When I first decided to make a Star Trek: Voyager menu, I started hunting through Memory Alpha for recipe inspiration. Unlike the other Star Trek series I’ve seen, this series features a HUGE amount of food, since the ship’s cook (Neelix) is one of the main characters. As I scrolled through his various creations, algae puffs jumped out at me. They appeared in S3E6 (Remember) when Neelix serves them to an Enaran diplomat, but it isn’t their significance to the series that got my attention. It was the fact that they reminded of a recipe I already make all the time! 🙂
Everyday for lunch, my husband packs a spinach and cheese omelet, which means we ALWAYS have a bag of spinach in our fridge. However, he doesn’t need a ton of spinach per omelet, and our grocery store only sells it in big bags (they technically have small bundles of organic spinach, but it’s rarely in good condition and costs as much as a bag). Which means every week I’m scrambling to figure out how to use up almost an entire bag of spinach before it goes bad.
Enter these delicious, healthy spinach muffins from SuperHealthyKids.com. They feature whole wheat flour, honey, and a whopping 6 ounces of spinach. I stumbled upon the recipe after I decided I couldn’t eat one more bite of sauteed spinach ever again in my life. And these are GOOD. I love them; the Mister loves them; the baby loves them. They’re gone in a day or two every time I make a batch.
When I read up on Neelix’s algae puffs, I knew this was the way to go. So buckle up, crew, we’re off to bake some tasty green muffins!
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Neelix’s Algae Puffs
“You MUST try some of these delightful algae puffs. They’re fresh from the oven!”
— Star Trek: Voyager
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1 large banana
- 6 oz spinach
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
Makes 18 spinach muffins
INSTRUCTIONS:
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- Preheat oven to 350° and fill 1 1/2 muffin tins with liners. In a large bowl, stir together the first 4 ingredients and set aside.
- Combine all the remaining ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour the wet mix into the dry mix and fold until just combined.
- Divide the mix evenly between the muffin liners and bake for 18-22 minutes, flipping and rotating the pans halfway through.
- Remove to a wire rack and allow to cool completely (they taste better cool than warm).
- Serve to an Enaran diplomat on the Starship Voyager!
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Check out my other Star Trek recipes!
i feel like seaweed would be a better replacement for spinach, as it’s much closer to what algae is
That’s an interesting idea! You’d probably want to add more milk too, since you’d be missing out on the moisture from the spinach.