Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I’ve been on a bit of a muffin kick lately, mostly because it’s a way to try a new quick bread for breakfast (or brinner) that doesn’t take an hour in the oven (quick bread), kneading and rising (yeast dough), constant production (pancakes and waffles), or rolling and cutting out (biscuits and scones).  I was feeling completely out of dinner ideas last night (not to mention extra tired from an I’m-too-old-to-stay-up-reading-this-late night), and so I was scrolling through my ‘Breads to Try’ board when these Sweet Spinach Muffins caught my eye.  Hey, I thought.  I actually have part of a bag of spinach in the fridge that’s threatening to go bad before we can use it.  I had my oldest check how many ounces it originally contained, blithely decreed that what was left was probably about the amount I needed for the muffins, and went to town.

I did sub in maybe 1/3 of a cup of white flour–I must have been worried about how heavy they were going to be–but other than that (and my usual generosity with vanilla), I made them as is.  There was much speculation about what exactly made the muffins green as we sat down to dinner, but everyone except my 11-year-old gave them a thumbs up.  (She said there was something she didn’t like about the texture.  Hmm.)  They were moist and flavorful and slightly decadent–a stick of melted butter does make almost anything better!–but possibly my favorite part of the meal was sticking all of the wet ingredients in the blender.  It sounds silly, because it’s really not that much harder to add things more carefully and mix by hand, but I was tired and skipping any step (however small!) was a boon.  I may experiment with different sweeteners in the future–honey is SO much more expensive than sugar!–but I will definitely be making these again, because who doesn’t love a good muffin?