Travel Snack Week: Ham & Cheese Muffins

March break is just around the cor­ner here in Ontario, but where ever you are there’s some kind of spring break from school com­ing up. Which, if you’re lucky and orga­nized, means a trip some­where lovely, relax­ing and maybe even warm. But it can also mean, in the words of the wise of Heidi Pyper: “Look­ing after the kids some­where else.” I don’t mean that to sound cyn­i­cal (although, come on, hilar­i­ous, right?) — I’d rather look after my kids on a beach than in a snow storm but hol­i­days don’t mean that parental respon­si­bil­i­ties com­pletely dry up. In fact, some of the every­day details get harder while you’re away from home. Sleep rou­tines, for exam­ple, can go right out the win­dow. And then of course, there’s food.

Fig­ur­ing out how to keep every­one fed with­out giv­ing in com­pletely to junk food while you’re away is tough. Par­tic­u­larly on travel days. Can you even get food on air­planes any­more? It’s been so long since I’ve relied on the food served on planes I’m not sure. We either pack some­thing from home or pick up some good take­out on the way to the air­port. It’s not only that I feel bet­ter know­ing I can give my kids some­thing healthy to eat, it’s that I know I’ve got some­thing they’ll want to eat. The last thing I want to deal with on a flight is a melt­down because some­one doesn’t want any of the options avail­able from that weird lit­tle cart. So, I make sure I have a com­bi­na­tion of healthy snacks and a cou­ple of small treats to keep every­one happy and fuelled up. Like these ham and cheese muffins. They’re a portable, fill­ing and yummy snack you can hand out on the plane or in the car. They’re really easy to make and freeze well, too. Happy trails! 

Photo by Maya Vis­nyei

Ham & Cheese Muffins

makes one dozen muffins

1/2 cup ham, chopped
1 cup ched­dar, grated
1/2 cup green onions, finely sliced
2 cups flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 tsp bak­ing pow­der
1 tsp salt
a few good grinds of black pep­per
1 cup milk
1/2 cup veg­etable oil
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 eggs

Method

Pre­heat the oven to 375 degrees. Pre­pare muf­fin tins or line with paper muf­fin cups.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, whole wheat flour, salt and pep­per and bak­ing pow­der. Add the ham, cheese and green onions and toss until they are cov­ered in the flour mix­ture and dis­trib­uted evenly through­out it.

In another bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, yogurt and the eggs. Pour the wet mix­ture over the dry and stir until every­thing is com­pletely com­bined — but don’t over mix or your muffins will be tough.

Spoon the bat­ter evenly into the muf­fin tins or muf­fin papers. Place your trays in the hot oven and bake for 20 to 25 min­utes, until they are golden brown and a tooth­pick inserted into a muf­fin comes out clean.