Sep 17, 2008

works-for-me wednesday

I used to go to McDonalds and order a Bacon Egg and Cheese McMuffin with a Sweet Tea or Burger King and order a Bacon Egg and Cheese Croissan'wich with a Mocha Joe for breakfast. Now that Nick and I are facing an increase in our property taxes (built in to our monthly mortgage payment) and a huge increase in our health insurance (that's a whole other topic for a post), we have made some changes to our daily spending habits. Because of this, we are trying to stick to a $40 a week grocery budget which includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We've been taking our leftovers to work for lunch and I've been making muffins for breakfast. It's easy to pop one in a container and take it to work. Blueberries are readily available now (remind me to get a bunch and freeze them before the season is over!) so we have been loving blueberry muffins. Bananas are really cheap when you buy them when they are so over ripe that no one else wants them. Here are two recipes that I've found on Allrecipes and adapted to our liking. I'll include the original links but post the recipes that we follow. I hope you enjoy them!

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Banana Crumb Muffins (original link)
Makes about 12 muffins.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 3 medium bananas, mashed
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 1/3 cup applesauce
  • TOPPING...
  • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder salt, cinnamon,and nutmeg. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, brown sugar, egg and applesauce. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
  3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
  4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

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To Die For Blueberry Muffins (original link)
Makes about 9 muffins.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/3 cup applesauce
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1 cup fresh blueberries
  • TOPPING...
  • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
  2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
  3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
  4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.
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In both recipes, we replaced the butter or oil with applesauce to keep it healthier and with more fiber. It also adds some more fruit to our diet, which doesn't hurt. The original recipe to the blueberry muffins has a different topping, but we liked the one from the banana muffins better, so we use that one as noted above.


These recipes work for me because they are yummy and more affordable than fast food breakfasts. To see what works for other bloggers, Check out works-for-me wednesday hosted by RocksInMyDryer.net.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those recipes sound yummy. I have some bananas that are getting really ripe and muffins sound perfect. Thanks! I am going to bookmark these recipes.

MediMonsters said...

Saving these recipes. We love muffins. TFS!!

Unknown said...

Yum - thank you! I make a lot of banana bread, and will have to try those muffins.

JessieLeigh said...

You already know we love our muffins too... I'll definitely have to give those banana muffins a try, especially as berries go out of season (boo hoo!)

Sonshine said...

Thanks for sharing the recipes. I am going to have to those blueberry muffins with my frozen blueberries. :)

When you get tired of eating muffins, you could make yourself some Egg Biscuits or Egg McMuffins. :) I have a recipe for those over on my blog. You can read about it here. Also I have a post about low cost breakfasts that has more muffin recipes.

Ryann said...

I was over at Rocks In My Dryer and saw your link. I thought that I had left a link and was confused. It is so nice to see another Ryann out there!

Totallyscrappy said...

I've made the best ever blueberry muffins. Those allrecipes.com 5 star recipes hardly ever disappoint. I'll have to try the banana one. I usually make a lower fat banana muffin from that site.
We make our own eggmc(last name here)s for dinner sometimes. Pretty easy.

Mom2fur said...

Muffins, yum!!!! I have some blueberries in the freezer in a bag that I saved back when they were affordable. I think I'll have to make your recipe soon.
Hey, do you know you can make and freezer your own "Egg McMuffins"?
I did this recently and my two younger boys raved about them. First, I started with Pillsbury Grands Biscuits that I had gotten on sale (with a coupon!). Bake those as directed. I fried up some bacon and put that on the split biscuits. Then I fried eggs and put that on. I topped it with a piece of cheese. Then I wrapped the biscuits individually and froze them. My son says it takes about 2 minutes in the microwave per biscuit, but of course you should adjust according to your own. I'd start at at minute and see if it has heated through.
Even if you had to pay full price for one or two ingredients, it's still a lot cheaper than McDonald's, LOL!