do you know the muffin, man?

i don't know about any of you, but breakfast is always a meal i have a difficult time figuring out what to do. mostly because what i would *really* like to eat every day are eggs and sausage / bacon on a buttery biscuit. (mmmmm, breakfast biscuits, mmmmm) but since we've already established that i have a tendency towards the spherical, i don't in fact eat like this [*sigh*], and instead, struggle to come up with acceptable alternatives.

ok ok, so i'll be honest. even if my metabolism COULD handle eating breakfast sandwiches every day, the reality is that i wouldn't, because, well... i like to sleep! sleeping is one of my most favorite activities, and i like to do as much of it as possible every morning (mostly to make up for not having done enough of it the night before ;). so, my typical day involves waking up with about 15 minutes to spare for getting ready for work, which is about enough time to brush teeth and hair, wash face, put in contacts, and get dressed. hot tasty home cooked breakfast? yeah right, you can just forget about it (fuhgeddaboudit?).

anyway, i go through cycles where i eat the same (easy, mindless to prepare) thing every day until i get sick of it, and then i get on the struggle bus for a week or two before i'm able to figure out what next to eat. lately, i've been eating cinnamon raisin toast with peanut butter. and by "lately" i mean like the last 2 months or so, which i'm pretty sure is a new mooner record. the upshot is that i've been sick to death of cinnamon raisin toast but unable to figure out what the fudge to eat next.

i ate sconehenge scones for a couple weeks (sooooo good), but they're not filling enough, which meant i had to eat something else on top of the scones (well, not LITERALLY on top of); basically, way too much breakfast planning for my taste (get it: "taste"? hahahahahah--- ok, never mind). anyway, there've been a few times over the last couple weeks that i've way shorted myself on breakfast and ended up scrounging around like a rat in my snack pile for things to nibble on until lunch.

not good. (not a very appetizing visual, either, right? :)

it dawned on me this weekend i could make my own muffins - meaning, make them in a way to make sure they were filling enough for breakfast. (i can be pretty slow sometimes. ok, fine fine, i can be pretty slow often.) carrots are all over the place at the sf farmers' market, so i figured this would be a great place to start. (i like to buy my carrots from star route farms and chue's farm.)

i used my favorite carrot cake recipe (i've had it for about 15 years), added some currants and pecans (feel free to leave them out if you're a carrot purist), and just baked up the batter in a muffin tin instead of a cake pan. i ate one the second it cooled enough (hello, i made them, and SOMEBODY has to conduct quality control. sheesh.) - moist, well spiced, just sweet enough, and chock full o' tasty goodness. i'm looking forward to having them for breakfast this week!

if you like the recipe and want to make it as a cake, double the recipe, use 2 buttered 9" round cake pans, and increase the baking time to about 35 minutes.



Caroline's Carrot Muffins

1 1/2 cups organic unbleached flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup dried currants
3/4 cup chopped toasted pecans
2 medium pastured eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
8 oz canned crushed pineapple with syrup
2/3 cup salad oil (I use Stonehouse olive oil)
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift first 9 ingredients together into a large mixing bowl; stir in currants and pecans. Add rest of ingredients and then beat for 2 minutes at medium speed, just until everything is incorporated.

Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Fill cups almost to top. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until tester inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool muffins in tin for 5 minutes, then remove and cool completely on rack.