Pesto Chicken + Giant Chocolate Zucchini Muffins!

First, I want to say that I did something today at lunch I haven’t done before….I took a boot camp work out class at a Pilates studio a few doors down from my office! Some friends of mine do Pilates, but several days a week, they offer a boot camp. Let me tell you it was HARD!! 45 minutes non-stop of jumping jacks, jump rope, lots of squats with weights, lunges, leg lifts etc..

I thought I wasn’t going to make it through the whole thing, but I did and I felt great afterwards!!

My friend and I at work are going to jog/brisk walk 3 days a week, and do that class once a week. I think its going to be great!

So when I got home, I was tired!! I wanted to make a quick dinner and looking in my freezer, I saw frozen chicken tenders. So I decided to cook those in a skillet and for my serving I added 2 tsp. of homemade pesto sauce my Mom made me (thanks Mom!) + a sprinkling of romano cheese on top. I had that with a salad and it was awesome!

My friend Laura at work brought me a HUGE zucchini today. I knew I was going to make muffins or bread. My sister told me about a recipe she made last year for chocolate zucchini muffins and when I called her for the recipe, she told me it was from 101 Cookbooks. I printed out the recipe, but then gasped when I saw it called for 1/4 cup melted butter + 3/4 cup of oil! Not Weight Watchers Friendly. So I decided to tweak the recipe to make it healthier. This is my version!! I made 6 Giant muffins + 24 mini muffins. Each giant muffin is only 5 points!!!

Chocolate zucchini muffins by Jenn

1 cup unpacked brown sugar
1/4 cup Canola oil
1 egg + 2 egg whites
1 banana, mashed
1 container yogurt (the one I used was vanilla at 90 calories)
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups grated zucchini (squeezed of excess moisture)
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. banking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon

In a mixer, mix together the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl add the dry ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet batter and mix until incorporated.

For the mini muffins, I baked those at 375 for about 10 minutes.

For the Jumbo muffins, also bake them at 375 for 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

I tasted a mini muffin and it was like eating chocolate cake! My kids didn’t want them because of the zucchini factor, but they smelled so good when they were baking, they quickly changed their minds!

Things I did to make them healthier:

Lessened the brown sugar by 1/2 a cup and did not pack down the brown sugar
Used only 1/4 cup canola oil vs. butter and 3/4 cup oil
Used 1 egg + 2 egg whites instead of 3 eggs
Used skim milk in place of whole milk
Cut the chocolate chips in half
Added the banana
Added yogurt
Added ground flax seed
Cut the cocoa in half

You won’t miss the changes at all!