Wholesome Carrot Muffins

Cold snap. Highs in the 40s all week, lows in the 20s, a frost that killed the last of Gayle's tomatoes and left the yard looking like a set from a Midwestern gothic. I drove through a flurry Tuesday morning east of Grand Island — two minutes of snow, nothing to stick, a preview of what is coming. I turned the heater on in the truck cab for the first time since March. I drank a gas station coffee that tasted like burnt tires and drove through the flurry toward Omaha and listened to a podcast about Nebraska history while the cab warmed up. I was 44 and on the road and the world was cold and I was a specifically happy kind of cold, a woman-in-a-truck-cab cold, the kind of cold that has been my cold since 1998.

The cookbook is at seventy-one thousand. I wrote the chapter about the kids this week — all four of them, the shape of mothering them, the specific way a trucker mother raises four children with a husband and a grandmother and a calendar that makes NASA engineers weep. The chapter is in pieces. I am not sure how to put it together. Sarah says, "It doesn't have to be a perfect chapter. It has to be the right one." Sarah is often right. I am putting the chapter away for a week and coming back to it. This is a thing I have learned — that sometimes the writing needs to sit and you need to do other writing and then the original writing has solved itself by the time you come back.

Josie lost her first tooth. Eleven years old, her first loose tooth since age 9 when she had a long streak of them, and this one was a stubborn back molar that Dave eventually tied to a door knob (I disapproved) and slammed the door (I disapproved more) and it came out, bloody and triumphant, and Josie put it under her pillow. The tooth fairy in the Novak household (me, with Dave's wallet) left five dollars. Josie is going to spend it on a slushie at the gas station. She will not be the first Novak to conclude a dental adventure with a gas station slushie.

Tyler turned in a research paper for history class on the Nebraska sandhill region. He got an A. He wrote about the geology and the grass species and the specific stubborn beauty of ranch country and I read his paper in the sunroom Sunday morning and thought: I am raising an essayist and I did not know. Tyler is quiet in person and bright on paper. He is his mother's son in a way I did not expect. He will be okay in the world. That is not a small thing.

Made a roast chicken Sunday with carrots and fennel and an onion quartered in the pan. I wrote the recipe down before I started because I wanted to put it in the book. It is in the book now.

The carrots in Sunday’s roasting pan made me think about carrots in general — how they are the most reliable vegetable, the one that shows up in every season and every context, the one my kids will eat without complaint. So Monday morning, before the road, I made a batch of these carrot muffins, left them on the counter for Dave and the kids, and drove north into the cold feeling like I had done one small thing correctly. Tyler took two. Josie ate hers before school with a glass of milk. That is the whole story of these muffins, and it is enough of a story.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 37 minutes | Servings: 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/3 cup vegetable oil or melted coconut oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups finely grated carrots (about 3 medium carrots)
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/3 cup raisins or chopped walnuts (optional)

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Heat your oven to 375°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or grease with nonstick spray.
Combine dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt until evenly blended.
Mix wet ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk the eggs, honey, brown sugar, Greek yogurt, oil, and vanilla until smooth and well combined.
Bring it together. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until just combined — a few streaks of flour are fine. Do not overmix.
Fold in carrots and oats. Add the grated carrots, rolled oats, and raisins or walnuts if using. Fold in gently until evenly distributed.
Fill and bake. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the tops are set and lightly golden.
Cool. Let the muffins rest in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Wholesome Carrot Muffins — The Carrots That Made It Into the Book