Fun with Muffin Tins

As I've mentioned before, one of my goals this summer is to make at least one new recipe each week.  This week, I've run into a bit of a theme where many of my meals have been made in a muffin tin!

We started with an old stand-by in our house: Mini Muffin Quiche.  Okay, they're probably really frittatas since I don't make a crust, but anyway . . .

I love this dish for many reasons.  Evelyn LOVES these little delicacies and will gobble them down like rapid fire, plus they're full of power foods which are awesome for her growth and development.  Also, they serve as amazing leftovers and can be reheated the next day for either breakfast or lunch.

Okay, so the recipe is as follows (adapted from a recipe I found on Weelicious last summer):

• Spray muffin tin with that handy extra-virgin olive oil cooking spray stuff and pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Whisk five eggs with about 1/4 cup of milk and about 1/2 cup of ricotta cheese.  Season to your preference.
• Add any vegetables.  This particular batch had spinach (3 cups pre-cooked with the water drained like crazy), 1 diced tomato, and chopped black olives.  I also added fresh shredded mozzarella.
• Pour into muffin tin.  Be sure to fill only halfway because they will rise!
• Cook for 25 to 30 minutes or so (or until a nice golden brown).

This morning, with the temperatures being so cool, Evelyn and I decided to use up some of our ripening produce and bake.  We took an old stand-by banana bread recipe with the intent of folding blueberries into the batter.  As we got going, I realized that our three little ripened bananas wouldn't have been enough to yield the two cups of mashed banana so we added some applesauce to the banana (and cut the 2 eggs to 1).  My, oh my . . .were these ever a toddler hit!

  Yummy, yummy.

Tonight's original dinner plans included MORE muffin tins (mini ground turkey meat-loaves) but we decided to treat Evelyn to a date out with Mommy and Daddy instead.  We hit up a local Salad bistro (where the kid's meal is practically as large as an adult-serving - ahh!), visited a local kiddie amusement park, and finished the night off with some fro-yo.    If these temperatures keep up, then I'll give the turkey muffin meatloaves a try tomorrow!