Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Snacks around these parts are usually raw fruit and veggies; the occasional rice cake or cereal bar makes its way in to my children's snack times too.  Plus cheese and crackers.  My new budget, however, is not refined enough for me to have figured out our snacks yet.  Especially with the amount of food these two small things eat; seriously, they eat more than me.

So while I work on making my budget stretch, I've decided I need to get a little creative in the snack department.  So here come the muffins!  I'm not going to fool myself into thinking these are a super healthy choice, but they aren't the worst thing ever either.

I found the original recipe for this on Allrecipies.com, but ended up tweaking it a lot. I grate fresh zucchini (which I already buy for my egg breakfast mornings) AND fresh carrots into the batter. I cut the sugar by more than half and used applesauce in place of most of the oil.  This time I added a handful of chocolate chips too, but I think I may do apple chunks next time (I'll let you know how they turn out!).

Ingredients:
3 large eggs
2/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup applesauce
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups grated zucchini and carrot
3 cups all-purpose flour (Haven't tried GF flour with this yet)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease or line two 12 cup muffin tins. (note: I did one 12 cup tin and a mini 24 cup tin. I freeze the mini ones and they will be put into school lunches).

In a large bowl beat the eggs.  Beat in the sugar, oil and applesauce. Add the cocoa, vanilla, and veggies and mix well.

Stir in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin spice. Mix until moist. Add chocolate chips and stir just until mixed.

Pour batter into prepared muffin tins, filling about 2/3rds full. Bake for 20-25 mins for a 12 cup tin and about 10-15 mins for a 24 cup tin. Remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack.