Sweet Carrot Muffins

Lance and I were on a gardening kick this year, and I splurged a little too much at the Seattle Tilth Sale and wasn't able to find room for several kinds of vegetables. My grandparents have a huge yard and my mom loves gardening, so the vegetable garden expanded into their yard. They had tons of carrots, but we had started them in a container instead of straight in the ground. The result were these strange little corkscrew carrots that spiraled from top to bottom. Needless to say, they were a little hard to peel!

Growing your own food is a great experience and I swear things taste so much better fresh picked. Getting food from the large chain grocery stores may mean weeks of travel and irradiation to keep the colors vibrant and food "fresh." My family has always reserved part of their land for food, so we should have known better than to plant the carrots in containers instead of straight into the ground, but our whether was very odd this year.

My family's carrots were fantastic juiced, so we washed a whole batch and Lance helped me juice many pounds worth. I put some of the juice aside for myself and made some fantastic raw vegan soup, and the other part was used in baking. We also reserved the shreds from the juicer and added them back into the baked goods as well.


Carrot Muffins
3/4 cup sorghum flour
1 1/2 cup brown rice flour
1 cup Bob Redmill's All Purpose Gluten Free Flour
1/2 cup tapioca
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup carrot juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup carrot grating
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins

Combine all of the dry ingredients minus the spices (flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda). In another bowl, combine the liquids, spices and raisins. Let that sit for several minutes so the raisins become nice and plum. You don't need much sweetener because both the carrots and raisins will help the muffins' sweetness. Slowly fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and put in muffin tins. This is a thick batter that will hold its form, so if you don't want lumpy topped carrot muffins, smooth the batter out. They will need to cook for about 25 minutes in an oven preheated to 350 degrees.