Once upon a time, my sweet little baby boy would eat whatever I put in front of him. Green beans, sweet potatoes, peas – he loved them all. Unfortunately, he seems to be on the pizza/cracker diet now. He will not even look at a vegetable; much less try it for mommy. In an attempt to get him to consume some vegetables (other than the tomato sauce on pizza that is), I started searching the Internet. What I found was some moms suggestion something I had never thought of – vegetable muffins! Some of the recipes I found even said they were great for hiding vegetables from the toddlers, which made me feel better knowing I was not the only one having this problem.
There are different recipes out there for vegetable muffins, but this is the one I am going to try tonight – wish me luck! For this recipe, you will need eggs, olive oil, one small onion, carrots, plain flour, baking powder, grated cheddar cheese, potatoes, frozen spinach, non-stick pan spray, and milk. If you really want to go all out, consider also adding broccoli, zucchini or any other vegetable you can think of!
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mist your 12-count muffin pan with the non-stick spray. Clean all the vegetables. Allow the frozen spinach to thaw then squeeze to drain off the water. To get the vegetables into small pieces, you can grate, chop, or cut them into chunks and put them in a food processor. You want about 1/2 a cup of the carrots, onions, potatoes, and spinach. Mix those vegetables in a medium bowl with 3/4 cup of grated cheddar cheese, 1 1/2 cup of sifted plain flour, and 3 teaspoons of baking powder. In a separate bowl, whisk two eggs with 1/2 cup of milk and 1/3 cup of olive oil then add that to the flour mixture. Make sure everything is blended well, and then fill the muffin holes. Take the remaining 1/4 cup of grated cheddar cheese and sprinkle a little on top of each muffin.
Allow the muffins to cook for 25 minutes then serve to the toddlers and keep your fingers crossed!