I never officially thanked you all for the prayers, thoughts, and encouragement for my mom and myself. I wish I could send you each a batch of fresh peach muffins to even begin to show my gratitude.

Instead, I will do the best I can manage and type the words “thank you”, hope the feeling  expresses itself well enough, and give you a recipe for the peach muffins instead.

The muffins are basically an adaptation of my Lemon Raspberry Muffins. I followed that recipe but subbed out some things to make them peach instead of lemon and berry. As a standard in the blog world you should NEVER re-post someone’s recipe in full when subbing out only a few of the ingredients.

Well, this is my own recipe… so I’m reposting even with only a few substitutions. Besides, it might be good to put to use some of the recipe creation tips I learned at Healthy Living Summit. I learned such tips as not breaking a recipe up with pictures, being more specific in the ingredients and recipe details. Note: I also learned I’m a recipe train wreck and thankful I’m not a food blogger in one fell swoop.

I may not share recipes in the most helpful way…and I may not share many of them..but, by golly, you better believe any recipe I put up on this here blog is worth trying! And yes, that “by golly” just happened.

Fresh Peach Muffins

Wholesome, yet light – these muffins make a great item for a quick breakfast or even a grab-and-go snack. Made with whole wheat pastry flour, a high fiber stevia baking blend, and applesauce instead of oil, these muffins taste like their sugar and fat laden counterparts, but satisfy more on taste, quality, and nutrition. You can make many variations of this same recipe using different fruits or yogurts. Also, feel free to use sugar or another form of sweetener instead of stevia or a mix of whole wheat and all purpose flours if you don’t have whole wheat pastry flour. Happy baking!

Servings: 12 muffins
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients
1/2 cup NuNaturals More Fiber Stevia Baking Blend (or sugar/sweetener of choice)
1/2 cup peach flavored Greek yogurt
1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 fresh peach, diced into 1/2” chunks

Step-By-Step
Preheat oven to 400. Coat a muffin tray with non-stick cooking spray. Add the stevia baking blend (or sweetener of choice), yogurt, almond milk, applesauce, egg, and vanilla extract to a mixing bowl. Stir until combined. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until evenly combined. Do not overmix. Gently fold in the diced piece chunks. Spoon batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups. Bake for 15 minutes until tops start to brown.

Yep. I’m definitely not a food/recipe blogger. But I am a food lover…and I love these. Hope you will too!

Good morning!! Have you managed to enjoy yourself so far? Perhaps sleep in a bit or have a leisurely morning reading blogs, snuggling your children/furbabies? Or were you like me – waking up at 5:30 am to eat so you can start your long run of the week by 6:30 am? Good times. Good times.

I’m not going to lie to you. That run…ick. All because of that pesky half mile dangling off the end of those nine miles.

When setting out for my run, reaching 9.5 miles – half a mile longer than my previous personal distance record – didn’t seem daunting at all. Then, as I got going, the thought having to do an extra half of a mile seemed brutal. It felt cruel to have to give that extra effort…but not get the super high from hitting double digits! Don’t ask how my mind works that it would have seemed easier to do a 10 mile run instead of a 9.5 mile run. Logic fails me sometimes.

I could have ran an extra half to hit the ten mile mark, but I like to stick to the plan when it comes to long runs. Okay…I honestly just didn’t want to have to find somewhere to run around and rack up the extra mileage. I had my route planned out to the tee to help me get right at 9.5 miles. I even went so far to make certain I would get the ugly main road portion of my run out of the way first and have the last few miles to go through prettier neighborhood scenery.

Too bad that thought process of having the pretty part to look forward to failed me. I had to go past where I parked for the last 1.5 mile loop. It about killed me seeing my car and then having to wave bye-bye to finish up after already feeling so tired. My mind had checked out! And that made my body check out too because the last 1.5 were quite brutal. The joy of breakfast awaiting me after getting home pushed me through. 

Immediately after getting home I poured both sample boxes of the Quaker Oatmeal Squares cereal we received at the Healthy Living Summit into a bowl and added a large handful of blueberries and raisins. All topped off with some unsweetened vanilla almond milk. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. Ahhhhh…

I heart cereal!!! I think Peter felt a little disheartened that I wouldn’t share a box with him. Sorry, bud. You don’t want to mess with a hungry runner’s breakfast!

Go ahead and laugh. Lisa – I know you are since you say I don’t have a mean bone in my body. Oh well…I have other ways to frighten Peter. Like bringing up quinoa. Oh, if he only knew what was coming his way next week. *insert evil cackle here*

• Do you have a fitness milestone you can’t wait to reach? I am so looking forward to hitting double digit runs! Hopefully next weekend!
• Do you plan the favorite parts of your workouts towards the beginning or end of your workout?