Mug Muffins! Fast, filling, low-glycemic, GF, and a whole healthy meal!

Muffins don't have a great reputation among those who would be healthy. They're usually full of both fat and sugar. They surely don't make a real meal.

This recipe provides all the nutrition of a meal. The main ingredient Shaklee Life Energizing Shake, makes it a complete meal. Here we use milk and/or egg, and fruit - just like a smoothie.

Here's Mug Muffin recipe! It's high in protein, low in sugar (none added), filling, fast, and delicious. And flexible when it comes to ingredients. It's a satisfying meal ready in less than 10 minutes.

I've included the basic Fruity Mug Muffin, and the Cocoa or Cocoa-PB Mug Muffin variation.

Fruity Mug Muffin

You'll need:
a small banana, or half a large one, speckled if possible
an egg
a few tablespoons of unsweetened applesauce, or milk or cream
2 scoops Shaklee Life Energizing Shake, vanilla (or strawberry might work)
a handful of frozen or fresh blueberries, or other berries (optional)

In a large mug, smoosh the banana until it's mostly smooth, beat in the egg, and stir in the applesauce (about 2 T - you want a damp mix, not soupy but not stiff).

Gently stir in the scoops of Energizing Shake one at a time, until it's smooth.

Add a handful of frozen or fresh berries and stir in lightly.

Put the mug in the microwave. In mine it takes 4-5 minutes to cook when I'm using frozen berries, 3-4 minutes otherwise. It may rise over the top of the mug but that's ok. It's done when the top loses its shine and looks cooked.

Take it out, let it cool a few moments or until it's room temperature, and eat it. You can dump it out, but I eat it out of the mug with a fork (so I don't compress it by digging at it with a spoon).

Variation: Cocoa (PB) Mug Muffin

You'll need
a small banana, as above
an egg
1 T smooth or chunky PB, optional
a few tablespoons of milk (or cream)
2 scoops Shaklee Life Energizing Shake, chocolate or Cafe Latte
1 T plain unsweetened cocoa (not chocolate drink mix)

Use the same method, stirring in the peanut butter before adding the egg. Then add the milk and follow the rest of the directions. Omit the berries. You could add some chocolate chips at the end for a triple-chocolate treat.

Put the mug in the microwave as before, but check after 3 minutes to see if the top looks cooked. Let it cool....

The cocoa makes this recipe almost brownie-like.

Today I made my lunch mug muffin with ripe raspberries in place of the applesauce. We have a lot in the garden just now. It's not quite as sweet as when I use applesauce, but it was full of flavor. Notice the pink color in the mug!

Whole-chicken and garden soup

We've eaten this soup all winter. This is a small variation on Creamy Chicken Soup because when I got home with the cream I found it spoiled. Improvise! (I am not going to make an 8-mile 40-minute round trip for cream.) This soup takes days but very little labor.

Put the whole chicken into the crockpot, cover (or almost cover) with water, set the pot on low, cover with the lid, and plan something else for dinner for the next few days.

When the chicken is thoroughly cooked, after 24-30 hours more or less, lift out pieces of meat for immediate use or freeze them. Discard the skin. Leave the bones and more of the meat in the pot for this recipe. Cook them for one more day.

On the third day, discard the bones and skin. Return any meat to the pot. Add veggies, such as:

• leftover baked squash
• dried summer squash pieces
• dried mushrooms, or fresh
• leftover mashed potatoes
• roasted veggies (potatoes, onions, peppers, carrots, etc) - or they can be raw
• chopped celery, or freeze-dried celery
• fresh chopped onion
• good salt to taste

Add water to the rim and return the lid to the crockpot. Let everything cook on high until heated, or on low overnight if the veggies are fresh and need more cooking. 

Using a Vita-Mix, food processor, or wand, homogenize everything that's in the pot.

Serve steaming hot. Add cream (half cup?) just before serving, or at the table.

Serving idea: Heat up some red pepper flakes in a little dish of olive oil in the microwave for 2-3 minutes. Using a teaspoon, drizzle this mixture over the soup in pleasing patterns. Don't mix it in - the variations in taste of hot soup, cold cream, and spicy oil make a nice little culinary adventure.  Serves about 8.

This soup can be the basis of many meals in the days to come, or can be frozen for eating at home or on the road.

No-fry refried beans

This week's Anasazi beans had a wonderful flavor that got better every day. I thought I'd make something similar to be the basis of several meals this week.

I'm out of Anasazi beans but I have plenty of pintos.

Since we're traveling soon, I want to freeze a couple of servings to heat up along the way. A quart of the Southwest Baked Beans are already frozen for the road.

Homemade refries next week means starting the beans now. We won't be able to eat them till at least Day 4. Here's how I make refries that are smooth, creamy, and full of flavor without frying even once!

Day 1 (today, 3 pm) - Measure out the beans (3 cups), rinse them, pick out the broken ones, then cover them with cold water in a big bowl. They're going to grow so they need space.

Day 2 (tomorrow afternoon sometime) - Pour off this water, add fresh, and make sure the beans are covered.

Day 3 (Monday afternoon sometime) - Check the beans to make sure they're beginning to ferment (little bubbles are forming). If not, let them go a while longer. Or if you want, let them go till the next day after rinsing them and making sure they're covered.

Let's say I'll find them fermenting on Monday afternoon and I have time for the next step. Then I'll go ahead and....

Cook them. Pour off the water, put them into a pot, cover them barely with fresh water and cook on low. Don't set the lid down on the pot, but you can tilt it to help keep the heat in.

OR

Cook them in a crock pot the same way, except that you will want to cover them completely.

Cook for about an hour. Check for softness. How quickly they cook will depend on how old the beans are, among other things. You want the cooked beans be creamy. (Some beans never soften that much, but pinto beans as well as others do.)

My old beans cooked for over 4 hours before they looked like good candidates for creamy refries.

Those are the basics. But what I'm going to do is add the same veggies I did with my wonderful Southwestern Baked Bean concoction. These included an onion, several cloves of garlic, and chopped chili peppers. This time I'm using ones I roasted earlier today. You can also add finely chopped carrot - but don't add celery: then you would have savory refried beans, which haven't been invented yet. The veggies should all be added when you begin cooking the beans.

Once the beans (and veggies) are soft and creamy, take the pot off the heat and let the mixture cool a little. Then mash it all up or run it through a food processor or use a wand mixer to homogenize the mixture. Then salt to taste w/ good salt. I used a wand mixer and in about 5 mess-free minutes I had delightfully creamy 'refried' pintos.

Variation: add side pork to the pot of beans when it starts to cook. The amount is up to you, maybe 1/4-1/2 cup, chopped. Or maybe more.

Serve these refries alone, or with cheese, on tacos or burritos or in a bowl with a spoon. 3 cups dry beans makes a lot of refries! You can cut the recipe in half but these are easy to freeze, so why not make enough for planned-overs?

PS - The fresh chilies I bought for this recipe were wimps. I could have used 5 or 6 instead of the two that should have given the beans a decided zest.

Simple Summer Smoothie

In the pursuit of unsugared satisfying foods, I have taken to making smoothies again. This one is so easy that it will be ready 5 minutes from now, if you happen to have the few ingredients on hand.

Ingredients:
half a quart container of plain yogurt - I use whole milk organic yogurt
3 ripe peaches
1 frozen banana - if you don't have one frozen right now, use a fresh one

Holding the peaches over the blender as you cut them so you don't lose any juice, remove the seed but leave the skin on. Drop them into the blender with the broken-up banana and yogurt. Whirl on high for as long as it takes to eliminate most of the lumps.

Hints: I use my Vita-Mix so the blending takes less than a minute. To freeze bananas, peel them, break them into chunks with your fingers, and freeze in a pie pan or other flat container where they can spread out a single layer deep. Then once they are frozen, bag them and store them in the freezer till it's time for your next smoothie.