Happy Birthday Moe Moe

Deconstructing Tim Hortons' muffins

I find Tim Hortons' muffins are too sweet, and to me, aren't really muffins at all, they're more like cake. Muffins should be more dense, and usually contain fruit or nuts. I've asked them to make their muffins more nutritious, but they just defend their products as they are. They've also discontinued their raisin bran muffins which were probably one of the better muffins they served. Why? I've never received an answer from them on this.

So yesterday I bought a Tim Hortons' Whole Grain Pecan Banana Bread Muffin, which apparently has two servings of whole grains, and no artificial colours or flavours.

So what did it contain?

It contained not a single pecan inside the muffin.

As for the banana, it tasted like banana, but there was no discernable pieces of banana inside the muffin. If you've ever made banana bread or banana muffins, you'll easily notice the tiny bits of black in the cooked product. When you bake bananas in something, there are always the black flecks. I couldn't detect even one speck of black inside the muffin.

It also contained 27 grams of sugar in each muffin. That's a whopping 6.75 teaspoons of sugar in one muffin. Ever read the book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us? I'm reading it now and it's quite the eye opener. I believe it isn't only the food giants who are hooked, it's also the fast food giants as well. Why all the sugar? Because it tastes good--they think.

Here are the ingredients in these muffins:

Whole Grain Pecan Banana Bread Muffin: Whole grain blend [bleached enriched wheat flour, wheat bran, wheat germ], banana purée, sugar, water, soybean and/or canola oils, liquid whole egg, pralines [sugar, pecans, corn syrup, butter (milk), salt], chicory root inulin, leavening (sodium bicarbonate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate), modified cornstarch, salt, monoglycerides, guar gum, citric acid (acidulant), xanthan gum, ascorbic acid (acidulant), natural flavour, corn syrup solids, whey powder (milk), enzyme (amylase).

I did count 8 tiny bits of pecan on top.

Nope. No visible banana inside. Or pecans.

And here are the 6.75 teaspoons of sugar the muffin contains. I decided not to eat the second half of the muffin. I decided it was just a waste of calories.

Peanut butter oatmeal cookies

I made peanut butter oatmeal cookies one day while in Victoria. I can't remember what my motivation was. Anyway they were pretty good.

In Victoria our condo had cable TV service. At home we don't have TV service, we only watch Netflix. We don't feel the need to throw money at Bell or the other cable providers, and Netflix is way better anyway.

The only channel I did watch sometimes was the Food Network. I do like to watch cooking shows. But I would record the shows first so I could fast forward past the commercials, which seem to have increased exponentially since I last watched commercial TV.

Mind you, most of the shows on the food network are fairly useless, like Food Factory. This show tries too hard to be cute. It also shows how some products are made in a factory. I don't really care how they're made. I want to know what the recipe is. Plus, many of the products they showed being produced contained 90% sugar. Gross.

Then there were other shows that showed competitions like Chopped, which wasn't bad, but very stressful to watch. I don't want to get stressed when I watch TV.

Then there were food shows (as opposed to cooking shows) where almost no actual cooking takes place. Like one guy who goes into diners or whatever, and makes all kind of noise as he inhales big greasy gobs of whatever concoction being served. Gross times two.

I want to watch actual cooking shows. You know where someone cooks food and tells you how much of each ingredient is in it?

One show which I liked was the Spice Goddess. Bal Arneson is from India and cooks food using Indian spices. She made a macaroni and cheese recipe that I want to try. I love macaroni and cheese, and I love Indian food. Though it sounds like a weird combination to me, but I will try it.

Anyway back to the Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies

1 cup flour (whole wheat or all purpose)
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup raisins (chocolate chips would be even better but it was lent and I gave up chocolate)

1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup natural peanut butter (or regular peanut butter)
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg (I would probably increase to 2 eggs as the mixture was very crumbly)

Mix first seven ingredients into a small bowl.

Mix remaining ingredients into a large bowl.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and incorporate. Use your hands if you have to.

Make smallish balls of dough and place on greased cookie sheet. Press down with fingers or a floured fork.

Cook for 10-12 minutes at 350 until the cookies start to brown.

Granola bars for Jesus - the recipe

To see how this recipe came about, see here.

4 1/2 cups quick oats
1/2 cup melted, or liquid honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup natural peanut butter (could use regular)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 cup applesauce (mine was made from 1 spartan apple and one royal gala apple and a 1/4 cup water)
1 cup raisins (or nuts if you're Jennifer or Johanna and don't like raisins)

Mix everything together. You many have to use your hands to mix it as it will be very thick.

Grease a cookie sheet. I used a 12 X 16 pan (I'm guessing since I didn't measure it). A smaller cookie sheet would have been better, since the mixture wasn't enough for the whole pan. Just grease the portion of the pan that you use.

Press granola mixture firmly and evenly into pan.

Bake for about 25 minutes at 325, or until the edges start to brown.

Cool. Cut into squares. I made 16 large squares. Cut them smaller if you like.

Store in freezer. Or give them to the homeless.

My birthday picture

Applesauce oatmeal raisins muffins

I had to use up some applesauce so I came up with this recipe.

These muffins are very moist. The raisins could be replaced with 1/2 cup of chocolate chips or nuts, since some people don't like raisins. Hard to believe but true.

2 cups of quick oats
2 cups unsweetened apple sauce
2 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup packed brown sugar (next time I'd use 2/3 cup)

1 cup all purpose flour or whole wheat if you have it.
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (next time I'd use 2 tsp)
1 cup raisins

Mix first five ingredients in a large bowl.

Mix remainder of ingredients into a small bowl.

Add dry ingredients to wet and incorporate.

12 muffins at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick tests clean.

Oatmeal banana raisin muffins (not muffin cookies)

We're in Victoria, British Columbia. Our escape from the cold that is Ottawa. Which at the moment isn't so cold. I'm glad for Ottawa. But even gladder for us.

We are in a lovely two bedroom condo downtown. Where it's 13 degrees and oh so pleasant. Tons of coffee shops, flowers and sunshine. All gifts straight from God.

Made muffins yesterday. We had eaten a cookie muffin in a coffee shop and it was so yummy, I decided I needed to make some. I'd never heard of "cookie muffins", or maybe it was "muffin cookies", before. They are dense like cookies, but look like muffins.

I googled for a recipe, but couldn't find much, so found a recipe, and modified it. It didn't look or taste like what we'd eaten, but it was still yummy.

I did get a lot of pinterest recipes pop up. But every time I clicked on them, it wanted me to log in or create an account. You know what? I don't want to created an account. I just want the stupid muffin recipe. But no. We can't give it to you if you don't have an account.

I promise you I won't make you log in to get my recipe.

And of course I don't remember the name of the coffee shop we found the muffins, so I doubt it if we could ever find it again. Or maybe we will.

Here's what I made.

2 cups large flake oats
2 cups skim milk
1 cup raisins
1/2 packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 mashed banana

Soak oats in milk in a large bowl. Add egg and beat. Add oil (next time I'll try 1/4 cup oil) and brown sugar. Add mashed banana. Mix it all up.

In a small bowl add flour (if I had whole wheat flour I would have used that instead), baking soda, salt and cinnamon and raisins. Stir to incorporate.

Add flour mixture to wet mixture and blend together. Scoop mixture into a greased 12 muffin pan.

Cook at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

I didn't have muffin liners so had to spray olive oil in the muffin pan which is fine, except now the clean up job was a pain in the butt, since you have to clean out each individual muffin area afterwards. I also didn't have any toothpicks so used a twist tie to test for doneness. It worked.

It just occurred to me. Maybe if I had only used 1 cup of milk instead of 2, maybe I'd have actually made the muffin cookie recipe?

The pictures below are from our balcony. They're not the muffins.