Recipe by Miz Paprika: Savory Sun-Dried Tomato Muffins

This is a Guest Blog Post by Miz Paprika! Enjoy : )

Hi all! Miz Masala asked me to share with you one of my new favorite recipes: savory muffins.

This is adapted from 101cookbooks.com, the incredible and beautiful website maintained by Heidi Swanson, author of “Super Natural Cooking.”

Savory muffins are great because they are 1) high protein and low carb and 2) incredibly portable, so I often take them with me for lunch or as a snack for the airplane when I’m traveling. Like most muffins, these take only one bowl to make and are incredibly easy to alter to fit your tastes. This recipe includes sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan, and basil, so they taste a bit like a very wholesome pizza, but you could easily do scallions and cheddar cheese, ham and gruyere, spinach-feta, or rosemary, garlic, and parmesan. Once you have this basic recipe, it’s very easy to experiment.

Savory Sun-Dried Tomato Muffins

1 cup cottage cheese (I use farmer’s cheese because it blends better, and I like the texture, but if you have some available and want to try this, make sure you add a little bit of milk to compensate for the dry texture of farmer’s cheese vs. cottage cheese)
¾ cup parmesan cheese
¼ cup flour (any kind will do, but I prefer to use all-purpose white flour or whole wheat pastry flour to cut the rough texture of the almond flour)

1 cup almonds, finely ground (you can use almond flour, if you have it available - I know Whole Foods sells it)

¼ cup sun-dried tomatoes (in oil) finely chopped
¼ cup fresh basil (finely chopped)
¼ cup water
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 °F. If you bake with any frequency at all (or even if you are an infrequent baker and want to try baking more), I highly highly recommend purchasing some silicone muffin pans. They changed my life : ). The muffins just slide out when they’re done and you don’t have to grease the pan or mess with those annoying paper cups. If you don’t have a silicone muffin pan yet, line a regular muffin pan with paper cups or grease the pan - just be careful to get it all the way up the sides and around any corners so the muffins don’t stick.

Combine all of the ingredients except ¼ cup of the parmesan in a bowl and mix all together by hand. Pour into your muffin pan and top each muffin with a sprinkling of the parmesan cheese. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. I have never made it this long, but they should keep for a week.

Makes 9-12 muffins depending on the size of your pan.