Low fat muffins with pineapple, orange, carrots and dates

Now, here’s a muffin to get your day started right. This is such a good marriage of all kinds of fruit and some carrot for a little bit of something different.  They are low fat, have no refined sugar and are gluten free. They even have protein from the almond meal/egg white combo and are loaded with fiber. I like these because they are so flavorful and dense, which really fills me up and satisfies me much more than a light fluffy muffin would do (but I like those, too!).

Ingredients:

1 small, ripe banana, mashed

½ cup crushed pineapple

½ cup unsweetened applesauce

3 dates, seeded

½ of a large orange, washed and seeded (leave the peel on)

½ cup shredded carrots

½ cup liquid egg whites

1 Tablespoon honey

1 ¼ cup oat flour (just grind 1 ½ cups of oatmeal to a powder)

1 cup almond meal

1 teaspoon ground flax seed

1 teaspoon chia seed

Pinch salt

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon cardamom

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line 12 muffin cups with liners. Spray the liners and set the muffin pan aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the banana, pineapple and applesauce. Whir the orange and dates in the food processor until completely broken down and add them to the banana mixture.

Add the carrots, egg whites and honey to the bowl and mix until well combined.

In a separate large mixing bowl, stir together the oat flour, almond meal, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg and baking soda.

Dump the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Scoop the muffin batter into the prepared muffin cups and bake for about 25 minutes. They are done when you can stick a toothpick in and it doesn’t come out doughy.