Cranberry Orange Muffins

Because I am such a suzy homemaker, I made my dear dear husband muffins on Wednesday, so that he could enjoy them for breakfast on his final day of work on Thursday.  Little did I know while slaving away over these delicious muffins, that the light of my life would be so hungover from his leaving party on Wednesday that he would be completely unable to consume anything without projectile vomiting for the entire day on Thursday.  I'm not joking, he showed up on the door step Wednesday night looking like a soiled tween after his first party with alcohol.  He also kept repeating "wig for Doodle" because apparently he had acquired an Elvis wig for our poor dog.  I guess thats a post for another day.

But nevermind that, at least I had muffins.  Very good muffins indeed, thanks to Madhuram's Eggless Cooking.  Yes, eggless *gasp*! Have I taken my vegetarianism to the next level and gone vegan on you?  No, but we were out of eggs.  And these were surprisingly good.  They were very zesty and not too sweet.

Dry Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup brown sugar ( I used a mixture of light and dark, but mostly light)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup chopped nuts

Wet Ingredients

• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 2/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
• 2 teaspoons ground flax seed (a hippy ingredient I'll admit, but I had it on hand because we put it in smoothies, its a good supplement for vegetarians.) 
• 1/2 cup water
• Zest from one orange
• 1 cup freshly chopped cranberries

Start by preheating the oven to 375 F or 190 C.  Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.  In a food processor, add 1/2 cup of water and 2 teaspoons ground flax seed and blend until it gets frothy.  Squeeze 2/3 cup of orange juice, (from about 2 oranges) and add water to the juice till you reach one cup of liquid.  Add the flax seed mixture and the orange zest to this and stir well.  Pour all the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until it just comes together.  Gently fold in your cranberries.  Spoon into muffin liners and pop in the oven for about 20 minutes (mine took more like 23 minutes to be exact).  

Let cool (just a bit though, they are SO good warm), unwrap and enjoy!  

ps.  We just finished these off yesterday, and that means they kept well for at least 5 days.  

pss.  In case you were wondering, my husband also thought they were amazing after he recovered.