Vegan Gluten Free Teff Breakfast Muffins

I baked Ella some oatmeal muffins the other night & had been giving them to her for breakfast with a little wild blueberry jam spread on it. But now that she can't have oatmeal, I went on the hunt for another kind of muffin to give her. We've got activities almost every morning now and I need something that she can feed herself while I make and eat my own breakfast, pack the diaper bag, warm up the car, etc. She's apparently over pancakes and wants nothing to do with them now. She doesn't love toast...unless it has melted goat cheese on it.

I found a recipe for Gluten Free Teff Muffins on nourishingmeals.com and thought it'd be perfect. We got about an inch of snow last night and it was enough to cause a 90-minute delay in our school system which cancelled our Early Learning program this morning. I thought I'd take advantage of being "snowed-in" and bake some muffins. They were very easy to make, both Ella and I can eat them, they are yummy and they're packed with lots of good for us things like fiber, protein, complex carbs and vitamins. But did I mention they taste good too?

There are lots of ways to alter this recipe to mix it up a bit. I just used grated carrot and chopped apple since I can't have raisins and Ella hasn't had tree nuts yet. The original recipe suggests that sunflower and pumpkin seeds can also replace the nuts in this recipe so maybe next time we'll try the pumpkin seeds.

Ingredients
2 cups teff flour
½ cup tapioca flour
2 Tbsp ground flax seeds
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp xanthan gum
½ tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
¾ cup unsweetened apple juice
½ cup applesauce
½ cup maple syrup
⅓ cup EVOO
½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
½ cup raisins (optional)
1 cup grated carrots
1 small tart apple, diced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil a 12-cup muffin pan.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, add the teff flour, tapioca flour, ground flax, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, sea salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Whisk together well.

In another mixing bowl, whisk together the apple juice, applesauce, maple syrup, and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk together. Then add the grated carrots and diced apples (and nuts & dried fruit, if using). Continue to mix with a large wooden spoon until all of the ingredients are combined. Be sure to not over mix the batter!

Spoon batter into oiled muffin cups and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes. Cool muffins on a wire rack

Rice is nice.

I had another follow up with Dr. Natural yesterday and I used the opportunity to ask about the rash around Ella's mouth. It's been going on since November-ish and doesn't ever go away though some days are better than others. Recently I've started slathering A&D Ointment on it at night which seems to help a lot but I hate the idea of putting petroleum on her face. We took the pacifier away in the beginning of December, hoping that would help since it was right in the pacifier region. Unfortunately, that was successful at doing nothing but pissing her off. Dr. Natural seems to think the rash is an allergic reaction from the oatmeal that I have been giving her. I know I really shouldn't because it can contain traces of wheat but I'm so desperate for things that this kid WILL eat that I was hoping that the traces would be minimal enough that it wouldn't be an issue -- especially since her wheat RAST was only 0.55. Oh well, guess I'll have to try my luck with a different hot breakfast cereal and pray that taking away the oatmeal makes a difference in her rash.

Then we moved onto me; Dr. Natural seems very pleased with my progress. My weight loss has leveled off, which is great. My current weight is the goal weight I had set for myself before our wedding and I am quite comfortable with this number. I expressed my frustration with the fact that this elimination diet has been very difficult to do on a budget and the prospect of keeping this up for another 4-7 months is pretty overwhelming. After talking it out, she agreed to let me start re-introducing some foods!!! She said I can start with rice and go from there, waiting a week in between new foods and only eating my triggers every four days so as not to re-sensitize myself to them. I'm beyond ecstatic and can't wait to have some brown rice with our pork chops tonight! This opens up a whole world of gluten free products that have been off-limits until now.