Healthier version of the zucchini muffins

I received this e mail from my best friend: "Your blog has truly inspired me. I made the muffins today and RJ loves them. He keeps asking for more cake and he is convinced that mommy mixed the icing into the cake and that is why the cake has green specks. I just wrapped them individually in wax paper and packaged them in Ziploc bags so I can thaw them out 1 x 1 for breakfast or snack etc." She not only tweaked my recipes but also made it healthier.

She also wrote:

First of all, since I didn’t have self rising flour I added 1/2t baking soda, 1/2t salt, and 1/4t baking powder. Secondly, I added 1c all purpose flour and 1/2c whole wheat flour because I am always trying to pump up the fiber in all our foods. Since I added the whole wheat flour, I added 1/3c oil instead of 1/4c and another egg to moisten the mixture more. Lastly, I added 2t vanilla because I am a vanilla addict, but I followed all the rest of your recipe and added everything as per your instructions. They came out amazing!

Ingredients:

1 cup of all-purpose flour
1/2 cup organic whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1 cup shredded zucchini
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1/4 tsp orange peel
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup nuts (optional)

In a bowl, beat the sugar, zucchini and egg. Add the oil and orange peel.

Stir in the flour and cinnamon into the mixture and fold in the nuts/raisins.

Pour the batter in a muffin pan and bake in a 350°F oven for 18-20 min or until golden brown.

Zucchini bread

When I started to make the zucchini bread, my daughters asked me what I was cooking and when I mentioned that it had a vegetable in it, they declared that it sounded gross. When the bread came out of the oven, they saw that it had tiny green"things" and no way would they eat it. So I said, "well, you like carrot cake, why don't you give this bread a try" and not only did they taste it but they ate the whole thing in half an hour!!! I told them that next time I was going to give each one of them a slice and hide the rest, since they were even eating the crumbs when the cake was gone.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of self-rising flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1 cup shredded zucchini
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
1/4 tsp lemon peel
1/2 cup nuts, or in my case raisins

In a bowl, beat the sugar, zucchini and egg. Add the oil and lemon peel.

Stir in the flour and cinnamon into the mixture and fold in the nuts/raisins.



Pour the batter in a greased 8 x 4 x 2 loaf pan and bake in a 350°F oven for 55 min or until golden brown (mine was done in 45).



Remove from pan and cool thoroughly before cutting.

When I told my friend Hortensia about the bread, she said "why don't you make zucchini muffins?" Since I had leftover shredded zucchini, I decide to try out the muffins and the only difference is that I used orange peel. They were so delicious that I had to take the picture before they disappeared!