Muffin Mania

Before I left town, I made two kinds of muffins.

One batch turned these ugly bananas...

into this array of lovely banana-oat bran muffins.

One of the great things about this recipe is that it is totally wheat-free. As you may know, I have historically been sensitive to a lot of foods, and wheat was a major problem. Lately, I have been having more stomach ache than usual, and the most obvious cause is that I have slowly allowed my wheat consumption to increase beyond where it really should be. I have decided that I need to start monitoring my wheat intake again, and I am trying to limit myself to one meal with significant wheat content per day. By this I mean that if I have wheat pasta for lunch, I won't have a sandwich on wheat bread at dinner, not that I will be scrutinizing the wheat content in say a Boca Chick'n patty that I eat with rice and veg for dinner.

Fortunately, I seem to be able to eat as much oat as I could possibly want without setting my system off, so oatmeal or oat-based muffins make a nice part of my breakfast.

Banana Nut-Oat Bran Muffins
(Based on Quaker recipe)

2 ½ c. oat bran cereal
¼ c. brown sugar
1/8 c. white sugar or Splenda
2 t. baking powder
1 t. cinnamon (or more)
2 bananas, mashed
2/3 c. skim milk
2 egg whites
1/8 c. honey
1 T. vegetable oil
¼ c. chopped walnuts

1. Heat oven to 425˚. Mix oat bran, sugar/Splenda, baking powder, and cinnamon in large bowl.
2. In medium bowl, mix bananas, milk, egg whites, honey, and oil. Add to flour mixture and stir until moistened. Add walnuts and stir.
3. Spoon into muffin tins sprayed with Pam.
4. Bake 15 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins (at 120 calories each with Splenda).

The other muffin recipe I made following LivingDeb's Strawberry Muffins, with slight modifications. I don't like nutmeg (except in noodle recipes) so I used some cloves instead. I used Splenda instead of sugar and ground oats for part of the flour (perhaps about half of it). I used the entire pound of strawberries. I lowered the amount of nuts (and I may have used pecans instead of walnuts because that's what I happened to have.) I found the 1 c. of puree to be slightly too little, so I added in a bit of water to the mix until it reached my desired consistency.

I didn't find any serious sog problem around the berries, and I didn't cook the muffins to the deep brown that she showed on her post.

Verdict? Delicious.



Sally’s Debbie’s Strawberry Muffins

2 cups flour and/or ground oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup Splenda or sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pound strawberries
2/3 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tins.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, spices, and sugar.

Puree enough strawberries to get one cup (about 13 strawberries). Dice the rest of the strawberries.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs and vanilla together. Add the pureed strawberries. Stir this wet mixture into the flour mixture, mixing until a batter forms. (If too dry, add a bit of water until desired texture is attained.) When all but a few grains of flour have been mixed in, add the diced strawberries and chopped walnuts.

Add batter to prepared muffin tins, filling each cup to 3/4 full. Top lightly with sugar. Bake for about 20 minutes or until inserted fork comes out clean.

Nutrition information: 12 muffins @ 131 calories each (Splenda version)


Also, in the strawberry photo, you can sort of see my feet in the picture. These are the shoes that I bought in Denver on my next-to-last visit to Tam; the store was having a sale, hence an employee-to-customer ratio such that it took approximately 372 days to actually complete this purchase. But I love them.