Carrot Top Corn Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups finely ground yellow cornmeal
- 2/3 cup flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 cups milk
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup melted butter, cooled slightly
- 1 (loose) cup chopped carrot tops (stems removed if woody)
- pinch salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350. Line or grease and flour 12 wells in a standard muffin tin. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Pour the milk and butter over the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Beat in the egg. Stir in the carrot tops.
- Ladle the batter evenly into the prepared muffin tin. Bake 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the center muffin comes out clean.
We’ve been getting produce delivery for years now. It’s not a CSA but we opt for the “local” box which comes from a variety of local farms. It’s a little bit of a splurge but we get a better variety than the CSAs I researched because it comes from multiple farms. We might end up with 3 kinds of lettuce in the spring but never end up 6 lbs of squash and nothing else. In this box we ended up with these adorable thumbelina carrots with their greens still attached. I’ve found that the greens will wilt way before the roots spoil so I wanted to use them right up! I’ve used them three times before and knew they could easily be used like you would an herb. They have a light, fresh flavor that really does taste like carrots! I love creating recipes like this that use something that normally might be tossed. Carrot greens are perfectly edible and tasty. If you don’t have carrot greens, try a favorite herb like basil. Or even spinach would work, I’d think.
I had been craving cornbread and wanted to make that but Matt, of course, prefers muffins for his breakfast so I thought I’d turn my idea into muffins and kill two birds with one recipe. It’s too hot to bake two different things in one day and we didn’t have dinner plans that would go with cornbread anyway. The muffins came out great, moist, and with a light carrot-corn flavor.
When I pulled the muffins out of the oven I realized I slightly underfilled the liners. I ended up with a small amount of batter left and had tossed it because wasn’t enough for a muffin. Don’t so what I did! Divide the entire batter among the wells and you will end up with slightly bigger, more standard-sized muffins. My muffins rose fine and were delicious but were a little small, as you can see in the picture.
