Oatmeal Banana cups with chocolate chips

I found this recipe over at Green Lite Bites, and had to try it out.

Ingredients
3 mashed bananas
1 cup vanilla Almond milk (I used skim because that's what I had)
2 eggs
1 tbsp Baking powder
3 cups (240g) Old Fashion or Rolled Oats
1 tsp vanilla extract (I bumped this up to 1.5 since I was using boring milk)
3 tbsp (42g) mini chocolate chips (I used regular, because that's what I had in the apt.)

(I also added about a tbs of splenda, again, because of the boring milk. Next time, I'd use brown sugar instead, and maybe a touch of cinnamon too.)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Mix all ingredients except the chocolate chips together, and let sit while you prepare the muffin pans.
Spray a muffin pan and/or liners with with non-stick spray.
Stir the chocolate chips into the oatmeal batter. (Instead, I didn't mix them in, and sprinkled them on top after I filled the cups with the chocolate-less batter.)
Divide batter into 15 muffin cups. They should be just about filled.
Bake 20-30 minutes, you’ll see the edges just starting to brown and they will be firm to the touch.

The Verdict

These guys are very filling, but they seemed a little flavorless and overly banana-y to me. Next time, I'd probably throw in the brown sugar and cinnamon, and use smaller bananas (mine were kinda huge). I might even try it with some sort of dried fruit mixed in to up the sweet factor - maybe raisins or cherries or apricots. But, all in all, it's a super-hearty breakfast, and I feel a little better because there is fruit involved and because there are so few ingredients (and none that required going to the store).

Hungry Girl 200 under 200 Blueberry Muffins

I've been meaning to try this recipe out for a while now. I finally tried it, and I'm glad I did. It was easy to make, and the muffins were great. I loved everything about it except for blueberries. I now think that all muffin recipes should include syrup. Amazing. I think I managed to end up with sour berries. Blergh. Now I'm kinda sad that I started with a double batch and spoiled it all. :(




Edited: I tried this again, with frozen blueberries this time it was much better. But it still had a bit of an unexpected, hard-to-place after taste. It faded after the first day or two, or maybe I got used to it. Also, I think that a normal batch of six is perfect for eating for up without having to freeze any. Which is pretty much perfect in so many ways.


I did notice that in order to get the recommended number of muffins, I had to fill each muffin tin to just over full. Thankfully, wheat flour doesn't rise much, so they didn't overflow, but instead look like pretty, substantial muffins.

Hungry Girl Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 cup blueberries
1/2 cup light vanilla soymilk
1/4 cup sugar-free pancake syrup
1/4 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Original Egg Beaters)
1/4 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetener (granulated)
3 tbsp. brown sugar (not packed)
2 tbsp. light whipped butter or light buttery spread, room temperature
2 tbsp. no-sugar-added applesauce (get Mott's Blueberry Delight if you can find it!)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt


Directions:


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a mixing bowl, combine flour, Splenda, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Mix well.
In a separate, large mixing bowl, combine soymilk, syrup, egg substitute, butter, applesauce, and vanilla extract.
Using an electric mixer or a whisk, mix until thoroughly blended. (Don't worry if butter bits do not break up completely.)
Add dry ingredients from the first mixing bowl to the mixture in the large one.
Mix until completely blended.
Then fold in the blueberries.
Line a 6-cup muffin pan (or half a 12-cup pan) with baking liners and/or spray with nonstick spray.
Evenly distribute batter among the 6 cups.
Place in the oven and bake for about 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
Enjoy!


MAKES 6 SERVINGS


Serving Size: 1 muffin

Calories: 137
Fat: 2.25g
Sodium: 269mg
Carbs: 26.5g
Fiber: 3g
Sugars: 7.5g
Protein: 4g

POINTS® value 2*

The perfect muffin quest continues

OK, the last batch of muffins was really good, but we thought that a little citrus (orange) flavor and maybe a little more exotic of a dried fruit - like cranberry (ok, so not that exotic) would really make them killer. Rather than start experimenting with something I know nothing about (and really, keeping that perfect balance of liquids is elusive to me), I thought I'd try out a couple of recipes that were already supposed to be orangy. Maybe I'd find the perfect muffin recipe, or at the least, I thought I could find a recipe that could be merged with the almost-prefect muffin. Ha!

I tried searching sparkrecipes, since that's where I found the first recipe, and I knew that it would be more likely to produce recipes that were healthy (because, after all, that is really the goal here). Here are the two I tried out. They are the only two recipes that come up when you search sparkrecipes for orange muffin.

First, I tried out the orange cranberry muffin. Just what we ordered, right? Well, first, I must disclaim that I couldn't find fresh or frozen cranberries (no dried, for this recipe!), so I substituted cherries. Mmmm... cherries. I think that they were a good choice. However, this one fails in the orange flavor, and at 164 calories and no bran falls a touch short on ideal nutrition.

Cranberry Orange Muffins

Ingredients
2 cups flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup milk

1 egg, slightly beaten

3 Tablespoons melted butter

2 teaspoons finely grated orange peel (approx from one orange)

1 cup chopped fresh or frozen cranberries

Directions
Combine dry ingredients.

Make a well in center.

Combine milk, egg and oil, add to dry ingredients.

Mix just til all blended together, don't over mix.

Add orange peel and cranberries.

Mix lightly.

Spoon into muffin pans lined with paper liners or well greased.

Bake at 450 for 18-20 minutes.

Number of Servings: 12

The second was the Orange Bran Flax Muffin. Once again, I had to make a supply-based substitution. I didn't have/couldn't find any wheat bran (and couldn't find my wheat germ until 2 days later), so I just used more oat barn instead. I don't know if this limited the range of flavor in these muffins, but I think it might be worth trying again to find out. To me, these at least look healthier. And they are definitely a more dense muffin (although the above muffins were surprisingly dense/filling too). The raisins were definitely necessary in these to give them a little kick, since (in spite of having two full oranges in them), the orange flavor was hard to find in these guys too. These guys came in at 180 calories, but were pretty much pure fiber, so I can deal with that.

Orange Bran Flax Muffins

Ingredients
1.5 cup oat bran

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup ground flax seed

1 cup wheat bran

1 TBS baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 oranges,cut into 1/8's

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup canola oil

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1.5 cup golden raisins

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.

Line 2 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners.

In a large bowl,combine oa tbran,flour,flax seed,wheat bran,baking powder and salt.

Set aside.

COMBINE oranges,brown sugar,buttermilk,oil,eggs and baking soda in a food processor.

Mix well.

POUR orange mixture into dry ingredients.

Mix until well blended.

Stir in raisins.

DIVIDE batter evenly among muffin cups.

Bake 18-20 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool in pans for 5 min. before moving to a cooling rack.

makes 24 muffins

Both were pretty easy to make, although the cherry/cranberry muffins required significantly less clean up. I'm still searching for the perfect combination, but I think that the original Breakfast Muffin Bonanza is far in the lead right now.