Lindsay's Double Chocolate Muffins...

Yes...  Those are monkeys in the background.

This morning, I placed a container of 8 muffins on the file cabinet by Betsy's cubicle, and I sent the following email to all 8 of my co-workers in my department:

Good morning,

There are some homemade chocolate chocolate chip muffins over by Betsy.  You are all welcome to help yourself, as there's enough for everybody.  They contain no white flour, no eggs, no butter, no oil...  but LOTS of flavor... 

Oh, wait...  I seem to remember a few days ago that Emily made some comment that chocolate chips shouldn't be in muffins.  With that in mind, we have one extra.  We'll have a drawing at the end of the day to see who gets the extra muffin... 

Help yourself!

Within minutes, I had a handful of emails in my Inbox from appreciative co-workers, thanking me for the mid-morning goodies.  And then, the floodgates opened up, as the positive feedback came roaring into my cubicle from all directions.

     "These are DELICIOUS!" said Ashley.

     "Dave, these are really good," Evan added.

     "Wow...  These ARE good...  No eggs?  No BUTTER?"  Even our supervisor Lisa was impressed.  "Let me guess...  Applesauce...  right?  That's gotta be applesauce."

     "Good guess," I said

     "Did yo' wuf make veeve?" Abby asked, with her mouth full.

     "Uh, no.  I made them.  I CAN cook, ya' know."

     "I've got to try one of these," said Emily, as she headed over to the muffins on the file cabinet.

     "Um...  Emily.  YOU don't get a muffin," Abby piped up.  "Didn't you read the email?"

     "But I was talking about chocolate chips in store-bought muffins.  I'll try ANY homemade goodie."

     "Whatevs," Abby said, rolling her eyes.

     "Of course you can have a muffin," I said.  "Help yourself.  Abby, stop being such a miserable human being."

     "It's what I do, Dave."

With that, I emailed the following update to all my co-workers:

We have an update regarding the Muffin drawing.  Unfortunately...  it's been canceled.

Emily just clarified with me that she doesn't usually care for chocolate chips in 'store-bought' items.  However, she's always glad to sample chocolate chips in homemade goodies.

So there will be no muffin drawing...  but enjoy the sunshine!

More monkeys...

My co-workers were right.  These muffins ARE delicious, and they don't contain any oil, butter, eggs, white sugar, or white flour.

The recipe comes courtesy of Lindsay Nixon over at her Happy Herbivore blog.

During my three-month hibernation, I did quite a bit of reading about the liberal use of olive oil in cooking and baking, why olive oil is not really a heart-healthy food, and how even small amounts in our food may be doing us more harm than good.  I first stumbled upon Lindsay's cooking over at Dr. McDougall's website, where several of her recipes were referenced here, in McDougall's January '12 Newsletter.  John and Mary McDougall gave Lindsay a hearty endorsement, praising her for the absence of any oil and extra added fat in most of her recipes.

I immediately headed over to her blog and decided to pick out a few random recipes to prepare.  Everything I tried was delicious, including the chocolate muffins.  Eventually, I ended up purchasing her most recent book, the Everyday Happy Herbivore cookbook, and my wife and I have been enjoying her simple, healthy recipes several times a week.

If you're not familiar with Lindsay, pay her a visit at Happy Herbivore.  In the meantime, go ahead and make these delicious muffins.  The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

• whole wheat pastry flour
• unsweetened cocoa
• baking powder
• salt
• unsweetened apple sauce
• raw sugar
• chocolate non-dairy milk
• vanilla extract
• vegan chocolate chips

What ya do:

Heat up a stainless steel skillet on medium heat and saute the pastry flour, unsweetened cocoa, and baking powder in the vanilla extract until tender.  Once the baking powder is translucent and flaccid, remove the skillet from the heat and set aside.

Add the salt, unsweetened apple sauce and raw sugar to a waffle iron lined with parchment paper and puree for 60 seconds.  Add the chocolate chips one-by-one and continue to puree until evenly mixed.

Wash an unclean ice-cube tray and line it with the chocolate non-dairy milk, taking care not to...

It's the Muffin Mash...  fresh out of the waffle iron.

Ya know what?  I'm yankin' your crank.  This isn't really how to make these muffins.  I suppose I could cut and paste the actual recipe right here, but that wouldn't really be fair to Lindsay...  would it?

I give these wonderful muffins two thumbs up, and I encourage you to make them.  But to do so, you'll need to go over to Happy Herbivore and get the recipe straight from Lindsay.

Click HERE for the link to the recipe.

The cat wouldn't relinquish the computer until I promised
not to plagiarize Lindsay's recipe.