What to do with extra carrots: Make carrot-oat-raisin muffins {Gluten-free option}

Our friend Forest brought over his juicer on Sunday and showed us how get our juicing groove on. We made a yummilicious cantaloupe-orange juice. We had a bunch, I mean a bunch, of carrot pulp leftover afterward. I couldn't bear to just throw it out. Instead, I created this muffin recipe and served it up for my kids lunches and one of our on-the-go breakfasts this week. They were moist and the kids gobbled them down.

Carrot-oat-raisin Muffins

Ingredients:

1 large egg
2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
1 cup raw milk or almond milk
1/2 cup plain yogurt or Greek yogurt (for creamier, thicker batter texture)
2 cups oats, uncooked
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (Bob's red mill) or 1 cup gluten-free baking mix (Pamela's)*
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon flaxseed, ground
1/2 cup honey (or coconut palm sugar)
2 cups carrots, shredded or pulp from juicing (could substitute zucchini or apples)
1/2 cup raisins (could substitute in chocolate chips and/or walnuts)


Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Blend together egg, coconut oil, milk and yogurt.
3. Add dry ingredients: oats, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and flaxseed.
4. Mix in honey/coconut palm sugar, carrots and raisins.
5. Grease muffin tins with olive oil spray. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop batter into tins. Bake 15-20 minutes or until muffins are golden brown on top and springy to the touch.

Makes 2 dozen mini-muffins or 1 dozen large muffins.

*Our family is increasingly trying out gluten-free recipes because we all have a sensitivity to wheat. I did use wheat flour in the first run of these muffins but my friend Brandy tells me you can always just sub Pamela's baking mix (basically a mix-up of non-wheat flours) when doing muffins. She tried these out and she said her 6 kiddos gobbled them down. I use Pamela's for our pizza dough now and we all love it!