Saturday, November 3, 2012

Butternut Squash Chocolate Chip Muffins & Beerfest

Are you having a good weekend? I hope so! Mine has been filled with a range of activities including baking, teaching at the gym, coffee with a good friend, a high school football game, and a beerfest.

The nice people at CLIF recently sent me their seasonal bars to sample: iced gingerbread, peppermint stick and spiced pumpkin pie (disclaimer: I received these bars for free):

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The pumpkin (surprise, surprise) is my favorite of the three. Along with the bars, Clif provided a bundle of recipes developed by the athletes and foodies at CLIF Bar. I couldn’t WAIT to try the recipe for butternut squash muffins. I made a few adjustments to the original recipe developed by Linsey Corbin, professional Team CLIF Bar triathlete.

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Ingredients:

“Dry”:

  • 1 cup unbleached AP flour
  • 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • a dash of nutmeg and ginger
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

“Wet”:

  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup canned butternut squash (could use fresh roasted too or substitute pumpkin)
  • 1/4 cup applesauce (unsweetened)
  • 1/3 cup plain, nonfat yogurt
  • 3 tablespoons honey
  • 1 egg

 

  • desired quantity chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

In one mixing bowl, stir together dry ingredients. In a second bowl, mix together wet ingredients.

Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Spray a mini or regular muffin tin with non stick spray. For regular muffins, fill tins 2/3 full and bake 20-25 minutes. For mini muffins, evenly divide batter using a cooking scoop or tablespoon. Bake ~15 minutes.

This recipe yielded ~30 mini muffins or 12 regular muffins

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mmmmm!

This afternoon, we went to Mellow Mushroom’s third annual beerfest. This was our second beerfest:

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I only stayed a little while because someone was being antsy ;)

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Tomorrow, I’m throwing a baby shower for a friend and then hopefully relaxing and watching football! What are you up to?

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Halloween Food & Fun

Did you have a good Halloween? For all those still dealing with the crazy Sandy aftermath, I hope you were able to get a little celebrating in. Ridiculous storm!

We had a busy night at our house. We dressed up as an Eagles team/cheerleader. Frank will not wear a costume, so we’ll just pretend he is the football :) :

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We get mobbed every year and went through five Costco sized bags of candy:

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Kaylin enjoyed seeing all of the kids, but didn’t understand why they were so interested in the candy. She preferred playing with/drinking out of my water bottle:

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We had family and friends over to help give out candy. To keep us fueled, we had turkey meatballs:

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Cookies and peanuts:

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Chick-fil-A nuggets:

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Mandi’s gorgeous and delicious fall salad:

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Josh’s Mom’s guacamole and vegetables. She also brought tortilla chips and hummus.

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and our friend Andrew’s delicious fruit platter with Mandi’s Nutella Greek yogurt dip(unpictured). I love Halloween! What did you do to celebrate?