Corned Beef Hash Waffles

Leftover corned beef waffled with shredded potatoes for a savory treat for a post-St Patrick's day breakfast or brunch.

"You're making meat waffles?"

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I suppose at this point very little I do in the kitchen surprises my spouse, but this one sure did. See, I had leftover corned beef. My daughter loves hash for breakfast. I wanted to find a way to actually get good hash browns--crispy brown on the outside and cooked all the way though. This recipe is a fun combination of all of the above.

I see stylized photos on websites, and I make the assumption that behind the camera, and surrounding the beautifully garnished plate of food, are equally stylized spaces and people.  I'm here to blow up any ideas that I'm a stylized person by sharing, because my spouse took them, photos of me making these waffles.

Mardi Gras Bread

This festive bread is naturally colored with sweet potatoes and green tea to make a sweet braided loaf that's fun and nutritious. A wholesome way to let the good times roll.

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One of the awesome joys of being part of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share is getting my mittens on brilliantly colored vegetables, then playing around with them to make neat things. Often, if you're not already enjoying a farm share or farmer's market, I'll tell you you're S.O.L. in terms of finding unique vegetables.

Not this time. You could hit a regular grocery store and make this bread.

For more recipes using sweet potatoes, please see my Sweet Potato Recipe Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me whose farmers grow delicious sweet potatoes that end up hanging out in my Strategic Winter Squash Reserve waiting to jump into game day appetizers and chili. Want more recipe ideas? Follow me on Pinterest. Want interesting articles that catch my eye? Follow my FB page. Want snapshots of my day? Follow me on Instagram. Want to know How To Use This Blog? Want to come clean my house? Pretty please?

Healthy Morning Glory Muffins

This recipe is a terrific breakfast muffin. It combines oats, orange juice and raisins with the sweetness of maple syrup plus crunch from coconut and sunflower seeds in a whole grain bite that is free of refined sugar. Looking for a healthy breakfast muffin? Here you are.

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This time of year I am enjoying copious amounts of citrus thanks to the Band Fruit Fundraiser (here's a link to 156 food blogger recipes using seasonal fruits like the kind my son sold at his recent marching band fruit fundraiser--support a band near you!). I'm also baking--and eating--rich holiday treats like those I recently shared during #ChristmasWeek--have you entered the Amazon Gift Card Giveaway yet? As such, I will take any opportunity to boost the nutrition in my other meals.

When I fix muffins as a breakfast food I know I'm giving my kids something nourishing that will power them through the morning. My mom is Canadian {I'm American so she's not my mum, she's my mom} and thank goodness for that. She raised me on Canadian muffins. Compared to American muffins, Canadian muffins have less sugar and less fat. American muffin recipes seem like cupcakes to me. I love cupcakes. Just not for breakfast.

Caramel Pumpkin Butter Stuffed Bread

This lightly sweet braided bread is stuffed with caramel pumpkin butter and makes a terrific addition to a brunch or served with morning coffee or tea.

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I'll get to the recipe in a moment, but first I've got something else on my mind. I'm sharing this photo of the dogs for 2 reasons. First, I want to remind at least 3 people who've been thinking they ought to take a bag down to their local food drive to JUST DO IT. If 1 out of 3 people follows through, that'd be terrific. Second, I post this to illustrate the fact that despite holiday food drives THERE ARE HUNGRY PEOPLE IN YOUR COMMUNITY 12 MONTHS OF THE YEAR. Scroll below the recipe for ways you can reduce hunger in your town.

Fresh Cranberry Mini Scones

Tiny tender scones stuffed with chopped fresh cranberries and brightened with orange zest. Make these scones bite size to serve at holiday brunches or coffees.

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This recipe wraps up #ChristmasWeek, a event started in 2012 and hosted by Kim of Cravings of a Lunatic and Kiss My Smoke. She gathered a bunch of us bloggers together to share holiday sweets for 6 days straight. We also chipped in for $800 worth of Amazon Gift Cards for a Giveaway. 

I'm sharing the recipe first because I've got a story that is only tangentially related to the recipe. Reading my story will not affect your ability to make the scones, so skip it if you'd like. If you're just here to try and win $500 or use some fresh cranberries up go on about your business, don't mind my ramblings after the recipe. This is the blah-ggy part of blogging. Sometimes life ain't sunshine and rainbows.

Eggnog Sourdough Waffles

Tangy sweet waffles made with eggnog and sourdough starter. A fun way to enjoy eggnog during the holiday season--and marked down eggnog after the new year!

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I'm a sucker for magical markdown stickers. Where some people see 'oh it's about to go bad' I see opportunity. I picked up a half gallon of eggnog with no clear purpose. Buying food not on a previously thought out list is NOT a good way to Reduce Food Waste, however it is a source of inspiration to me so I'll keep on doing it. Within reason. Walking to the grocery store as I have been for the past 2 months when all I need is a gallon of milk has really cut down on impulse purchases.

I've used eggnog in waffles before--my Pumpkin Eggnog Waffles with Chocolate Chips made it onto the blog, but the Pumpkin Effnog waffles I never did find in my earlier photo searches, even though I was pretty sure I'd made some before. [Note to bloggers, when pulling photos off your camera, check the spelling as you add labels.] Eggnog in French toast? You bet I went there. What about oven pancakes? Yes, I've used eggnog in my Finnish Oven Pancake. Heck, I've even used eggnog in savory pizza dough with butternut squash. I do drink it, though it may not seem that way by all of these recipes.

I have to interrupt my flow with a behind the scenes photo--Robert Barker eyeing the bacon. Don't let the short legs fool ya. He swiped a piece of coconut cream pie off the counter last month. He's a dickens and I love him.

Overnight Sweet Potato Pecan Monkey Bread

A colorful brunch bread using purple and orange sweet potatoes in an enriched dough. This bread is made in short sessions--make the dough and assemble the bread one day, bake when you're ready.

Apologies to Esther Dean** but, . . . na na na come on. Na nana nana come on, come on, come on

Cause I rarely bake, but I'm perfectly good at it

Yeast in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it

Baking stones make break, so Ode, but preferments excite me

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I'm much happier when my kitchen sessions happen in small chunks--make the pesto one day, freeze it, use it throughout the winter. Caramelize onions in the crock pot, use them in quick meals. Make pizza dough when I have time earlier in the week, enjoy a homemade pizza on Friday night. An entire book devoted to this method, Make Ahead Bread by Donna Currie, is a great idea. I've ordered my copy--to donate to my local library so more folks get to play than just me. You can see more info about the book via this Amazon affiliate link.

There is just something soul-warming about tearing off a hunk of sweet bread and stuffing it into your mouth. The way it seems to melt on your tongue as you begin to chew is so satisfying. I imagine all of the recipe testing involved in writing a book about bread would be an interesting mix of pleasure and chore, and kudos to Donna Currie for slogging through the chore aspect to create this achievement.

As we most often eat Multigrain Sourdough bread, I relegate the chore of preparing our standard loaf to my bread machine. I consider our daily bread to be more utilitarian in nature and don't really think about the craft of baking bread. When I heard about the movement to mark the first anniversary of Make Ahead Bread, (Amazon affiliate link) with a virtual book party, I knew I wanted in.

To drum up interest in a newly-released book, publishers will encourage bloggers to choose from a carefully-selected group of recipes for their posts. When I saw Donna's Sweet Potato Monkey Bread on the list I figured I'd use my purple farm share sweet potatoes in it. At the next Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share pick up I was describing my plans and Cara of fairly simple suggested making the monkey bread with a mixture of orange and purple sweet potatoes. Great idea!

Because I was making 2 doughs at the same time, I figured I'd use my mixer for one and the dough cycle of the bread machine for the other. Since the temperature of my kitchen ranges from really cold in the winter to really hot in the summer, using the bread machine year round provides a nice climate controlled environment each and every time. The dough in the machine rose twice as fast as the dough in my straight sided bucket.

[Note for new bread bakers--if you've got a straight sided bucket it makes the whole 'rise until double' thing easy to see. Simply dump in the dough, grab a ruler, and stick a piece of tape where 'double' should be. Then keep an eye on the dough until it hits the tape mark.]

This photo shows the Whole Wheat and Parmesan pizza crust as well as the monkey bread doughs.

For more recipes using sweet potatoes, please see my Sweet Potato Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. This page is a resource for folks like me eating seasonally from the farm share, the farmer's market, or garden abundance. Organizing by produce type appeals to my "I've got _______, what can I do with it?" mentality. I've got a board devoted to potatoes on Pinterest, and I'm sharing the latest from the kitchen and garden on my FB page. Want to know how to use this blog? Click here.

Asian Pear & Cardamom Cream Muffins #MuffinMonday

Cardamom-spiced Asian pear chunks fill this rich-with-cream whole wheat muffin. It's a wonderfully sweet treat to celebrate Fall and serve to your favorite book group!

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These muffins are a mouthful to describe, but once you get it all out there should be no further need for description. I'll tell ya how I came up with them, though, and share where I served them.
The common thread is BOOKS.

My mom went to college in Canada and learned Home Ec [or whatever they called it back in the 50s that became Home Ec in the 80s that has become Family and Consumer Science these days].
Two of my mom's college friends wrote a couple of cookbooks, including one on muffins: Muffins: A Cookbook by Joan Bidinosti and Marilyn Wearring (Amazon Affiliate link). My copy, handed down from my mom, is covered with her scribbles "too sweet" "make 10 next time" etc. It's where I turn when I have an idea for a muffin but want some back up that it will work.

I picked up some Asian pears because they looked interesting, and this is the time of year I'm getting a handle on the farm share produce and can actually lift my head up in the grocery store and look around [instead of making a head-down beeline for yet another gallon of milk]. We enjoyed a few Asian pears fresh, but I wanted to play.  I really don't know why I turned a Whole Wheat Applesauce muffin into these Asian Pear & Cardamom Cream muffins, but that's what happened.

I served these muffins to the women of my book group. We are a diverse bunch--united by a love of reading, a love of someone who at some point was in the military, and a possibly temporary geographic location of SW Ohio. Aside from that we're all different, and I love how varied our discussions become with each person sharing her perspective. It's good to hang out with people who are a different age than you, or don't have kids the same age as yours/don't have kids, or who don't hold the same job as you. And they are wonderful guinea pigs!

This is the last recipe I'm sharing from that one meeting at my house. Considering I'm hosting next month (we're reading Our Souls at Night and if my mom sends me the book in time I'll join in), I think I'm going to have future blog fodder (I'm already working up a braided sweet bread recipe). I've already shared my Slow Cooker Apple Chai for a Crowd, Roasted Sweet Potato and Turkey Sausage Breakfast Casserole, Cornbread, Roasted Chile and Sweet Potato Breakfast Casserole, and some other damn muffin that I can't remember right now. I make a lot of muffins, you see.

Chile, Cornbread, and Sweet Potato Breakfast Casserole

A vegetarian and gluten free breakfast casserole made from roasted sweet potatoes and Hatch chiles in a cornbread and custard base. Topped with crumbled queso, this is a spicy way to start your day.

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When I get an idea for a recipe I'll think up both an omnivore version and a vegetarian version. The resulting products seem to vary widely--like my Easy Artichoke Arugula Pesto Burrata Pasta and my 5 Ingredient Butternut Squash, Sausage and Burrata Pasta or my Cheddar Apple Onion Bacon Pizza and my Apple Gouda Pecan Pizza. Today's recipe is no exception. My initial idea was to use roasted sweet potatoes from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share to make a gluten free breakfast casserole. My omnivore version was posted last year. I used gouda cheese and turkey sausage to make a colorful and hearty dish. You can find the recipe here.

I wanted to try a vegetarian version and wanted to keep it gluten free just because there are plenty of bread-laden breakfast casseroles out there, so I used cornbread. My cornbread recipe is not as sweet as some Southern ones I've had, and does not use wheat flour--only corn meal--so it is gluten free if your cornmeal comes from a place that keeps an eye on cross contamination. You can find my cornbread recipe in this tamale pie post or this tamale pie post, because I change things up, yo. Spicing things up with some roasted Hatch chiles kept it interesting.

Note: If you don't have a freezer stash of roasted Hatch chiles, no worries, check out the Hispanic section of most grocery stores. You can find 4 to 7 ounce cans of chopped green chiles in various heat levels. Choose whatever you feel comfortable with. My local grocery store gets truckloads of chiles up from Hatch, New Mexico and fires up the roaster in the parking lot. I pick up a couple of quarts each August. I use some in salsa verde and freeze some for recipes like this. You could also sub a roasted poblano if you've got some lying around looking to stay out of trouble.

For more recipes using Hatch chiles, please see my Hatch Chile Recipe Collection. For more recipes using sweet potatoes, please see my Sweet Potato Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, or seasonal produce from the grocery store. Want to know how to use this blog? Click here.

Pumpkin Eggnog Waffles with Chocolate Chips

Tender pumpkin waffles made with pumpkin spice eggnog, with chocolate chips inside and out.

Chocolate is a comfort food, and comfort foods are good in lousy situations. Traditions are comforting, too. So a tradition that involves chocolate can sometimes be just the ticket for comfort.

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I'm not certain how we started the tradition of going out for chocolate chip breakfast foods en route home from the airport after seeing off my spouse for a deployment. I think he had an early flight and we didn't want to wake the kids up until just before we were ready to leave. Dawn was breaking as I drove home, and I just wasn't ready to face reality so we stopped for breakfast. I ordered chocolate chip pancakes. The kids were young, and the idea of mom eating a mountain of chocolate for breakfast must have surprised them. The next time he deployed we had chocolate chip pancakes deliberately--something to look forward to after saying goodbye. After we moved to Ohio we had to adjust the tradition, as all military families learn to do. The next departure was on Mother's Day, and while at Waffle House eating chocolate chip waffles I got a carnation from the staff. Too sweet.

That brings you up to speed for the reasoning behind this recipe. This time the kids said goodbye and headed off to school, knowing that we'd get our chocolate chip waffles in a homemade version/after school snack so I could blog about it for #Choctoberfest.

Military children are nothing if not resilient. A food blogger's kids are nothing if not resigned to eating when the photos have been taken.  The day turned dark and gloomy, though, so I greeted my returning children with:

Yes, I know it's our tradition to eat chocolate chip waffles the day your father deploys, but the lighting is bad for taking photos. We'll have our waffles tomorrow, ok?

Gotta love kids that will roll with the changes life brings.

Some people celebrate ALL THINGS PUMPKIN by choice. I do it by necessity.

Despite never purposefully planting them,  I grow about a dozen pumpkins in my back yard every year. I hate to waste food, so that means I spend time each Fall processing a pile of pumpkins into puree. It also means that while my pantry is not stocked with cans of pumpkin the freezer has bags of puree stuffed every which way. I don't mind all the pumpkin. Because I put it up, I can choose the amount I want to have in each package. [If you're using canned pumpkin just double the recipe and use the entire can. It will be close enough.]

For more recipes using pumpkin, please see my Pumpkin Recipes Collection. This is part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me who eat seasonally or have a backyard prone to producing pie pumpkins. Want to know how to use this blog? Click here.

Swiss Chard Hash

A skillet supper of Swiss chard, potatoes, mushrooms and sausage served with an egg on top.

"There should be a Sausage Monday"

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I fixed this on a Monday night, after getting the idea from a similar 'throw in whatever's handy' supper the week before that turned out surprisingly good. I was going to leave out the sausage and serve the hash with an egg on top. My spouse came in and asked what was for dinner. After I shared my vision he commented "that would be good with sausage". I replied "I was going for a Meatless Monday meal". He said, "there should be a Sausage Monday". So, sausage it is. Feel free to adapt to your Sausage or Meatless Monday needs by doubling the mushrooms in place of the sausage.

For other recipes using Swiss chard, please see my Swiss Chard Recipes Collection. For other recipes using potatoes since I have 25 pounds of them from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. Same thing for the Mushroom Recipes Collection (not 25 pounds, just check it out), all part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient--a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share. I'm also contributing to The Spiced Life's Mushroom Mangia board on Pinterest, have a Potatoes board on Pinterest, and interesting chard recipes that catch my eye live on my Greens board on Pinterest. Want to know How to Use This Blog? Click here.

Blueberry Breakfast Cobbler with Grits

Blueberries, fresh or frozen, in a sweetened filling layered under a topping of grits?! Here's a breakfast or brunch treat that is sweet enough for a dessert and hearty enough to start your day. 

Make the most of what you've got is my near-daily kitchen mantra.  I was inspired to buy a canister of quick-cooking grits for a side dish, but my family didn't go for the finished product at all, and I was left with an open canister of perfectly good grits.

Aside to grits lovers:  I know grits are good--I like them! My folks now live in a place where breakfast is provided, and when grits are on the menu mom pops back up to their apartment and fetches a package of pepper jack cheese to make her grits cheesy. Apple . . . tree . . . I know!

My family members didn't spend years working across the street from the Museum of the White House of the Confederacy, however, and in addition to not loving grits these family members don't share in my love for collard greens either, so all the more for me.  Except I didn't want to eat most of a canister of grits all by myself, so I started searching for other ways to use them.  This recipe was inspired by combining this blueberry cobbler filling (that my daughter found on the internets) with this coffee cake topping (that I found on the internets). Since dessert teamwork works well in our household, my daughter prepared the filling while I prepared the topping.

The topping ended up kind of heavy for a dessert--if you're looking for a light pillowy dumpling to absorb your blueberry goodness, try the Brown Eyed Baker where we found the filling inspiration.  This was a sturdier, chewier, heartier topping, which is why I let my daughter eat a bowl for breakfast the next morning.  I know there's a ton of sugar in it, and it will never become a staple breakfast or even dessert in my home, but the combination of grits and blueberries really is tasty, so it's worth having as an option for a brunch.

For other recipes using blueberries, please see my Blueberry Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other dessert ideas, there's a drop down menu on the right sidebar with ideas. For more ideas using fruit, I've got a Fruit Board on Pinterest, and I share some creations on my FB page. Want to know how to Use this Blog? Click here!

Honey Banana Oat Muffins

Soaked oat and whole wheat muffins sweetened with honey and a banana.

When I was a kid, my mom would sometimes whip up a last minute dessert that consisted of a bowl of sliced bananas topped with a spoonful of brown sugar and a generous splash of milk. It was fast, sweet, and used stuff she had on hand.

Making something out of nothing is a learned skill in the kitchen. 

I don't mean literally nothing, this is not a Stone Soup type post. No, I'm talking about some of the items I consider kitchen staples:  bananas, oats, and baking powder*. I don't add buttermilk to this list because if you were to run the stats [I've been working on getting my info ready for my wonderful tax preparer so stats are on my mind] buttermilk cannot be found in my fridge as often as bananas, oats, and baking powder can be found in the pantry.

Once you've got buttermilk to use up, though, you can assemble several sets of the base of these muffins and store them in the fridge for up to a week. You could make buttermilk pizza dough or roasted garlic & pesto buttermilk pizza dough and store that in the freezer for a month. You could make a double batch of Butternut Squash Waffles and freeze the extras for weekday breakfasts or waffle sandwich lunches.

These muffins are my version of mom's frugal dessert. They are easy to throw together out of stuff I have on hand, sweet enough for a mid-afternoon snack at work, and healthy enough for me to give my kids for breakfast.

For other recipes using bananas, please see my Banana Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other muffin recipes check out the drop down menu on the right sidebar and let this serve as a kick in the pants to update that, or just tell me to put all the banana muffin recipes that are piled up on the dining room table into an ebook so you can grab that when you're in a muffin mood.

Horned Melon Waffles

Classic buttermilk waffles with a freaky fruit twist--horned melon in the batter. 

Happy Birthday, Dr Seuss!

Horned melon is not a fruit that was grown by the farmers in my community supported agriculture (CSA) farm share. In a G+ food bloggers group Melissa's Produce offered to send cases of FreakyFruits to anyone interested. I said yes. This is my second recipe from that case of fruit. Passionfruit Banana Muffins was the first. I think the next one will be pizza or curry.

When I lifted off the protective bubble wrap I had no clue what I wanted to do with these fruits--but I like that challenge just like I like the challenge to use the kohlrabi in the farm share! Inspiration struck one morning when I realized that those people who live with me remain keen on eating first thing in the morning and all day long. [I need to be up and about for several hours before I feel peckish.] I used one melon in the waffles and had my daughter use another in a smoothie with banana, vanilla yogurt, and ice.

Horned melon looks like something out of a Dr Seuss book. It makes me wonder about the first animal to eat it, because I'm sure the first human to try it did so because she saw a fellow animal chowing down. [I wonder the same about artichokes and several of the other FreakyFruits that Melissa's Produce sent me.]

I don't know what my deal is with Dr Seuss' birthday and breakfast. If you wanted to make a Dr Seuss themed brunch to celebrate his birthday, March 2nd, please consider these waffles with a side of Green Eggs No Ham [a vegetarian eggs Benedict with easy spinach Hollandaise--link]. For other recipes using FreakyFruits, please see my FreakyFruits Recipe Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Savory French Toast with Avocado and Egg

An easy meatless meal, a savory breakfast for dinner, a new twist on Fat Tuesday. No matter what occasion you prefer, this savory French toast with avocado and egg will be delicious.

My octogenarian parents tell me that Toast is a Thing. I really don't get the concept of high end artisanal toast [I mean decorating a cupcake takes skill, but making a piece of toast?] but I do like a nice piece of toast. I've never gone out for fancy toast like my trendy folks have, but I think I can say with certainty that

this is not high end artisanal toast.

This is my answer to Pancake Tuesday, or Fat Tuesday, or an easy meatless Monday meal, or a twist on Breakfast for dinner. Instead of using the milk & eggs to make pancakes [and whatever else it is we're supposed to make when everyone runs to the store at the threat of snow--have you considered a Finnish Oven Pancake?], why not make French toast? Who says French toast has to be sweet? If I'm not using eggnog in the batter (like my Pumpkin Eggnog French Toast recipe) then the components are just as savory as a fried egg sandwich.

A fried egg sandwich is one of the perfect comfort foods, and one of the first meals I fixed both my spouse and my brother upon their respective returns from Iraq. You know someone who needs some TLC? Fix 'em a fried egg sandwich. Or if they are of the canine persuasion, make this.

Using the magic of blog-time I made this last week. On Fat Tuesday, like darn near every Tuesday night of the school year, I'll be shuttling my daughter to sewing and hanging out writing/reading/knitting/playing solitaire on my phone. I will not be making this.
You could, though.

Winter Squash & Banana Muffins {Monday Muffins}

Working title Asante Sana Squash Banana Muffins*, these soaked oat, wheat and flax muffins have roasted winter squash with banana and maple syrup for sweetening. Like other banana-containing baked goods these are terrific the next day and make a great breakfast or afternoon snack.

I'm not a control freak in the kitchen. I usually welcome all the help I can get [and I'm still enjoying the fruits err vegetables of my niece's and nephew's labors over the holidays when I had them chop up what turned out to be 5 recipes worth of mirepoix aka onion, celery, and carrot. Oopsie. Well, Faster Kirsten miscalculated but appreciates the effort nonetheless. Tak, Albert & Astrid.] Sometimes, though, the help is not entirely helpful. 

Unless your kitchen is populated by creatures who haven't figured out how to open the fridge door or who haven't mastered lifting the lids off containers, you've probably experienced a 'helpful' and hungry kitchen assistant 'cleaning up' the leftovers that were actually planned overs. Perhaps you intended the various parts of the meal NOT to end up all in the same container [because, you know, the light sucked at dinner and you wanted to photograph your leftover lunch for the blog]. 

The addition of flax into my standard soaked oatmeal muffin recipe came because of a helpful kitchen mate. My spouse dumped a bunch of ground flax seed into the container of rolled oats, thinking it would boost the nutrition of his morning bowl of oatmeal. He was not quite satisfied with the results, so I offered to take the rest of the container off his hands despite knowing I couldn't use any of the results for the blog [he didn't measure the amount of oats remaining in the container nor the amount of flax he dumped in with them]. After making muffins, waffles and more muffins I decided the combination is pretty useful, so once I'd emptied the container I played around with the amount of flax seed and came up with this version.

I've made these muffins three times now, and even shared them with the terrific physical therapists working with my son. It's been a while since I've posted a Monday Muffin recipe [like, last year, man], so I figured I'd kick off 2015 with these. Since I'm using maple syrup and a banana for sweetening, if you've made any resolutions regarding granulated sugar these would still fit in with your goals. If, like me & Meghan you've still got a pile of winter squash in your basement . . . well, here's an idea of what to do with it that the family--and the physical therapists--approve.

For other ideas using Winter Squash, please see my Winter Squash Recipes Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.