Chocolate Zucchini

I like to bake. I don't always follow directions.  I recently had some extra zucchinis from the garden and I was feeling like something chocolatey but not too sweet, so I found a recipe for these Oil Free Zucchini Muffins. But of course, I like to add stuff and delete stuff and mess things up a bit. The recipe was adapted from here. It specifically said not to use whole wheat flour.

But I wanted to.

(PS she did say you could use whole wheat pastry flour if you want to, but that you shouldn't use regular whole wheat flour.) I also use Splenda® rather than sugar most of the time, but you can use agave syrup or maple syrup or sugar if you like. Also, in the end, she was right, the whole wheat flour made the batter a little gummy, so I added a bit of applesauce just for fun.

Oil-Free Chocolate Zucchini Walnut Muffins

Yield: 20 - 24 muffins

Ingredients:

1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp water)
2 cups zucchini
1 cup almond milk (or regular milk)
2 tsp  lemon juice (or apple cider vinegar)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat (pastry) flour (or all-purpose)
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup Splenda^® (or sugar)
1/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup walnuts, chopped
*optional: 
3 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 - 1 cup applesauce (depending on moisture level. I added this at the end)

- Mix flax and water together and set aside to thicken. Mix almond milk and lemon together and set aside to curdle.

- Mix all dry ingredients together.

- Mix all wet ingredients, including flax egg and almond milk together, then add in chocolate chips and nuts. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry.

- Put 1/4 cup of batter into each section of a greased muffin tin using a 1/4 measuring cup.

- Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees. Muffins are done when toothpick comes out clean. Cool on cooling rack in the tin before taking them out of the tin and letting them cool completely.

- Try not to eat three of them right away like I did.

- Take them to work and give them away before you eat all 24 of them. 

- Get strange looks when you use the word "chocolate" and the word "zucchini" in the same sentence.

Now, since I am on the subject of recipes and food, I want to talk about something exciting coming up. My friends Jill and Laura are starting a new feature called What's for Dinner, which is a weekly collection of posts (and a link up) about menu planning. It's purpose is to encourage each other and to hold each other accountable as we purposefully plan out regular, weekly meal menus. These posts will be on Sundays and I am looking forward to participating, because I love planning out my weekly meals, but can always use tips from those more experienced and better at it than I am.

So, if you feel like doing a post about YOUR meal plan, or you want to post a recipe or get recipe ideas for fall, or if you want to check out how other people are organizing their eating, how they have time to do it with a busy schedule, or how they stay healthy with so many other things going on, sign up, or just go and check up their link up on Sundays!

Where do you get your recipe inspiration? Do you plan out your meals for the week in advance? What is your favorite kind of muffin?