April's CR Diary

« More Soon... | Main | And You Don't Look A Day Over 32... »

November 29, 2006

Have A Megamuffin While You Wait

Here's the long awaited re-post of the M2 Megamuffin recipe. This is the version that MR eats and that my friend Susan eats. I eat a smaller, savory version that I'll publish later on. Yes, they take a morning to make. But once you've made them, you freeze them and have 24 muffins ready to eat when you're ready for them.

M2 Megamuffins

Large dry ingredients
2 boxes (454 g/1 lb) Ener-G rice bran
1 C dark rye flour
2 2/3 cup psyllium husk
1 cup wheat bran
3 T sodium-free “baking powder” (Hain Featherweight)
6 x 20 g scoops Jarrow whey protein powder
2/3 cup brewer's yeast
• 89 g raw almonds
• 100 g almond meal

Blender ingredients
1 T NAC (N-acetylcysteine) powder
0.5 T PURE sucralose + 1/8 tsp PURE Neotame; or, 1 T PURE sucralose
5 T Pumpkin Pie Spice (Unsweetened)
45 mg (elemental) zinc (supplement)
3 whole omega-3 eggs (flax-fed preferred over fish oil or other DHA)

3 cups skim milk
• 300 g endive
• 340 g guava
• 240 g canned unsalted plain pumpkin (not pie mix)
• 200 g whole orange
3 T Reconstituted Z-Trim

Large Pot or Bowl Wet ingredients
24 egg whites (750 mL)
5 T High-Oleic Sunflower or olive oil
• 800 Calories’ dried fruit (Eg, the following together:
• 21 g “Just Cranberries”
• 28 g “Just Blueberries”
• 203 g Trader Joe’s organic dried cranberries (610 Calories)

Sprinkle On Top
3/8 T K metabisulfite

Bake for 50 minutes at 325ºF (350ºF in our crummy oven).
.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Set aside.

2. Put pumpkin pie spice, sucralose, NAC, Reconstituted Z-Trim, and whole eggs in blender. Cram as much of the endive, cut-up oranges and guava, and pumpkin into the thing as you can at a time and blend until very smooth. Sequentially dump into the separate large pot or bowl (NOT the one containing the dry ingredients!).

3. Throw the remaining Large Pot or Bowl Wet ingredients (egg whites, olive oil or HOSO, and dried fruit) into the wet-ingredient Large Pot or Bowl. Mix thoroughly.

4. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly until you have a uniform mixture. This is hard work for about 5 minutes. Make sure there are no dry spots left.

5. Preheat oven 325F.

6. Quickly distribute the now-rising dough evenly into two 10” x 14” baking pans. For maximal efficiency and minimal hassle, use baker’s parchment.

7. Sprinkle metabisulfite onto the surface of the muffins.

8. “Tent” the muffins: use enough tin foil to cover the sides of the pans, cutting a rectangular hole in the center of the foil to expose all but ~1-2” of the top surface. This minimizes excess browning while allowing for the cooking of the centers.

9. Cook in preheated oven for 50 minutes. If they don’t both fit on one level, swap them top-to-bottom in the oven after 30 minutes since it is always hotter at the top and you want both batches to get the same amount of heat.

12. Remove from oven, invert carefully out of the pan.

13. Using a tape measure, cut into an appropriate number of slices. The analysis assumes 20 muffins, so each pan is cut in half one way and 5 (2.75”) the other. I currently cut a batch into 24, yielding more muffins and fewer Calories each.

14. Pack in zip-loc freezer bags to retain moisture. Keep refrigerated or frozen. I put them straight into the freezer. IMO, they’re best when frozen and then thawed, rather than fresh.

INGREDIENTS NOTES
* You can substitute other dried fruit, of course. I use a mixture of the readily-available oiled, sugared dried cranberries with 'Just Blueberries' and “Just Cranberries,” which are available at Whole Foods and elsewhere & as the name implies are dried berries -- period. This REALLY brings the Cal down, and because these things are at full volume, you would likely have a really hard time if you used these exclusively for 800 Calories. I typically use 21 g (75 Cal) of cranberries, 56 g (100 Cal) with the remainder the regular ones.

* Psyllium husk is not entered in DWIDP or the USDA database. I have seen WILDLY variant nutrition info on the web, some of which is patently wrong. Sherm offered an educated guess as to the truth a couple of years back; I finally got authoritative info via the WUSTL nutritionist, who got the following from a nutrition database from the University of Minnesota, and it matches that guess pretty darned closely:

357.24 g of psyllium seed husks = 179 calories, 1.79 g fat, 288.65 g. carbohydrate, 10.36 g. protein, 125 mg sodium, 257.22 g dietary fiber, 204.3 g soluble fiber.

Note that there is considerable brand-to-brand variation in the weight of a given volume of husk, due to how finely it's ground, so double-check this before scooping into the mixing bowl.

* Spices are a matter of personal preference.

* Other non-caloric sweeteners could be used in place of sucralose, but sucralose APPEARS to be the most well-documentedly safe noncaloric sweetener. NB that this is PURE sucralose, not 'Splenda' (which is 'cut' with maltodextrin). Sucralose is available from Warren Taylor < warren.taylor@earthlink.net >, although he is currently cutting it with cellulose: you’ll have to adjust the volume of sucralose you use accordingly, but at least it adds no empty Calories.

* I use eggs from flax-fed hens, to lower AA, cholesterol, and SaFA relative to what the analysis says. Alas, this DOES mean some extra DHA -- my only dietary source.

* I use commercial liquid egg whites rather than hand-separated egg whites -- MUCH less hassle.

* I used to use Ener-G brand sodium-free baking powder, which is loaded with Ca (this contributes over 500 mg of Ca per serving) without adding Na. K-based products are a good second best. This really is a needlessly high amount, which is why I switched to the Hain Featherweight, which is mostly potassium bicarbonate. Do, in any case, chose some low- to zero-sodium version.

* I use baking parchment, after a tip from John Roberts, which REALLY reduces the hassle of extracting the muffins and cleaning up afterward, & avoids any evil gunk you might get off of the sides of the pan. Environmentally rather a poor option, alas :( -- although it can be re-used for many batches.

* The rice bran is probably the most important ingredient for nutrition, although its phytic acid does mean that the mineral bioavailability is reduced. Buy it in sealed containers if possible, to avoid peroxidation of the fats and loss of the tocotrienols. I buy Ener-G rice bran at a local health food store. You can easily get it by mail from their web site http://www.ener-g.com or 1-800-331-5222. Look under "flours" to find the rice bran product and buy the 8 oz (227g) size which costs less than $2!

* For the protein powder, use plain, unflavored, unsweetened stuff, and (to get the best nutritional bennies) use a concentrate rather than an isolate. I use Jarrow's American Whey (Unflavored/Natural), mostly because it meets the above criteria and I get it on the cheap; other reputable brands will do as well. NB that the scoop that comes with this brand is 23 g, whereas I use a 20 g scoop.

* NAC (N-acetylcysteine) powder is available from Carlson, which can be purchased from the Vitamin Shoppe and elsewhere. K metabisulfite is available in home wine-making hobby stores, where they commonly just know it as “sufites.” Briefly, they reduce the formation of “glycotoxins” (food AGE; see:

http://lists.calorierestriction.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0108&L=crsociety&P=R5769

… and NAC also reduces formation of acrylamide.

* HOSO: High-oleic sunflower oil. Similar fatty acid profile to olive oil, but with a taste more compatible with a muffin. True, pure, unrefined HOS is quite tasty but I haven’t been able to find it for years: some regular grocery stores carry refined HOSO, and Omega Nutrition makes an unrefined, blended oil mixed w/sesame and coconut oil, making the taste & fatty acid profile a little poorer than the real thing. Spectrum Naturals carries a 'naturally refined' HOSO as well. According to the company, they do the extraction with expeller pressing, the bleaching using a clay and diatomaceous earth filtration system, and then a vaccuum-chamber steam deodorization -- ie, no chemical processes at any step. I'd still rather have the phytosterols and (likely) other missing goodies, but it seems that this is less likely to produce evil & more likely to leave fat-soluble antioxidants intact. Now if only they'd produce it in dark glass ...

* Z-Trim: a fat substitute. See: . Gives the mouth feel with negligible Calories. I use it in vegetarian “gravy,” stews, and mixed spiced steamed vegetables. Buy the “Corn Fiber Fat Replacement Powder” (yummy!) at .

Recipe Nutrient Analysis: This is the result of cutting the above recipe into 24 muffins (use a ruler to get equal-sized portions):

===========================================
Nutrition Summary
===========================================

General (42%)
===========================================
Energy | 280.1 kcal 45%
Protein | 19.3 g 41%
Carbs | 34.7 g 63%
Fiber | 12.6 g 42%
Fat | 11.2 g 53%
Water | 110.1 g 7%

P:C:F 28/36/36

Vitamins (50%)
===========================================
Vitamin A | 2114.1 IU 70%
Folate | 72.8 mcg 18%
B1 (Thiamine) | 0.9 mg 77%
B2 (Riboflavin) | 0.9 mg 65%
B3 (Niacin) | 10.1 mg 63%
B5 (Pantothenic Acid)| 5.7 mg 113%
B6 (Pyridoxine) | 1.1 mg 65%
B12 (Cyanocobalamin)| 0.5 mcg 22%
Vitamin C | 40.2 mg 45%
Vitamin D | 14.8 IU 4%
Vitamin E | 5.6 mg 38%
Vitamin K | 34.4 mcg 29%

Minerals (52%)
===========================================
Minerals (50%)
===========================================
Calcium | 239.1 mg 24%
Copper | 0.6 mg 67%
Iron | 3.5 mg 44%
Magnesium | 227.4 mg 54%
Manganese | 3.7 mg 161%
Phosphorus | 531.0 mg 76%
Potassium | 1047.4 mg 22%
Selenium | 32.0 mcg 58%
Sodium | 133.4 mg 10%
Zinc | 4.6 mg 42%

Lipids (14%)
===========================================
Saturated | 1.8 g 9%
Omega-3 | 0.2 g 4%
Omega-6 | 2.8 g 35%
Cholesterol | 27.0 m

Posted by april at November 29, 2006 8:03 AM

Comments

Posted by: thatgirljj at November 29, 2006 10:03 AM

Posted by: Jessica at November 29, 2006 12:27 PM

Posted by: Judith at November 30, 2006 2:10 PM

Posted by: istanbulwitchy at December 1, 2006 5:59 PM

Posted by: linda at December 3, 2006 6:20 AM

Posted by: April at December 3, 2006 6:30 AM

Posted by: Katherine Grant-Suttie at December 26, 2006 1:17 PM

Posted by: Chris at January 15, 2007 11:08 AM

Posted by: Lynda at January 29, 2007 12:34 AM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments:

Preview

Post