I’m running out the door for a weekend road-trip up the coast and am trying to avoid my usual travel-food-related pitfalls: I tend to pack enough snacks for a trip to the moon (I love to peruse a good snack aisle and purchase for “research”) and I end up eating a lot of fried food because I can’t resist the many fish n chips places along the way that offer gluten-free battered fish.
If you’re going up the California coast on Route 1, Tony’s Seafood (owned by Hog Island Oyster Co) has a great outdoor deck to eat on, or go to the original Hog Island Oyster Co in Marshall where you can order oysters that are harvested on site. Fishetarian in Bodega Bay has really good battered fish n chips with picnic tables outside.
To avoid over-spending and ensure I have something relatively healthy to eat, or healthier, I made a dozen of these Apple-Flax-Oat muffins that are nut and dairy-free, have a tablespoon of flax per muffin, and keep well for days at room temperature.
As you can see from the image, these muffins don’t have a domed top, but they are light and fluffy inside with a soft, moist crumb and are made with apple cider or coconut water. You can literally just dump all of the ingredients into a bowl, whisk to combine and after 25 minutes of baking you’ve got a dozen muffins in less time that it would take to pick stuff out at the grocery.
I highly recommend the New York deli method of splitting and griddling them, slathered in butter (not healthier, but so delicious).
I made these with grated apple, but I’ve also used grated carrot and they are great. If the recipe looks familiar to some, it’s an updated version of one that I created years ago and posted on Instagram, and it appeared in Tartine All Day as well.
Off to pack the car up and plan which waterside restaurant to navigate to first—have a wonderful weekend all!
RECIPE
Apple-Flax-Oat Muffins
Yields 12
• 3 eggs, large
• 6 Tbs olive oil
• 2 Tbs molasses
• 100g / 1/2 C sugar
• 240ml / 1 C liquid: apple cider, coconut water, or water
• 150g / 1 C grated apple (about 1 med-large) or carrot
• 150g / 1 1/4 C ground flax seeds
• 175g / 1 3/4 C oat flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2-3 Tbs topping of your choice such as pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, crystal sugar, nuts
Preheat oven to 350. Prepare muffin tin by buttering or oiling the cups, including 1/4-inch of the rim around the cups.
Mix everything in one bowl: start with eggs, olive oil, molasses (if you use the olive oil measuring spoon your molasses will slip out of the spoon easily), sugar, liquid, and grated apple or carrot. Whisk to combine. Add flax seeds and whisk.
Measure in the rest of the dry ingredients and whisk well to combine.
Portion into the prepared muffin tin (batter will come up to the top), add any toppings, and bake for 25 minutes. Let cool 5-10 minutes before turning out.
Cool and store. Muffins will keep for 4 days at room temperature or a week in the refrigerator covered.
Rocker Oysterfellows, next to Fishetarian also has a lot of GF options. Hard to pass up the fish and chips or gf chowder at Fishetarian though.
Delicious! The aroma was extreme appealing. Used sorghum flour (based on earlier comment). Great use of our CSA apples. :-)