Somebody's Dinner: Obsessed with these Sausage Muffins

I have made sausage cornbread muffins before, but yesterday I had a new brainstorm. It wasn't a regular brainstorm. There wasn't just wind in this storm, but water raging and a flash of lightning and so began a new recipe: sausage muffins with sauteed mushrooms, jalapenos, red pepper, garlic, cheese, carrots, and even some whole wheat flour, served with Tapatio or Sriracha hot sauce.

Ingredients

1 white mushroom, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon olive oil

6-7 oz Hillshire Farm beef sausage, sliced into 24 pieces

1 cup flour

1/2 cup wheat flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup olive oil (or cooking oil of your choice)

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups shredded carrot

1/2 cup finely diced or shredded red bell pepper

1/2 a jalapeno, seeded and finely diced

1 clove garlic, pressed

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Hot sauce (if desired)

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 350 F.

2) In a large frying pan over medium low heat, cook the mushroom slices in 1 tablespoon olive oil until browned on both sides, about 12 minutes. Remove mushrooms from the pan, and cook sausage slices over medium heat in remaining oil until browned, flipping halfway through, about 6-9 minutes.

3) In a medium bowl, combine flour, wheat flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine milk, olive oil, and eggs. Stir ingredients from both bowls together until just combined and then stir in the shredded carrot, red pepper, jalapeno, garlic, and cooked mushroom slices.

4) Grease 12 muffin cups--If you want to use paper liners, grease them too. These muffins have a history of sticking to the papers.

Using a cookie scoop, place about 2 1/2 tablespoons of batter into the bottom of each muffin cup. Add 2 slices of sausage and then cover with about 4 more tablespoons of batter--fill cups 4/5 the way full. Since there are about 2 cups of vegetables in the mix and only 1 1/2 cups of flour, they won't raise a lot.

Sprinkle with cheddar cheese.

5) Bake 22-25 minutes until browned and tops will spring back when pushed with the tines of a fork. Serve warm. Cover and refrigerate leftovers.

We ate these with plums and I considered it a well balanced meal.

What dinner ideas are you obsessed with?