Rainbow Blog

Pinkalicious Muffins

posted by: Kia

I’ve had the huge pleasure of connecting with Alysia Reiner on Twitter and I’m so excited that she wrote a guest blog post for us!!!  Alysia is an award winning actress, producer, mother, humanitarian, and outspoken environmentalist.  If you are on twitter you will definitely want to follow her @alysiareiner 

Enjoy her post and let us know if you make some Pinkalicious Muffins!

My daughter loves the book Pinkalicious.  She loves to spin around  saying ‘ I am surrounded by butterflies and bees!’ or  say “more more more momma!” – both lines from the book.

I wanted to make her pink cupcakes like in the book, but had to get creative to skip all the sugar and artifical stuff…

We are part of a CSA ( http://www.localharvest.org/csa/)  and have gotten a lot of beets and sweet  squashes ( butternut, delicata, pumpkin etc).  I read a great recipe  for butternut squash muffins on Prudent Baby’s blog and got an idea…so I tinkered with some  recipes and played scientist in the kitchen & voila!  Healthy Pinkalicious ‘cupcake’ muffins!

First roast your  squash ( any sweet squash will do) & beets. Pre-heat the oven to 350. Cut your squash in half,  coat with a bit of olive oil and place in a pan. Roast for about 30-40 minutes until it is nice and soft. Let it cool for a bit, then scrape out the insides. You can use some for these muffins, mix some into pancake batter, make ice cream with it, mix it with spices and milk for a yummy puree, etc. etc.

For the beets, I scrub well & roast in the skin & then peel once cooled. I find it much less messy that way. 

Muffin Ingredients
1/2 cup mashed roasted butternut squash
1/2 cup cubed roasted beets
1/2 cup organic flour ( I use a great gluten free one from bob’s mill)
1/2 cup organic quick oats
1/2 cup  organic flax meal
2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
cinnamon & ginger & nutmeg to taste ( depending on how spicy you like it)
1 tbls melted organic butter
3/4 cup  organic milk
1 organic egg
1/4 cup of goji berries ( very pink once cooked!)

topping:
trader joes reduced sugar organic strawberry jam

Muffin Directions
-Preheat the oven to 400.
-Whisk together the dry ingredients
-Beat the egg, then stir in the milk, butter, beets and roasted butternut squash – I then used my magic bullet to whip them to a pulp & make um super smooth
-Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and DON’T MIX TOO MUCH (will make your muffins heavy and they are already pretty heavy), just until they are combined
-Pour into greased or papered 12-muffin pan
-top each with a nice  dollop of strawberry jam
-Bake for 20 minutes. These muffins will look done on the top, but may need a minute or two more to bake, you want them fully cooked on the inside since they are sort of rich and heavy. If you take them out too early they will be a bit rubbery (though still yummy).
-Let them cool completely before eating.

Enjoy!

Alysia Reiner is an award-winning stage, screen  & television actress.  Recent films include THE VICIOUS KIND (Sundance 2009, exec.producer Neil LaBute), Not For Nothing, Arranged, Schooled, One Last Thing, Sideways (as Christine, Jack’s fiance – SAG award winner for outstanding performance – ensemble cast).  TV includes recurring role of Cindy on The Starter Wife,  30 Rock, White Collar, The Sopranos, Blue Bloods, Law & Order, Law & Order:SVU, Law & Order:CI, Love Monkey, The Jury, The Drew Cary Show, The Practice, Family Law and Jack & Jill, series lead in the pilot Englishman in NY & Amy Harris’ (of Sex & The City ) new web series Puppy Love.  Recent Theatre includes Tina Modotti in MODOTTI, Hillary ( The Public), The Obie winning An Oak Tree, Jayson with a Y(The New Group), Anais Nin:One of her Lives, Wasps in Bed, PENTECOST (Drama Desk Nom.), Tender ( NY Premiere).

 And as a new momma, she was also featured on Celebrity Baby Scoop, Best for Babes, Ruby Pinwheels, and was a celeb guest scout on Stroller Traffic.

http://www.alysiareiner.com