Whole Wheat Beet Muffins

Last week, I asked for suggestions for the beets from the CSA. I got a couple in the comments section (and thank you to everyone who chimed in) but one brave reader emailed me saying I should take a zucchini bread recipe and substitute the zucs for beets. And that is just what I did.

The truth is that I just don't like beets. Beets have a passionate following. I even met a woman at the farmer's market this weekend who was standing behind me with only a bunch of beets. Before I started speaking with her I wanted to ask her 'I got mine from the CSA, what's your excuse?' So all the suggestions where the beets stayed in their original form, or were pureed to display their true beety essence, well, I never much considered them. I was looking for a recipe where the beet flavor was totally covered up. They taste like sweet dirt to me.

Sunday while DH and Thing 2 napped away the hot afternoon, I plopped Thing 1 on the counter and got to work on those beets. Thing 1 actually could help this time. I put him to work washing the beets and later mixing. He broke a jar of paprika (not sure what he planned on doing with that) and I did cut my finger on an unswept glass shard after everyone went to bed, but overall they turned out pretty well. And by the way, there was no glass in the muffins-the mixing bowls were pretty far away from the scene of the accident.

I have another question. How many changes do I have to make to a recipe before I can just say that the recipe is mine? I found a recipe on another blog for whole wheat zucchini muffins, but I lowered the sugar, raised the oil to help the batter loosen up and I substituted the beets. Can I say that this is a Table of Promise original?? Am I allowed? Or would that be egotistical plagiarism?

Whole Wheat Beet Muffins
1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
3/4 cup of peanut oil
2/3 cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 cup of shredded beets

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the dry ingredients, set aside. Whisk together wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and then stir in the shredded beets. I pray that you will heed my words and use a food processor to grate the beets. If you do not, there is a good chance that you will look as though you committed a murder when you are done grating all those beets. And it doesn't wash off right away, so plan on every fool you meet knowing what the last thing you cooked was. Now put the batter into muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

These are pretty good. They are perfectly sweet enough, no need for the extra sugar. Thing 2 devoured them right off the bat. Thing 1 only picked at it at first and did come back for more, but I think next time I will throw in a little cocoa powder and tell him it is a chocolate cupcake. There is nothing like a couple of white lies to get your kids to establish a healthy relationship with food.