A Gluten Free Fall Favorite!

Many of my Facebook friends have seen my post on this one and the picture to go with it and have demanded that I put the recipe online.  So, here it is, my reciped for Pumpkin Cinnamon Cream Cheese Muffins!  These muffins are both Gluten free and Sugar free! I am big into cooking/baking improvisation so I will list the recipe but also put notes in to show you how exactly I did it.


Recipe:

Muffins -
1 1/4 Cup Almond Flour  *(I actually used 1 cu. Almond and 1/4 cu. Coconut flour to test consistency..turned out great!  You don't have to mix, however, to get a great product. I swear by Almond flour.)
1/4 Cup Flax Seeds
1 Can unsweetened Organic Pumpkin (or unsweetened reg pumpkin if you can't find organic)
2 Teaspoons Aluminum Free Baking Powder
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
1 Teaspoon Nutmeg (I used Ginger here instead, which gave it just a hint of a zing.)
1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt
2/3 Cup Stevia or Xylitol (DO NOT USE SUGAR!)
4 Large eggs, beaten
1/2 Cup water
1 Tablespoon Pure Vanilla

Cream Cheese Filling -
1 8 oz pkg Whole Fat Cream Cheese
2 Tablespoons Cinnamon
2 Teaspoons Pure Vanilla
1/4 Cup Stevia or Truvia
1/2 Cup Chopped Pecans or Walnuts (for topping)

Directions for Muffins:

-Pre-heat oven to 350 F
- Mix together all dry ingredients thoroughly
- Mix together all wet ingredients thoroughly
- Combine all wet and dry ingredients in large mixing bowl and mix together thoroughly
-Allow batter to stand for 10 minutes
-Separate batter into muffin tins in muffin pan.  Batter should yield 1 dozen muffins
-Bake for 15 minutes before adding Cream Cheese filling

Directions for Cream Cheese Filling:

-Allow Cream Cheese to acclimate to room temperature so that it is soft and pliable
-Once Cream Cheese is ready, place into mixing bowl with Stevia, Cinnamon, and Vanilla
-With stand alone mixer or hand mixer, beat together ingredients until whipped consistency emerges.  Taste test for sweetness and flavor,adjust sugar and cinnamon to desired taste.
-If you have a piping bag, place mixture in piping bag with metal spout.  If you don't have a piping bag you can use a ziplock bag (which I did!).  Just place all the mixture into a quart size zip lock bag, securely close the bag, forcing all of the mixture into one of the corners. Using scissors, cut the corner tip off of the bag and you'll have a homemade piping bag!

Piping Muffins:

-At the 15 Minute mark take the cupcakes out and use the handle end of an egg beater, meat fork, or any other kitchen utensil that you can find that will make a hole in the middle of the muffin. 
-Use utensil to put hole in middle of muffin.  While hole is visible, use the piping bag to pipe cream cheese into the middle of each muffin. You'll want to fill it to just overflowing so that you have some on top of the muffin.
-Once you have all cream cheese piped, sprinkle chopped pecans or walnuts over each muffin.  These nuts add a great extra crunch to the finished product.
-Place muffins back in the oven and back for approximately 5-10 more minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
-Take muffins out and allow to cool.  ENJOY!


This all may sound very complicated but I can tell you I whipped these up on the fly with 10 minutes of prep time and then actual bake time.  They are super easy and everyone who has had them thus far has fallen in love with them!

Yahoo Article Commentary

I love when I pop onto Yahoo! and find some sort of story on "7 Cosmetic Items to Avoid" or "Does Caffiene Make You Fat?"  Being a newly deemed "Health Queen", my curiosity can not help but be piqued by such titles.  Now, you must know that I do not look at Yahoo! News as any source of viable reporting, but I do find it interesting to see what they are peddling to the unassuming public.

Today I stumbled across this enticing story entitled Diet Foods that Make You Fat:

http://health.yahoo.net/articles/nutrition/photos/diet-foods-that-make-you-fat#1

In this article the writers highlight several foods or ingredients found in many foods that can cause weight gain instead of loss.  There's nothing too terribly medically founded here and really, anyone who has watched Dr. Oz more than once already knows about all of these, but I wanted to highlight a few that I thought were interesting.

First? Their #1 "Diet Food" making people fat was Fast Food Salads.  Nothing about the words "Fast-Food-Salad" rings a "HEALTHY" bell in my mind, but ok Yahoo!, let's consider it.  The average Joe or Jolene will visit a fastfood joint or a sit down restaurant and think that if they are going to eat healthy then the best they can do is eat a salad, right? WRONG. Consider that most restaurant salads contain over 1,000 calories and 30-60 grams of fat. How about just cutting out Fast Food altogether? Fast Food is just what it suggests, FAST.  And you want to know why it's fast?  Because it takes all of 20 seconds to nuke a processed meat patty, throw it on a high carb low nutrient bun, and throw some chemically inhanced produce and condiments on in.  Sounds yummy right? You CAN eat healthy at regular sit-down restaurants but it takes work and it takes speaking up and custom ordering items to keep your plate as healthy as possible.  Your best bet?  Keep most of your meals on the dinner table at home, made in your kitchen from ingredients that YOU purchased and put together, and save going out to dinner for special occassions.  It's time America got back in the kitchen and started taking some ownership of their meals!




Next?  Frozen and boxed meals or meal fixing products.  Can we stamp a big fat "DUH" sticker on this one? If you check the boxes on your average "Hungry Man" meal you'll find insane amounts of sodium, trans fats, cholesterol, sugar, etc.  You'll also find a box ful of processed "pseudo food" that does nothing but act as a placebo to your stomach to make you think you're full and satisfied when all you've really done is pumped your body full of chemicals and additives. Nothing about that is making you thinner, it's making you sicker. Fresh food is the way to go! "But that takes too much time! I need to be able to pack something fast for work!"  It takes no longer to pack a healthy lunch that you've prepared ahead of time than it does to pull a box of junk out of the freezer.




Another gem? If you see the words "Fat-Free" or "Low Fat" or "Sugar Free"  run in the opposite direction! These labels are a nice little trick that marketing firms came up with to peddle more worthless, toxic, product.  You HAVE to read labels!  Don't trust marketing.  Marketing never made anyone healthy.  Most "Fat-Free" products are laced with other flavor enhancers, sodium, and all sorts of other items to make them taste even half way decent...which never works, they still taste awful. Even "Low Fat" does this.  And " Sugar-Free"?  Forget it.  All you'll find there is chemically enchanced sugar substitutes, fake ingredients, and a hot mess. Eat healthy fats like nuts, cook with healthy fats like Olive Oil and Coconut Oil.  Use Stevia to sweeten your cooking or baking.  I've created delicious masterpeieces with these things.  They aren't hard to find nor are they expensive!
Watch out for added ingredients in your favorite so called "health foods" and see where you can make a switch.  Ditch "low fat" flavored yogurts....filled to the brim with aspertame and chemicals.  Instead pick up whole milk, full fat, unsweetened yogurt and flavor it with fresh berries, nuts, and a dash of cinnamon and Stevia!  You NEED the healthy fats found in yogurt.  Don't skip out on the essential fats you need for your body to function! Skip the "low fat" cottage cheeses too.  You need the full milk fat!




My last one? SUGAR!!! Let's face it, especially if you're on the Maximized Living Advanced Plan like me, you KNOW that sugar is in everything.  Oh Sugar, how America consumes thee, let me count the ways...:
-Salad dressing
-Cereal
-Candy
-Fruit Juice
-Pop
-Canned foods
-Mixes and boxed food
-Snack bars, fruit snacks
-Yogurt, milk, cottage cheese

I could go on and on, because the list certainly does, but you get my point. Sugar is killing us! The average American consumes over 12 tablespoons of sugar in one 24 hour period versus the recommended 6 teaspoons. Yikes! We're all walking around in sugar commas! Is it any wonder we're fat, depressed, hyper active, unable to concentrate, lethargic, achy, injury prone, and just plain sick all the time? Read up on what health experts have to say about the toxic effects of sugar on the body and you'll think twice about picking up that next Diet Coke or Snicker's bar. Just sayin'




Be Green and Live Healthy Today!