If you have a picky eater (ehm, toddler) in your life, chances are he or she may go through phases of not wanting to eat vegetables. They mostly will be open to eating cookies or muffins, so as a creative mom I put together a "paleo" real food version of a cookie with some veggies snuck in there and a go-to pumpkin muffin recipe that turned out to be a hit as well. Both of these are great as a breakfast too, full of protein and good fats and have just a little bit of REAL maple syrup to add some sweetness. We don't eat a lot of sweet in our house, so you can dial it up or back based on how you and your family eats.
Paleo Pumpkin Muffins
Now my toddler's actual favorite muffin recipe (for the record I have not let him have a muffin from a bakery) is this Paleo Pumpkin muffin recipe below. One day we were making muffins and I realized I was out of pumpkin, so we subbed chopped apples and some applesauce and made apple cinnamon muffins...I thought they were quite good, he didn't like them :P
Ingredients:
6 eggs
1/2 cup of canned pumpkin (just pumpkin)
4 - 6 Tablespoons of melted coconut oil
2 Tablespoons of unsweetened apple sauce
2 Tablespoons of real maple syrup (if you want them sweet-ish)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup of coconut flour
Coconut oil spray / butter / coconut oil to "grease" the pans or use silicone baking trays
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
In a glass bowl add coconut oil and melt in the microwave (this is easiest!), then add the eggs, pumpkin, maple syrup, vanilla, and applesauce and whisk together. Get all of the lumps out too, the mixture should be light even with the pumpkin in it.
In a smaller bowl mix together the dry ingredients: coconut flour, baking powder, and spices. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, whisking as you go. Coconut flour gets lumpy (and has a 3:1 egg ratio a per regular flour which means it's really absorbent if you dump it all in at once, its hard to get the lumps out - I did this and you can see its a little lumpy). I used a hand whisk, if you want to be fancy you can use a hand blender, not so fancy just use a spoon.
Put into you muffin tray, use muffin cups or not, or try a silicon muffin "pan" you'll still need to put it on a baking sheet but it's fantastic - nothing sticks so your muffins are perfect everytime and clean up is MUCH easier.
You can add toppings to your muffins too - crushed pecans, slivered almonds, mini chocolate chips....or leave them as is.
Good news is that these cookies turned out better than I expected, and are toddler approved, oh and big person approved too :) The ingredients are simple and similar to some muffins, they did have a cake-like texture, you could probably put this same recipe in muffin cups - I'd do the mini muffin ones.
Raisin (Zucchini and Carrot) Cookies
Ingredients:
3/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 to 1/2 cup REAL maple syrup (grade A or B)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or sub cinnamon and nutmeg)
1 cup shredded zucchini (I used one large one)
1/2 cup shredded carrots (I used two big carrots)
2 cups almond flour or almond meal
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
Handful of raisins
Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl (spices, almond flour, baking powder and baking soda)
In a glass bowl melt the coconut oil, then add the maple syrup, vanilla, and eggs and whisk together.
In a food processor, finely chop the zucchini and carrots (I recommend doing this separately since the carrots will require more pulsing). Add the chopped veggies to the wet ingredients and stir together. Once mixed, add the dry ingredients as well. Add raisins last (if you want them).
Drop cookies onto cookie sheet, you can use parchment paper to safely non-stick or a safe ceramic pan. You can grease the pan with coconut oil as well.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes (all ovens are different) want to be cooked all the way through.
