Keeping it Short and Sweet: Just like this muffin recipe!

Hola athletes,

I’m keeping it short and sweet today. I’m going to introduce you to Juli Bauer and her awesome Lemon Poppyseed Acorn Squash Muffins.

Juli Bauer is the mind/baker/cook behind PaleOMG.  She aims to help people like you eat real food by providing pretty easy and super delicious recipes. She tends to stick to Paleo, but she is also realistically forgiving and flexible with her diet because she likes cheese and dark chocolate. Who doesn’t?!

She’s also got a bunch of stuff on her website about fashion and beauty and travel and décor and sometimes she tells you what she eats in a day, if you’re into that. I’m not. I like food, so I just stick to her amazing recipes.

I’ve been following the recipes on her Blog since 2013 or so. Around that time, my friend lived in Boston and I was going to school in Toronto and we would send each other emails with subject lines like, “OMG I WANNA EAT THIS” with a link to one of her new recipes. I even considered setting my Chrome home screen to her recipe feed. Fangirl alert!

ANYWAYS, she posted a recipe waaayyyy back, eons ago in 2014 that I would love to bring to your attention: Lemon poppyseed acorn squash muffins!

I still think about it whenever I see an acorn squash when grocery shopping.

So here it is! I take no credit for the recipe – it’s all Juli. Feel free to sub honey or regular sugar for coconut sugar. And don’t get scared of “tapioca flour” or “coconut flour”: both can be found at your local Bulk Store. Most big grocery stores sell them, too!

Lemon Poppyseed Acorn Squash Muffins

Prep time: 30 min            Cook time: 45 min            Total time: 1:15

Yields: 10

Ingredients:

• 1 acorn squash (2 cups mashed or 385 grams)
• 1/2 cup coconut sugar
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
• 3 eggs
• juice of 1 lemon
• zest of 1/2 a lemon
• 1 cup tapioca flour
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1-2 teaspoons poppyseeds
• coconut butter, melted (to garnish-optional)
• honey (to garnish-optional)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Cut acorn squash in half. Place cut side down on a baking sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes until squash is super soft. The softer the squash gets, the sweeter it will taste.
• After squash has cooked, remove seeds and excess strings. The remove the soft squash from the skin and place in a food processor. Then add coconut sugar, coconut oil, eggs, lemon juice and lemon zest.
• Once mixture is combined, in a large bowl add dry ingredients- tapioca flour, coconut flour, baking soda, and salt -whisk together.
• Pour wet ingredients from food processor into the dry ingredients bowl. Mix until well combined. Fold in poppy seeds. (the mixture will be a little thicker then runny muffin mix so don't be freaked out)
• Place muffin liners inmuffin tin.
• Use an ice cream scoop to scoop equal amounts of the mixture into the muffin liners. This should fill 9-11 full muffins.
• Reduce oven heat to 350 degrees. Bake muffins for 35-40 minutes. These will take longer than most because the acorn squash is so dense, so keep an eye on them, they may need longer based on your oven.
• Remove from oven when they are slightly brown on the top and completely cooked through.
• Garnish with coconut butter and honey drizzle on top.

ENJOY!