I was talking to my friend Elisa the other day, and we were briefly discussing how my boy is such a picky eater right now. She asked if I ever try to hide vegetables in things that he'll eat...and I guess I've perused the books, but no, I really don't. I did have some zucchini in the fridge, and did buy some blueberries this morning, so when I got home from the store I immediately searched Epicurious.com for "zucchini blueberry".
Not one recipe contained both ingredients. But when I Googled the same thing, tons of links immediately popped up referring me to recipes posted on blog sites. One of the first on the list was MayaMade's recipe for Lemon Zucchini Blueberry Muffins. I made them right away, and they were perfect. I was out of lemons, so they were lemonless, but I really was surprised at how moist they were for having only wheat flour. She said to use whole wheat pastry flour, but I just used regular whole wheat flour to good effect.
The recipe made 12 regular muffins, and I got 7 mini muffins out of the rest of the batter. I guess I should have hid veg in muffins earlier since my boy-o ate 4 mini muffins straight away and wanted another one after lunch. I didn't feel too bad letting him have so many either since there is no refined sugar in the recipe, just maple syrup. Thanks to MayaMade for a really great blog and recipe! This is another one to be earmarked for future use.
The inside of the muffin, pleasantly studded with green zucchini.
And true to my word, and I did dream of this lunch (along with trains...)last night. First off, the black krim heirloom tomatoes I grew this year are amazingly great. I never had one before, and they are so sweet and tomatoey. I toasted my bread, and tossed it with the tomatoes, a little olive oil and balsamic, s&p and basil and had it with my now 3 day old cranberry beans. The 3 day is the charm for these beans I think. I promptly froze them in their perfect state after lunch, since even I can not eat a whole pot of beans inside of a week.
Please make Jamie Oliver's recipe for these beans. You'll thank me and yourself that you did. I'd wager that you could really use any type of bean - though he suggests cranberry beans, or cannellini beans.
When I pull these from the freezer on some unknown day in the future when I don't know what I'll be having for dinner, I know I'll be so happy all over again.