This week I decided to participate in the Chiquita Cooking Lab Recipe Contest. It reminds me of a Chopped for Beginners, especially with this weeks combination – Pineapple, Spinach and Bananas were in my basket – well my scratch off. I’m not quite a creative one, but I know that pineapple and bananas go great in cakes and muffins. So I decided to try my hand at some blueberry/pineapple spinach banana nut muffins! If nothing else, I figured this would be a great Vitamin boost for our family since the cold season is here!
I will admit I didn’t use very much spinach – just enough to say it’s in there, but I used all of the ingredients!!
INGREDIENTS
- 1 ¾ cup flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- 1 egg
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 single serving applesauce (or ½ cup)
- 1 tablespoon triple washed baby spinach, chopped by food processor into small bits
- 3 tbsp canola oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup pineapple(drained)
- 1 cup blueberries
- ¼ cup chopped nuts, plus extra for topping, optional ingredient
INSTRUCTIONS
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F and prepare a 12 cup muffin tin with non-stick spray.
- Add dry ingredients into a medium bowl and whisk together.
- Whisk to beat egg and sugar together till light (I did this by hand for just a couple minutes).
- Whisk in the rest of the wet ingredients.
- Pour dry ingredient mixture into the wet ingredient mixture, add ¼ cup walnuts if desired, and stir gently just to combine – do not over-mix.
- Pour muffin batter into muffin tin cups – about ¾ full each. If using walnuts, sprinkle walnuts on top of each muffin.
- Bake for 14-17 minutes until centers set or a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
- Cool until safe to touch and enjoy!
