Oh, it’s been ages since I’ve posted a recipe, hasn’t it? I’m back in action these days. My quest for the perfect healthy-but-still-yummy breakfast treat has been long and arduous, taking me from breakfast cookies to make-ahead muesli to all manner of homemade and store-bought bars. What I want, generally, for breakfast is a massive cookie from Gaia in Grand Rapids, and Bread & Wine does have my best estimation of that magical cookie. 

But I can’t really make a case for butter and flour and chocolate first thing in the morning, especially since 2013 is, for me, the year of being all healthy and grown up, and specifically NOT doing things like eating cookies for breakfast every morning, as much as I’d like to.

These muffins are grain-free, dairy-free, sugar-free. No sweetener of any kind, no oil, no flour. If you’re a Paleo person, these are indeed paleo-friendly.

The pumpkin-banana part of the recipe always stays the same, and then you get to decide on a cup of fresh or frozen fruit, and then a cup of dry mix-ins—chocolate chips, dried fruit, nuts. We use frozen blueberries, and I can't wait to try them with fresh peaches in the summer. Instead of conventional flour, I use almond meal--not almond flour. Almond flour costs a fortune, but Trader Joe's sells almond meal, rough and dense and lovely--and affordable!--in the nuts & dried fruits section. If you're going grain-free or gluten-free, almond meal is your new best friend. 

These are extremely virtuous muffins, although if you’d like to add some dark chocolate chips, I would never try to stop you. It adds that perfect bitter, melty nugget every few bites in the middle of all that healthiness. Or you could stay on the straight & narrow and add walnuts and raisins and chopped dates as your dry mix-ins. I've tried them both ways, and while I do love the dark chocolate bits, raisins and dried cherries and walnuts are great, too. 

Here’s the recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a large bowl, mix together:

3 bananas, the browner the better, mashed

½ can pumpkin puree (about 1 ½ cups)

2 eggs, beaten

Then add:

2 cups almond meal

1 tsp salt

1 ½ tsp baking soda

And mix again. Then add:

1 cup frozen blueberries (or another fresh or frozen fruit)

½ cup walnuts & ½ cup dark chocolate chips 

      (or one cup of whatever dry mix-ins you like—nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips)

Mix well, and then spoon batter into 12 greased muffin cups, and bake at 350 for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

Let cool in the pan, and then eat these healthy lovely muffins with a cup of Irish Breakfast tea or coffee with lots of almond milk, and then feel like one million dollars for having made the healthiest muffins on the planet.