"sneaky" muffins

Jack has gotten super picky lately, especially when it comes to eating vegetables.  He used to eat just about anything we gave him, but now foods he loved a few weeks ago he refuses to eat.  I've been told this is really common with toddlers, but it's still rather frustrating at times.  So I've had to get a bit more sneaky.

(I thought this was a good picture for being sneaky since the muffin kind of blends in with the counter!)  :)

He already loves green smoothies, but I don't make them everyday (pregnancy has made me lazy) and I wanted to branch out a bit.  So I did some searching for recipes, and found this one at allrecipes.com for some muffins that looked pretty good.  But there were a few things I changed a bit, and here's what I came up with:

Sneaky Muffins (banana-vegie-bran muffins)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 - 1/3 cup brown sugar (or substitute agave nectar)
2 large, very ripe bananas
1 small zucchini, shredded
2 medium carrots, shredded
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1/2 cup oat or wheat bran
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. Mix butter and sugar together until smooth.  Add bananas, zucchini, carrots, and eggs, and mix well, until the bananas are smoothly mashed into the dough.

3. Add remaining ingredients, and mix until just combined.

4. Spoon batter into greased muffin or mini muffin pan.  Fill each muffin 2/3 to 3/4 full.

5. Bake for 13-15 minutes for mini muffins, or 15-18 minutes for regular muffins.  Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

*Adapted from allrecipes.com

One of the things I really like about these muffins is that they freeze well!  So if you have lots of zucchini in your garden this summer, make a few batches and freeze them.  Or if you know they won't get eaten fast enough, just pop them in a ziploc freezer bag and stick them in the freezer.

Some other things I like about these - they're actually quite tasty.  So they're definitely not just for toddlers.  And they're healthy: vegetables, bran, and only a little sugar since the bananas naturally sweeten them.

Update: I recently decided to start a separate blog for recipes and food/cooking tips and ideas. Check out more recipes like this over at Modern Mommy's Kitchen!