Almost every day we get a parent that writes to us about their picky eater.  As a parent, sometimes getting your child to eat anything let alone eat healthy can be very stressful!

While I am a big proponent of teaching your children to love healthy food, especially fruits and vegetables, sometimes you have to have a back up plan.  Today our back up plan are these super healthy muffins.  They are packed to the max with fruits and vegetables, protein and whole grains.  A lot of times, the way a food is presented or 'packaged' can influence if your child wants to eat it or not.  When I made these muffins today, I told my girls they were princess cupcakes.  The rest is history.  They each downed one hot out of the oven because they couldn't wait to try a princess cupcake.

The other great thing about these muffins is that you can use just about any fruit and vegetable that you want.  My almost-2-year-old had been nibbling on an apple earlier today and decided she was done about 1/4 of the way through it.  So I sliced it up and used it in these muffins.  We had some leftover steamed broccoli from the other night, so it went in the muffins as well.  I had a large zucchini in my garden that needed picking, so it joined the rest of the clan.

Let's get started! (Scroll to the bottom for the recipe)

First decide which fruits and vegetables you will use.  I used steamed broccoli (about 1/2 cup), 1 medium zucchini, 1 1/2 carrots, 3/4 of an apple, 1 medium banana, and homemade applesauce.  I also used a bit of apple juice as my liquid to combine everything. (You could also use prune juice if your goal is to get things moving)

Put all of this lovely produce into a food processor and blend.

It will look slightly like baby food, or pesto......don't be scared.  It is about to get worse before it gets better.   Keep reading.

My girls love carrots and so I didn't feel the need to puree them.  Plus I think shredded carrots look so pretty in a muffin.  I grated them with a fine grate and put them in after everything had blended.

In your mixer, combine the sugar, butter and eggs.  Beat well.

Add your yogurt to the mixture.  I used plain Greek yogurt, but you can also use flavored.

Add your vegetable puree.  Then add your dry ingredients and mix just until blended. I told you it would get worse........but it is about to get better.  I was a little nervous about how they would taste considering all of the random combinations I threw in there.  So I tasted the batter.  And it was good! Phew.  And the muffins were even better. I mean really delicious.  No lie.

Scoop into muffin tins.  I love using a cookie scoop for my muffin batter.  Makes it way less messy.  If you want to make some and freeze them later, then I recommend using baking cups.  If you use baking cups that are made from parchment, then your muffin is much less likely to stick to the paper if you have ever had that problem.  

If you have boys and they aren't so excited about the princess cupcakes, spray your muffin tin and make Superhero Stud Muffins.

And then while your kids are happily consuming their super healthy muffins, sit back and enjoy a couple yourself.  You are however a Super Mom/Dad now.

These are so good.  I think they are going to be our new go-to breakfast, mid-morning snack, afternoon snack, bedtime snack........

 Recommended Products

Mini Baking Cups	Large Baking Cups	Mini Muffin Pan	Mini Muffin Scoop