Gluten-free Roasted Almond & Blueberry Breakfast Muffins

These are a beautiful thing. An especially beautiful thing when eaten in the morning for breakfast with a warm beverage to warm the insides; particularly now with the changing of the seasons into some of the colder months. Smoothies & early morning juices will no longer cut it as the breakfast option! Eating & moving with the changing seasons is so important. Eating with the rhythms of nature brings us into a deeper state of interconnection and balance with life and all that surrounds us. On a physical level eating seasonally is vital because our microbiomes literally change with the seasons in order to digest the food and assimilate its’ nutrients from within that season and location. But, it is equally as important for our energy body to eat seasonally in order to support our wellbeing and inner harmony by creating energetic balance.

In the colder months, we want to focus on warming, soothing, grounding, dense and moist foods. Foods that will bring an internal warmth when there is an external coldness. Think root vegetables (for their grounding, warming, and hearty energy) and healthy fats to bring about a deep physical & energetic insulation effect. By living by these principles we are able to move with the environmental changes in order to being deep healing and nourishment to our mind-body.

This is why these breakfast muffins are a great breakfast option: they are jam-packed with oats, almonds, coconut, blueberries, dates & healing Ghee (which can be substituted for coconut oil if you would like to make the recipe vegan). The energetic properties of Ghee are numerous, but one powerful property of Ghee is its’ warming & balancing effect on the mind-body. In fact, Ghee is an Ayurvedic superfood.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup of raw almonds
• ½ cup rolled oats
• ¼ cup rolled oats
• ¼ cup desiccated coconut
• 1/3 cup of blueberries
• 3 tablespoons of roasted almonds, roughly chopped
• 1 small-ish banana (85g when peeled)
• 40g of dates, chopped
• 3 tablespoons of organic raw cane sugar
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• ½ teaspoon fine Himalayan salt
• 1/3 cup of unsweetened soy milk
• 1 egg (can replace with a vegan egg substitute like 1 flax egg or 1 chia egg)
• 1 tablespoon of Ghee (can be replaced with
• 1 tablespoon of sweet molasses (or honey/maple; don’t use bitter molasses as this will make it bitter!)
• 1 teaspoon of almond extract

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a muffin tin with some ghee or coconut oil and set aside for now. This recipe makes 6 medium-large muffins.

2. In a nutri-bullet (or high-speed blender of choice) place the raw almonds, ½ cup of the rolled oats (keeping the other ¼ cup aside), the coconut, salt, baking powder, and sugar. Blend on high until everything is in a flour-like consistency. Then place into a big mixing bowl along with the remaining ¼ cup of whole rolled oats. Add in the chopped dates and mix well.

3. Now place the soy milk, egg, ghee, molasses, almond extract, and banana into the blender and blend on high until everything is in a liquid form.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. Now add in the blueberries and fold them in gently trying not to burst them too much.

5. Fill the 6 muffin holes and then top each muffin with the chopped roasted almonds and bake for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean and the house smells glorious.

6. ENJOY!