Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins

For the past three years, my family and I have joined a local farm share.  Besides supporting our local economy here in Western Massachusetts, we have found a few other benefits.

First, we have been exposed to lots of different and delicious produce we wold have never tried on our own.

Second, our kids eat way more veggies now than they ever did before, and they want to!  There is something about them picking the food or seeing it growing that excites their pallets.  My seven-year old asks for things like kale and kohlrabi and said her favorite food was broccoli when her teacher asked.

Third, we have found the farm share waaaaay more economical than buying from a super market.  Our share is twenty-six weeks long and costs just under six hundred dollars a year.  We routinely get over twenty pounds of food.  That comes out to about $1.25 per pound of local organic produce, and that doesn’t include the pick your own organic strawberries, flowers, and other goodies.

The only down side is that sometimes there is simply too much food.  It ends up going bad.  To maximize our share we have come up with simple solutions to this problem.  The easiest of which is to cook some of the vegetables in creative ways; mainly breads and muffins/cupcakes.  Today I am sharing our gluten-free (my family has celiac, so everything we make is gluten-free) zucchini muffins.  Our kids go through these so fast we have to make them every other day.  Enjoy

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Gluten-Free Zucchini Muffins

20 muffins

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour

1 package chocolate pudding instant

1 1/2 cup zucchini (about 2 medium size zucchini)

4 large eggs

1 cup dark chocolate chips

1/2 cup honey

4 tablespoons coconut oil

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder

Icing Ingredients

1 stick softened butter

1/4 cup whole milk

2-3 tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Grate the zucchini using a food processor or hand grater.   To be honest, zucchini is so soft, a hand grater works just fine.

Add all the dry ingredients, except the chocolate chips to a mixing bowl and mix well.

Add the wet ingredients and stir until the mix is uniform.

Put half of the mix into a food processor and add 3/4 cup of grated zucchini.  Run the food processor until the batter is well processed and uniform.

The batter should be on the thinner side and a little soupy.

Add half the chocolate chips and mix.

Using an ice-cream scoop, place one scoop of batter into lined a muffin tin.

Repeat for the rest of the ingredients.  (note, if you have a bigger food processor you may be able to make the batter in one batch instead of two, but we can’t)

Bake at 350ºF for 15-20 minutes until muffins spring back when touched in the middle.

Serve with fresh-cut fruit for breakfast, or ice for a desert.

Icing Directions

Add the butter into a mixer.  Beat on high until the butter is creamy.  Add the milk, cocoa and vanilla.  Mix again on high until all the ingredients are incorporated.