​Savory Zucchini Muffins

Together with a hearty salad, they’ll make a delicious lunch.

Before I moved to New Mexico, I lived in Berkeley where I had a big, gorgeous garden with lemon trees, lots of different roses, shrubs, perennials, annuals, and, of course, vegetables. Because of the mild climate I didn’t have to coax anything to grow, on the contrary: I was busy trying to stop it from turning into a jungle. As far as the zucchini were concerned, I often missed the ideal harvest time and ended up with baseball bats. 

Not so here in New Mexico. I had to coax and cajole and pamper my vegetables, with mostly poor results. Nowadays I simply buy my zucchini.

Maybe you’ve baked a sweet zucchini loaf. This recipe leaves out the sugar but uses spices and umami flavorings to make the muffins fit for lunch or even dinner.

Ingredients: (for six muffins)
    • 2 TS ground flaxseed, soaked in about twice as much water (= 2 flax eggs)
    • 1 ½ cups of whole wheat flour
    • ¼  cup rolled oats
    • ½ ts salt
    • 2 ts baking powder
    • ¼ ts cayenne pepper and/or smoked paprika, optional
    • ¼  cup nutritional yeast
    • ½ cup chopped walnuts, optional
    • ¾ cup vegan broth
    • ¼ cup oil – olive or sunflower
    • 1 small-to-medium zucchini, grated (about one cup)
    • ¼ cup chopped green onions 

Preparation:
Start with soaking the flaxseed. Grate the zucchini, mix in a bit of salt, and let it sit for a bit. Squeeze out the moisture that accumulated before using it.  

 In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together. In a smaller bowl, whisk the oil with the broth, add the squeezed-out zucchini and the green onions.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
​
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until you have the consistency of thick mud. Don’t mix it too much or the muffins could turn out heavy instead of fluffy. 
Prepare the muffin tins (I use a six-count jumbo muffin pan): rub some vegan butter on the bottom and sides, then dust with flour. Fill each tin to about ¾ and put in the oven for 30 - 35 minutes. Use a toothpick to test if they’re done. 

Remove the muffins from the oven, let rest for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a plate. Eat at room temperature. Left-overs can be stored in the refrigerator for a day or two.

Variations:
Instead of green onions, use sun dried tomatoes.  
Give the muffins some Indian flavor by adding ½ ts cumin and ½ ts garam masala.
Use gluten-free flour in case of gluten intolerance.

A note about the spelling: to be correct one would have to say “zucchino” for ONE of them, because it is an Italian word and “zucchini” is plural. But that’s not common in the US and I defer to the way people use the word here.