Lemon Muffins with a Strawberry Drizzle

I am currently sitting at my kitchen counter on a comfortable bar stool waiting for the stove to preheat so that I can get my new recipe baking. With all the waiting, I asked myself, “Why not just write down the recipe right now…before you f-o-r-g-e-t….before it feels overwhelming.”

Well, okay.

Here I am then, writing to you while leaned back on my stool with a foot up on the other one, and enjoying the fresh smells of lemons and strawberries.

A friend of mine is in need of some quick items for breakfast for around the house, so I am hoping her family will enjoy these healthy lemon muffins with strawberry sauce drizzled on them. Makes me think of pink lemonade. 🙂 I love pink lemonade!

Now that they are fresh out of the oven, I just had to try one. Couldn’t give my friend a whole bunch of muffins that taste bad now could I? Whew….my new recipe passed the taste test. Not my favorite of my muffin creations (you know I have made many), but very good indeed!

• Servings: 12-14 Muffins
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*Created by Lori at Creating Beauty in the Kitchen

Ingredients for Muffin:

• 2 3/4 cups of almond flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3 fresh lemons worth of zest
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup grapeseed oil
• 2/3 cup honey

Ingredients for Sauce:

• Strawberries
• Water
• Honey

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
• Zest your lemons
• Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl, and the wet ingredients in another. Then combine all of them together, mixing well.
• Line a muffin pan with papers, or grease it well.
• Pour the batter into each slot, 2/3 of the way full.
• Make the strawberry sauce by combining strawberries, water, and honey in a food processor. When it is smooth, put it into a pan and heat the sauce up on the stove top.
• Pour a spoonful of the sauce over each muffin.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes.

And for those of you who have missed my “blooper” behind the scene posts, here is a little insight into today’s cooking experiment:

• I cut my knuckle while zesting….not once….not twice….but three times.
• I stabbed my hand really hard with a toothpick (it is still aching.)
• And I still make a mess my friends, as evidenced by the picture below. 🙂

What kind of beauty are you creating today?

Raspberry Almond Honey Muffins

Picture me singing to the tune of “These are a few of my favorite things.” Ready? Ok, here goes…..

“These are a few of my favorite muffins”:

• Cinnamon Dark Chocolate Chip Muffins with Chocolate Cinnamon Sauce
• Orange Dark Chocolate Chip Muffins with Chocolate Orange Sauce
• Almond Blueberry Muffins with a Blueberry Almond Sauce
• Almond Honey Muffins

You all know I love creating fun, new muffin recipes. Well this one has been added to my list of favorites! I love fruit in my muffins…this one was no exception!

• Servings: 12 Muffins
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*Created by Lori at Creating Beauty in the Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 2 3/4 cups almond flour
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tbsp pure almond extract
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• Fresh Raspberries (Use frozen if needed…you will just need to add a little extra cooking time.)

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
• Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl, and the wet ingredients in another. Then combine all of them together, mixing well. Add in the raspberries.
• Line a muffin pan with papers, or grease it well.
• Pour the batter into each slot, halfway full.
• Make a little hole in each one and pour a little bit of honey into it.
• Now pour more batter to cover the honey, leaving the batter 2/3 of the way to the top.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Lemon Sour Dough French Toast with Homemade Strawberry Syrup

I LOVE french toast! There is something about the smell of it cooking on a Saturday morning…still in your pj’s, coming down the stairs with your slippers on, a cozy blanket welcoming you as you wait for this delicious treat. For some reason it makes me smile. It brings out the kid in me. It makes me think of family.

I thought it would be fun the other day to add a little twist to our normal recipe…some fresh lemon, along with some homemade syrup. The combination of lemon and strawberry…wonderful!

This french toast was delicious! And I will honestly say that even without the lemon, I love this recipe more than any other I have ever had.

So to my Fiesta Friday family…stay in your pj’s, curl up with a fleece blanket, smell the aroma of the french toast cooking, and enjoy a big plate!

• Servings: 2 People
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*Created by Lori at creatingbeautyinthekitchen.wordpress.com

Ingredients for French Toast:

• 6-8 pieces Sour Dough Bread (This is a low-glycemic bread. Use a gluten free bread if needed)
• 4 Eggs
• Almond Milk
• Honey
• Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1 Lemon for Fresh Lemon Juice

Ingredients for Syrup:

• Strawberries
• Honey

Directions:

• Combine the strawberries with the amount of honey you want in a food processor to make the syrup.
• Combine eggs, almond milk, honey, vanilla, and lemon juice in a mixing bowl.
• Grease a frying pan.
• Dip each piece of bread into the egg mixture, covering both sides.
• Cook on each side until slightly browned.
• Serve on plates, adding butter if desired, along with the syrup.

A BIG thank you, as always, to Angie at The Novice Gardener and her co-hosts this week! 

You can also find me here on Pinterest, Facebook, or Instagram.

Vanilla Muffins with a Dark Chocolate Filling

I feel like saying, “Just call me the muffin queen.” Because yes, I am bringing muffins again to the party! 😉 But don’t worry, I’ve created a new recipe that I hope you will love!

I love muffins. Muffins are fun. Muffins are versatile. You can eat them for breakfast. You can eat them for snack. You can eat them for dessert. Kids love them. Adults love them. They can be savory. They can be sweet.

When we invited a couple over for dessert, I knew right away that I would be creating a new muffin recipe. I had thoughts of what I might do running through my head all week. Then the day arrived.

It was a long day, and I made the mistake of putting my head down for “5 minutes.” Oops. I woke up an hour before they were supposed to get here. My new muffin recipe that had been percolating in my mind now had to be created at warp speed and half asleep. 😀

Imagine my hearts content when the wife stopped our conversation to say to her hubby, “I need another muffin.” And he came back with another for himself as well.

They didn’t know at the time that my muffins were: low-glycemic, no refined sugar, dairy-free, & gluten free. I love that you can have a healthy muffin that tastes so yummy that people are convinced it is full of refined sugar, etc.!

So here I come Fiesta Friday party goers with my bad-for-you tasting good-for-you muffins! 😉

• Servings: 12 muffins
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*Created by Lori at creatingbeautyinthekitchen.wordpress.com

Ingredients for Muffin:

• 3 cups almond flour
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

Ingredients for Chocolate Filling:

• Cocoa
• Honey
• Grapeseed oil
• Pure vanilla extract

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
• Mix all the dry ingredients for the muffin batter in one bowl, and the wet ingredients in another. Then combine all of them together, mixing well.
• Line a muffin pan with papers, or grease it well.
• Pour the batter into each slot, halfway full.
• Combine the cocoa, honey, grapeseed oil, and vanilla. I did this more by taste, which is why I don’t give the specifics on how much of each. It depends on how sweet you want it, etc. And note that you don’t need to make tons, just a little bowl full.
• When this is made, pour some into each muffin..
• Now pour more batter to cover the chocolate, leaving the batter 2/3 of the way to the top.
• Bake for 20- 25 minutes.

Thanks Angie….you always brighten Fridays in the blogosphere! Sylvia, and Andrea – excited you are co-hosting this week! Thanks!

Come join the party!

You can also find me here on Pinterest, Facebook, or Instagram.

Cinnamon Dark Chocolate Chip Muffins with Chocolate Cinnamon Sauce- Take 2

Cinnamon + Dark chocolate!? Love it!!

A lot of you probably haven’t seen my original recipe for these muffins, but I experimented the other day and switched it up a bit. I truly love both recipes! I do like the extra cinnamon though in this new one! 🙂

A friend of mine introduced me to grapeseed oil a while back, but I haven’t experimented with it much until recently. There has been a lot of research done suggesting that this oil has a lot of health benefits.

So, I incorporated it into this recipe, along with using agave instead of honey. I typically prefer honey over agave, but I loved the agave in this.

Both recipes are delicious and oh so moist! You choose! 😉

• Servings: about 16 muffins
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*Created by Lori at Creatingbeautyinthekitchen.wordpress.com

Ingredients for Muffins:

• 2 3/4 cup almond flour
• 2/3 cup agave
• 1/2 cup grapeseed oil
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3 eggs

Ingredients for Sauce:

• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp grapeseed oil
• 3 tbsp agave

Directions:

• Combine all the dry ingredients in one mixing bowl, and the wet in another. Then  combine them together, making sure it is well mixed.
• Put liners in 1-2 muffin trays, or you can grease them. I find liners to work best.
• Pour each muffin spot 2/3 of the way full.
• Making your sauce is simple- just add all the ingredients together and stir well.
• Pour a little sauce over each muffin.
• Add a few extra chocolate chips on top if you would like.

Have you tried using grapeseed oil?

Mexican Egg & Vegetable Breakfast Casserole

“Since we spend so much of our lives eating, preparing to eat, and cleaning up after eating, shouldn’t we put some effort and attention into making mealtimes some of the most pleasurable and memorable parts of our lives?”

This is a quote that really stood out to me from a book I am reading and loving called Simple Secrets to a Beautiful Home by Emilie Barnes.

So when I woke up on this holiday today….way too early mind you….to a house with everyone else asleep, I thought about this quote and decided to have a little fun in the kitchen for my family.

I am sure you aren’t surprised that the recipe I came up with has a Mexican flare to it…I am pretty sure my family wasn’t surprised either. 🙂

While my hubby and mom slept peacefully upstairs, I put the casserole in the oven, brewed my mom’s coffee for her, got the tea ready, made sure the table was nice, and put the candle on. I wanted my family to be blessed when they came down the stairs.

And I really think they were….other than the fact that they were both deeply asleep when I went to tell them breakfast was ready. 😉 My mom is still laughing at meeting my hubby in the hallway, both of them half asleep. 😀

• Servings: 4-5
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*Created by Lori at creatingbeautyinthekitchen.wordpress.com

Ingredients:

• 8 eggs
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 small zucchini, sliced and fourthed
• 1/4 onion diced
• Chili Powder
• Cinnamon
• 1 Tsp honey
• 1 flour tortilla, toasted (Omit this to keep it gluten free, or use a gluten free tortilla.)
• 1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
• Olive oil
• Fresh cilantro
• Cherry tomatoes

Directions:

• Pour a little bit of olive oil on the sweet potato and bake it in the microwave for 5 minutes.
• Meanwhile, take the sliced zucchini and diced onion and saute them in a skillet with some olive oil.
• Toast the tortilla and rip it into little pieces.
• When the sweet potato is done, carefully pull chunks out of it, leaving the skin behind.
• Put your eggs in a large mixing bowl with the chili powder, cinnamon, honey, tortilla strips, black beans, sweet potatoes, and the rest of the vegetables. Mix thoroughly.
• Pour into a casserole dish and bake on 350 degrees. Depending on the size dish you use, the cook time will fluctuate. I used a small, deep dish, so it took about 45 minutes. It would be much better to use a larger, wider one where the cook time will be much less, probably around 20-25 min.
• Serve with fresh tomatoes and cilantro.

Vanilla Cherry Chocolate Chip Muffins with a Cherry Sauce

I have always loved the combination of fruit and chocolate. When I was a child and was given a box of chocolates, I would take a bite of each one and set it back if it wasn’t filled with the taste of orange or raspberry or cherry. Looking back, I am sure hoping those boxes of chocolate were mine alone or else someone got a fun surprise when they opened the box and saw that they all had a bite out of them. Reminds me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears….except it would go something like this, “Someone’s been eating my chocolates!” 😉

From the mouth of my mom when she tasted these: mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm. That does a girl’s heart good when someone moans their delight the entire time they are eating! 🙂

She said, “All’s I can say is WOW!! That was the most scrumptious breakfast I’ve ever had!”

When I asked her if she would ever guess that these are gluten free or don’t have refined sugar in them, she said, “It never would have crossed my mind.”

The final words from my mom, “I am saving the rest for lunch!” 🙂

How could I not bring something my mom loved so much to Fiesta Friday?! Of course I had to make an extra batch for you all, because mom won’t let me give away the rest of hers! 😉

• Servings: 12 muffins
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*Created by Lori @ Creating Beauty in the Kitchen 

Ingredients:

• 2 3/4 cups almond flour
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup honey + 1/4 for the sauce
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 10 fresh red cherries + 11 for the sauce
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• Wash and chop up the cherries.
• Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, and the wet ingredients in another. Combine the two, mixing well.
• Add in the cherries and chocolate chips.
• Use liners or grease a muffin pan.
• Pour the batter 3/4 of the way full in each slot.
• To make sauce, blend the 11 cherries with 1/4 cup honey (I ended up with extra sauce).
• Pour sauce over the top of each muffin.
• Cook for 25 minutes.

Happy Fiesta Friday Friends! Can you believe it is already Angie’s 30th?!! Wow! Speaking of the lovely Angie, I hope you know how grateful we are for you! And to your co-hosts….the party wouldn’t be the same without you!

Come join the fun…all are welcome…foodies, crafters, photographers, writers, etc……just click on the icon below.

Creamy Tomato, Eggs, Basil, & Sausage Skillet

It makes me so happy when I create something that my hubby absolutely loves! And this was one of those recipes.

I really don’t know why I chose what I did to put in this breakfast dish, but it worked out….really well! Yay! I love making my hubby a really good and creative breakfast to start his day! 🙂

• Servings: 2-3 People
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*Created by Lori at Creating Beauty in the Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 5 eggs
• 1/4 yellow onion
• 1 1/2 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp red cooking wine
• Crushed red pepper
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 3 heaping tbsp refrigerated, thick coconut milk
• 1 sausage chopped up (I used a sun dried tomato and provolone chicken sausage)
• A handful of mozzarella cheese
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 flour tortillas toasted and torn into pieces (Substitute with gluten free tortillas for my gluten free friends.)
• Fresh basil
• 2 cloves fresh garlic

Directions:

• Use a garlic press to mince the garlic.
• Dice the onion.
• Chop the sausage into small pieces.
• Chop up the fresh basil.
• Pour the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add in the garlic and onions. I let this cook for about 5 minutes I think…and then added in the sausage until it was heated through.
• Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, put the can of tomatoes, honey, cooking wine, coconut milk, cheese, and some crushed pepper and begin heating over medium heat.
• When the sausage/garlic/onions are ready, pour them into the other saucepan where you have been heating up the red sauce. Let cook together for 5-10 minutes.
• Then pour all of it back into the large skillet.
• Add in the eggs, making sure not to break the yokes.
• Cook the eggs until the whites are white and not opaque. (Depending on how done you want your eggs will effect what you do next. If you want your yoke runny, you will want to make sure to move onto the next step while the yoke is still runny. If not, cook longer.)
• Sprinkle the feta cheese throughout the skillet.
• Turn your oven onto Broil. Unless your pan can tolerate the high heat, leave the door open and your handle out as you broil the dish for about 2 minutes. Like I have mentioned before, make sure you use a skillet that is safe to do this with, and be careful that the handle doesn’t get too hot. You may need to grab it with a pot holder, even though it has been outside the oven.
• Toast the tortillas and break them into small pieces.
• Serve on a plate & sprinkle eggs and sauce with tortilla pieces.

Tomato Basil Mini Quiches

I love making fun and new breakfasts! Make some crust, add some cheese, fresh vegetables, fresh herbs, homemade marinara sauce, and some eggs and you are good to go! 🙂 A very tasty breakfast that will promise to be more exciting than bacon and eggs. 😉

• Servings: 3 people
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*Created by Lori at Creating Beauty in the Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 1 cup almond flour
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• Homemade Marinara Sauce….see my recipe HERE
• Fresh cherry tomatoes, halved
• Fresh Romano cheese
• Fresh basil
• Fresh carrots, shredded
• 6 eggs

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Combine the coconut, almond flour, and salt. In another bowl, combine the honey and butter.
• Once they are mixed well combine them together.
• Spread out the crust in  greased Mini pie pan.
• Add the marinara sauce, cheese, tomatoes, carrots and basil.
• Put one egg in each one.
• Cook until eggs are finished. Watch your crust and make sure it doesn’t burn.

Italian Breakfast Quesadilla

Hubby and I had just gotten back into town, which meant our house wasn’t yet full with food to eat. I didn’t mind though, it just gave me another opportunity to be creative. 🙂

I saw that we had some homemade marinara sauce waiting to be used up, and we had some eggs….so off I went! 🙂

The result was this super easy and delicious breakfast!

Yes, I recognize the combination of ingredients may seem weird, but they go so well together! I truly could eat this every morning! 🙂

• Servings: 2 People
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*Created by Lori at Creating Beauty in the Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• Homemade marinara sauce – We love this!
• Red cooking Wine (I decided to add a bit to the sauce to give it an extra rich flavor for this breakfast dish..loved it!)
• Mozarrela Cheese
• 2 flour tortillas (Use Gluten free ones if needed.)

Directions:

• Once your marinara sauce is made (I keep extra in my freezer), then put it in a large skillet and heat on medium.
• Add some red wine and mix well. Stir occasionally until the sauce is heated through.
• Make some open space for 4 different eggs, making sure not to break the yolk as well as making sure the eggs don’t touch one another. Let cook until the whites are white and not opaque. Turn your oven onto Broil. Unless your pan can tolerate the high heat, leave the door open and your handle out as you broil the dish for about 2 minutes. Make sure you use a skillet that is safe to do this with, and be careful that the handle doesn’t get too hot. You may need to grab it with a pot holder, even though it has been outside the oven.
• Turn your oven onto Broil. Unless your pan can tolerate the high heat, leave the stove door open and your handle out as you broil the dish for about 2 minutes. Make sure you use a skillet that is safe to do this with, and be careful that the handle doesn’t get too hot. You may need to grab a pot holder, even though it has been outside the oven.
• Meanwhile, toast four tortillas until they are a little crisp.
• When eggs are cooked, add eggs and sauce onto a tortilla. Sprinkle it with mozzarella cheese and then cover with another tortilla.
• Enjoy!