 garlic cloves, minced (or, as usual, use the jar)
2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1 tsp. salt
1 can of diced tomatoes, undrained (the 14.5 oz can. Standard can.)
1 small can diced green chilis (they come in mild *and* hot, so you can choose your own adventure)
1/2 c. buffalo sauce — here are some options from mild to medium to hot to traditional. (Just check the ingredients–the Frank’s traditional sauce doesn’t have dairy, but some of the other Frank’s products do, and I avoid dairy like I owe it money, so I double-check every dang label.)
Optional: 1-2 habanero peppers, which I expect nobody reading this to add, but I’m sticking it here because that’s how I’m making mine and I have no regrets.

What You Need for the Garnish:
Green onions, sliced
Cilantro

What You Need to Do:
After your veggies are diced and your cans are opened, dump everything into your slow cooker.
Give it a stir with a spoon, or, heck, smoooosh your (clean, preferably) hands in there and moosh everything around.
The smoosh and moosh method is a personal favorite, and I suggest you try it at least once in your life.
Stick the lid on your slow cooker and let it go on low for about 3-4 hours. Then shred your chicken and serve with some sliced green onions and cilantro.

*A note: My chicken thighs are always fully cooked around 3 hours on low. I realize there are people out there who feel chicken will not possibly be cooked through in that time, and their soul is telling them to leave it on for 6 hours. That’s fine. Do you. You may or may not have dried out chicken, or your slow cooker might be trash and actually need that long.

**A second note: This is also great to prep in the evening and throw in the slow cooker before you leave for work–if you have a programmable slow cooker that switches to Warm after the cooking time is up. If not, I wouldn’t risk it because you will ABSOLUTELY have dried out chicken if you leave this on for 9-15 hours, depending on your workday.

How Long is This Going to Take Me?
10-30 minutes to dice veggies and open cans, depending on your dicing speed and ability to find the can opener. 3-??? hours in the slow cooker, depending on what your soul is telling you.

Is This Even Healthy?
Yes. This recipe serves 4, and each serving should have about 400 calories.

Chicken Tortilla SOUP

It’s October. It’s soup season. It’s *also* 90 degrees outside right now, which is decidedly not soup weather, regardless of the season. So, to reconcile my need for soup with my sweaty awareness of the temperature, I’m bringing the best of both worlds: Chicken Tortilla Soup.

What You Need for the Chicken:
1 1/2 to 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. coriander
salt and pepper to taste

What You Need for the Soup:
1 Tablespoon olive oil or avocado oil
1 red pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
1 tsp. coriander
1 1/2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. chili powder or cayenne pepper–more if you want it spicy, so I’m going to go ahead and dump in the jar, basically.
4 cloves of garlic, minced (or use jarred)
1 can of fire roasted tomatoes (14.5 oz)
1 can diced green chilis–mild or hot. Take your pick. I’m going hot because too spicy isn’t a thing in this household.
1 carton of low-sodium veggie broth/stock (32 oz)
Optional: 1 jalapeño, diced
Spinach–like half of one of the grocery store bags.

What You Need for the Garnishes:
Tortilla chips
Fresh cilantro
Avocado

What You Need to Do: Chicken
Season the chicken with the cumin, coriander, salt and pepper. Don’t go wild with the salt–you’re going to get salt in the soup from the tomatoes and, most likely, the broth/stock.
That’s it. Just…season the chicken. I’ve tried this with *not* seasoning the chicken and just throwing everything in together and assuming the broth would be enough seasoning and, spoiler alert: I was wrong. So, you’re welcome. I messed that up so you don’t need to.

What You Need to Do: Soup
Take your Instant Pot/electric slow cooker and set it to the sauté function.
Swirl around the oil.
Dump in the diced onion and diced peppers and stir them around a bit. Give them, like, 3 minutes. You don’t want them TOO cooked because then they’ll break down when you pressure cook and you’ll have mush. Less is more here.
Add in the dry spices and stir those around for a good 30 seconds.
Then add the garlic and stir that around for another 30 seconds.
Add the tomatoes and green chilis and turn the Instant Pot to “off” since you no longer need it to sauté things.
Add in the carton of stock and the diced jalapeño, if you’re going with a touch more heat.
Close the lid of the Instant Pot, make sure the release isn’t set to “release and spray steam everywhere” and set it to cook on high pressure for 13 minutes if your chicken breasts are particularly thick, 11 if they’re a little on the thin side. If you’re not sure and you’re going to freak out because you want to make sure your chicken cooks, go 12.
Once the timer goes off, quick release your Instant Pot (I do this on the stove top with the vent turned on), shred the chicken with two forks (or pull it out and dice it up) and stir in the spinach.
Congratulations, you have soup! Make yourself a bowl and garnish with tortilla chips, cilantro and avocado.

How Long is This Going to Take Me?
I started a timer before I opened the fridge to get the peppers and chicken out. From fridge opening to closing the lid of the Instant Pot, it was 15 minutes, and I’ll be honest, I took a bathroom break and refilled my water bottle in that time. It’ll take you longer if you’re a slower chopper, it’ll take you less time if you’re speedy with a knife or don’t pause because you needed to pee. It took my IP about 20 minutes total–including coming up to pressure. Putting soup into a bowl and garnishing took me less than a minute. My chicken shredded pretty easily, which helped.

Is This Even Healthy?
Yes.

What if I Mess it Up?
This…is hard to mess up. You have enough liquid that your Instant Pot shouldn’t scorch or burn, and the only real threat is burning the onion/peppers upfront. Which…just keep an eye on them. Or skip that part entirely and it’s still going to be fiiiiiiiine.

A terrible photo of soup
A poorly-lit, very shitty photo of soup, because I am many things and Food Photographer isn’t one. Yet.

Hummus and Meat (w/Veggies)

Adapted from Bon Appetit’s Healthyish

I initially made this because (1) I am always looking for new ways to eat hummus (2) It seemed like something I could make in, like, no time and (3) I like serving things on a big-ass plate and telling everyone they’re responsible for avoiding someone else’s double-dip zone.

What You Need for the Hummus:
1 container of hummus. I suggest a lemon hummus, but if you’re feeling fancy, get roasted garlic or red pepper or whatever fancy hummus is to you.
Pita bread. Buy it at the grocery store!

What You Need for the Meat:
1 pound ground lamb or lean ground beef or ground turkey or chicken or…choose your meat adventure.
1 tsp. Kosher salt
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
3 garlic cloves, minced. Or, use a jar of minced garlic if you hate cutting garlic.
1 Tbsp. olive oil

What You Need for the Veggies:
1 pound of zucchini, cut into about one inch cubes
Olive oil–1 1/2 Tbsp., but divided. 1/2 for the pan, 1 for the zucc.
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
2 garlic cloves, minced/jarred
Pepper

What You “Need” for the Garnish:
Fresh parsley. If you have fresh basil or cilantro…that’ll work too.

What You Need to Do: Hummus
Spread it on a large plate or platter. This is basically what I used.
That’s it. You’re done with the hummus.
For the pita bread, you want this heated gently, so either wrap it in foil and stick it in a 350-degree oven for 10(ish) minutes, or DO NOT wrap it in foil, put it on a plate and microwave it for 30 seconds.

What You Need to Do: Meat
Mix together all the dry spices in a small bowl or cup. Honestly, I like a coffee mug for this.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium.
Add the meat, and press down into a giant patty about an inch thick. You don’t need to bring out your middle-school ruler for this. Eyeballing it is fine.
Sprinkle the top of your meat patty with half of spice mixture and half of the meatgarlic.
Cook the meat patty about 3-5 minutes without moving it. Let it get a little browned and a little crisp. And then…
Break it apart into chunks–let’s say 5 or 6 chunks–and turn each piece over.
Cook this brand new side of until other side is browned and crisp, which should happen in like 3 minutes. And then…
Break it apart even more. Aim for lots of tiny, crispy pieces, or however many you can get during approximately 2 minutes of additional cooking. After those 2 minutes are up, your meat should be cooked through.
Remove the pan from heat and use a slotted spoon (because you don’t want all that grease/fat in your food) to scoop the meat over the hummus on the platter.

What You Need to Do: Veggies
Wipe out the skillet you just used for the meat.
Toss zucchini with about 1 Tbsp. olive oil, the spices and the garlic
Put the skillet back on medium heat with 1 Tbsp. olive oil.
When the oil is shimmering–or, like, after you feel like you’ve waited forever and what is “shimmering” anyway so let’s call it 40 seconds because I personally have no patience–add the zucchini. And then…
Cook the zucchini about 5 minutes over medium heat. You want it soft, but not so soft you could eat it if your teeth fell out and you were limited to a pudding diet, like that dream I keep having.
Spoon the zucchini over the meat and hummus.
Garnish with parsley (or cilantro or basil), or whatever fresh herb makes your heart sing before you serve.

How Do I Eat This?
Sit the platter betwixt yourself and whomever you’re eating with and use the warm pitas to scoop up the whole mixture. Eating alone? Whole platter to yourself! (This makes for great lunch leftovers.)

How Long is This Going to Take Me?
Roughly 30 minutes, start to finish. Especially if you’re using jarred garlic because wow you won’t even need to chop garlic–just zucchini.

Is This Even Healthy?
Check what’s in your hummus and pita bread for nutrition info there.
I’m not sure how much of this *you’ll* eat. Last time I made this, it easily fed three with a little bit of leftovers for lunch the next day. Let’s say this serves 3 generously, but you’ll prob come closer to 4 servings.
That said–I calculated the nutrition info for 3 servings, and keep in mind calories will depend on the meat you used. It’ll come in between 400 and 500 calories (for meat + veg), for turkey vs. lamb vs. beef and how lean your meat is. For three servings.
Also, I’m including the calories as a very general measure. I don’t think all calories are equal (because they aren’t) but if you’re looking for a way to gauge, I think it’s an easy shorthand.

1/2 and 1/2 Meatballs

Lightly adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Everyday Meatballs, which are fabulous

I did not (re)name these meatballs based on the meat content. They’re 1/2 and 1/2 because you’re going to freeze half of them. At least half. Freeze more if you don’t want meatballs for more than one meal in a row, or if bringing meatballs for lunch sounds like The Worst. (But also, why? Who are you?)

These freeze goshdamn beautifully, and frozen meatballs are clutch for days when you’re too lazy to order delivery, too tired to do much work and don’t want to think too hard about dinner. Which, honestly, is frequently over here.

So make a big-ass batch now, and your future self will thank you.

Recipe yield: About 48 meatballs (about 2 Tablespoons each. I used a 2 Tbsp. cookie scoop)
Which is…we’re going to say six servings, because eight meatballs sounds like a reasonable serving size, right? And 48 meatballs divided by 8 meatballs = 6 servings of meatballs heck yes I passed math.

What You Need for the Meatballs:
1 pound ground turkey
1 pound ground pork/beef/lamb/chicken–take your pick, they all work well. Really love turkey? Do another pound of turkey.
3/4 cup panko bread crumbs
2/3 cup water
4 eggs
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper or crushed red pepper flakes
3 garlic cloves, minced (fresh or use jarred)

What You Need for the Sauce: For the meatballs you’re eating tonight.
You’ll need to remake this (or use a good jarred sauce) for future preparation of the meatballs.
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
Small pinch of red pepper flakes, if you want some heat.
1 28-oz can of crushed San Marzano tomatoes, no salt added. (Do they neeeeeeed to be San Marzano tomatoes? Yes. Your meatballs will not cook in regular tomatoes and you’ll have raw meatballs. Is this a lie? Yes.)

What You Need to Do: Meatballs
Get out your largest bowl.
Line 2 baking sheets with waxed paper or parchment paper.
Mix the meat, panko, water, eggs, parsley, onion powder, salt, pepper/red pepper flakes and 3 minced garlic cloves together in the large bowl. All the meat ingredients. Mash ’em up. Use your hands, use a fork, use a spoon, use a spatula, use your toothbrush, I don’t care. Just mix them up, but don’t go completely HAM on them. Once they look reasonably mixed up, move on.
Take a 2-Tbsp cookie scoop (or use a measuring spoon, or eyeball it) and scoop out your meatballs. Line ’em up on the baking sheets.
Stick one baking sheet full of meatballs in the freezer.
Stick the other baking sheet full of meatballs in the fridge.
WAIT LIKE 20 MINUTES AND THEN START THE SAUCE (but leave the meatballs in the fridge. They like it there.)

What You Need to Do: Sauce
Put on an apron or a black shirt. Don’t wear light colors for this. Just trust me.
Heat the 2 Tbsp olive oil in a pot over medium heat. (This is similar to what I use.)
Add the red pepper flakes if you’re using them.
Wait 10-15 seconds and then…
Add the garlic.
Wait 30ish seconds and then…
Add the tomatoes. BEWARE THE SPLASHY SPLASHING OF TOMATOES
Reduce your heat to low and let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Add a pinch of salt (or don’t, if you didn’t use unsalted tomatoes). That’s all you need.

What You Need to Do: Combine the two.
Pull your meatballs from the fridge and drop them (gently) in the sauce.
The sauce doesn’t need to fully cover the meatballs. They’ll be fine.
Put the lid on your sauce, double check the heat is on low and walk away for 10 minutes. Do not touch them. You can peek at them, but keep it to a minimum. They will need a total of 25 minutes of cooking time. But walk away for 10 and then…start pasta or whatever. Do the dishes. Write a poem.

I usually make about 16 meatballs at a time (because 8 meatballs = serving size and also that is what fit comfortably in my pot which is very convenient.)

After 10 minutes, start your pasta (I like Banza or POW for extra protein, fewer carbs, which is also maybe my way of saying I quit buying regular pasta after I realized it is CRIMINALLY easy to make homemade pasta and Italy has been running a masterful scam for centuries) or toast up some bread–I have eaten these on top of veggies instead of pasta and used bread to get the last of the sauce, and I’ve eaten these plain in a bowl because meatballs are delicious. Choose your own adventure.

After 25 minutes, your meatballs will be done. Nervous? Fish one out with a spoon, cut it in half and look for pink-ness. Not pink? It’s done.
Set them aside so you’re not serving yourself a bowl of boiling tomatoes and finish up your pasta/bread/veggies. Then combine THOSE and, congratulations, you’ve made dinner.

What You Need to Do: Frozen meatballs oh god you have meatballs in the freezer
Let them freeze on the baking sheet. When they’re fully frozen (so, like, an hourish?), pluck them off the sheet into a giant plastic bag or freezer-safe container.
To make the meatballs from the freezer, just heat up the sauce to simmering (recipe above, a jar of sauce, etc.) and plunk the frozen meatballs right in and turn the heat to low. They only take a few extra minutes to cook. Check one after 30. If it’s not cooked, try 35. It’s easy.

How Long is This Going to Take Me?
From opening the fridge to cleaning up dishes after eating the meatballs, this took me 90 minutes, and like…eating time is included in there. Actual work time? An hour. And even THAT includes 20 minutes of leaving the meatballs alone in the fridge while you write sonnets.

Is this even healthy?
8 meatballs have, according to MyFitnessPal’s recipe calculator, 400 calories. (Calculated using turkey/pork combo, so if you change the meat, you’ll change the calories. All turkey will be fewer calories.) If you eat this with one serving of regular pasta, add on another 200 calories. 600 isn’t bad for dinner, but also eat a salad. Also also, I’m including the calories as a very general measure. I don’t think all calories are equal (because they aren’t) but if you’re looking for a way to gauge, I think it’s an easy shorthand.

What if I mess it up?
If your meatballs fall apart in the sauce, crush them up further and congratulations you’ve made pasta sauce. If you burn the garlic, clean out the pan, take a deep breath and start that part over. If you drop your bowl on the floor, you have meatballs in the freezer!