Sneaky Blood Orange Cacao Muffins

Because blood orange cacao muffins wouldn’t be good enough as it is that I had to make them sneaky. How? By adding a large cup of fresh kale to the mix. Seriously, if you didn’t see me baking these, you would have no idea that there was a healthy serving of greens in there. The kids were with me, so they saw, but it didn’t stop them from chowing down once they were out of the oven!

A a kid I did not like fruit in my chocolate. It was a flavor/texture thing. And I did not like nuts in my chocolate either. It was a waste-of-space thing. A big almond in my chocolate bar meant less chocolate. Ummm no thanks. My how times have changed!! I love chocolate so much I will eat it with almost anything. That is why it is so fun for me to come up with all kids of creations. Wether or not I am original in my pairings, it is still a fun process 🙂

I think blood oranges have a natural raspberry flare to them. Somewhat sweet, somewhat tangy. So last minute, once the batter was all ready to go into the muffin tins, I decided to accentuate that flavor by adding whole raspberries to the mix. A total win.

I won’t even lie and tell you that when my son didn’t feel like eating his salad for dinner, I justified not asking him to by saying “He had 3 muffins today, that’s a decent amount of greens.” Ha! Ninja parenting makes my life easier!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour ( I mixed garbanzo and buckwheat)
• 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup cacao powder, depending on how chocolatey you like things
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds soaked in 1/2 cup water for 10-20 minutes
• 1 cup blood orange juice
• 1 TBS blood orange zest
• 1/2 coconut oil
• 1 1/2 TBS apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup chopped fresh kale
• 1 cup raspberries, fresh or frozen then thawed

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325*F
• grind flax seeds in coffee grinder if needed and soak in water
• combine first 4 ingredients in a large bowl
• combine the rest of the ingredients minus the raspberries, in a blender
• blend until the kale is well broken down
• mix wet ingredients with dry ingredients
• slowly fold in raspberries as to not have them break down too much
• grease your muffin tins
• bake for 10-12 minutes for mini muffins or probably around 18-20 minutes for regular size muffins

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The Snack Plate

It’s 10:30 am on a saturday. The kids have been up for several hours. They have had breakfast and snacked on fruit. Yet they keep on asking for food. I don’t like refusing them food because I don’t want to pretend to know when they are hungry or not, but I also do not want to be serving them food all day and then have them not eat at meal times. My remedy? The beautiful, nutritious Snack Plate.

I tell them if they are hungry they can eat as much as they like on this plate. I make it a point of not putting any fruit because I know that that is all they would eat and although fruit has many benefits, it is still loaded with sugar and I do not want them eating that all day long either. I try and feed them a balanced diet, and providing this kind of snack plate makes it that they have no other option but eat vegetables if they are hungry. It works. This morning there were only 2 and a half celery sticks left on this plate by the time lunch came around. They weren’t super hungry for lunch, but since they had already eaten a good serving of fresh vegetables, I didn’t really care how much they ate. It takes away from my worrying if they are getting enough veggies in their diet, and it also takes away from the stress of constantly asking them to eat their vegetables during meal times. If all they wanted for lunch was eggs and potatoes, that’s fine by me.

Kids love to snack. Heck, I do to. Keeping healthy convenient food around makes snacking a nutritious stress free thing. Plus, as snacking can often be a mindless habit, it is even better to have this kind of food available for my kids. If they are watching a movie and want to snack during, putting a plate of fresh veggies guarantees they will eat them, because they barely pay attention to what they are putting in their mouth while watching a movie. This is Ninja Parenting right here folks 😉

The better we eat at home, the more relaxed I can be with our diet when we are out. And I love being relaxed about my diet when when we are out 🙂