Food Friday - Oatmeal Muffins

Oh, did I forgot to mention THEY ARE GLUTEN-FREE!  The perfect breakfast!  I had been trying to decide what types of foods I could do for breakfast.  I have access to a microwave and fridge at work so I could make just about anything.  I however, prefer something easy.

I found the recipe via Pinterest (she has MUCH cuter pictures than mine, I'm jealous).  The picture of the chocolate chips on the oatmeal got me.  I HAD to make them.  So on Sunday I made them.  I was up too late doing it but I think it was worth it.

So down to business:

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 2 cups applesauce, unsweetened
• 5 cups, Old Fashioned rolled oats (I used Quaker because that is what I had on hand, but I think next time I will try with Bob's Red Mill G/F Oats)
• 1 banana, mashed
• 2 3/4 cups milk (she used 1% and I used Silk Almond Milk)
• 1/4 cup flaxseed meal
• 6 packets of Sweetleaf Stevia or 1 1/2 teaspoons stevia powder (I used Trivia)
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 3 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Optional toppings: raisins, walnuts, chocolate chips

Nutrition Info (without toppings)

Servings: 18* Calories: 143* Fat: 4g* Fiber: 4g* Carbs: 23g* Protein: 6g*
Using the Weight Watchers Recipe Builder Points+: 3*
Source for recipe.

Now the ingredients in PICTURES!!!

 

All the participants!!

 On to the recipe directions.

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix eggs, vanilla, applesauce, banana and Stevia together in a bowl.
3. Add in oats, salt, baking powder, flax and cinnamon and mix well with wet ingredients.
4. Finally pour in milk and combine.
5. Spray a 12 and 6 capacity muffin tin with cooking spray or use cupcake liners.
   Pour mixture evenly into muffin tin cups.
6. If using toppings add them onto the tops of muffins now. If using fresh or frozen fruit, drop it right into the batter.
7. Bake 30 minutes until a toothpick in center comes out clean. Cool and enjoy or freeze them in gallon freezer bags.

Source for recipe. 

Wet things first.

The items to mix first.

 I placed the first set of ingredients into the mixing bowl.  I made sure to put the banana in there first so that I could make sure to mush it really well.

Thank you to my Memere's potato masher

Next I measured my oats.  Now I knew I had used this container of Quaker Oats before, but I thought that for sure I would have enough oats...

...Obviously I was wrong.  I then ran around the apartment trying to figure out if I had ANYTHING that could sub in for 1 cup of oats.  Yea, I had nothing (besides cake/brownie like mixes) and it was too late to go back out to the store.  Oh did I mention I started this whole process at 9pm.  And we normally go to bed around 10pm.

So I was just going to have to make it work.  I followed the directions and added in the remaining dry ingredients and mixed well.

Since I was short 1 cup of oats I could have lessened the amount of milk (or in my case Silk Almond Milk) but no I completely forgot until my bowl looked like this:

Oh well, I mixed and mixed (the whole time worrying that there was too much liquid and my muffins were going to come out watery).  Well I didn't have to worry at all.  It finally felt like the oats and other dry ingredients soaked most of it up.

I then added in my fruit.  I had a coupon for buy one get some amount of money off of the second one for these Dole frozen fresh fruits.  I was tempted to pick the pineapple but didn't think that would mesh well with oatmeal.

 I cut up the strawberries smaller and dumped one cup of the blueberries in.  And mixed some more.

I then put muffin cups in the trays.  And got them into the oven to become edible yummies.

 FYI - Blogger is not allowing me to place the pictures side by side without making one of them small.  AND IT IS MAKING ME ANGRY!!

Okay with that out of the way.  I realized that I had a TON of battery stuff left.  There was no way that I was going to stay up until 11:30 cooking these things.  So my solution?

Make mini ones!  I had little muffin cups (which makes the clean up so much faster).

 And shoved those in the oven too!

I used quite a few toothpicks to make sure the centers were solid.

Once they pulled through clean I took them out to cool.

Those big black blobs?  Blueberries!!

 Early on in trying to get the muffins out I realized they were super hot.  I used a spoon to scoop under them and turn them sideways to extract them easier. :)

All of them together!  I left them out overnight to cool, but I covered them with a cake tray thing.  Don't want buggies knowing there if food about!

Distraction!  These are home grown carrots from the bf's parents garden.  They are HUGE!!  I gifted some to my coworkers this week.  I might even have more next week too!

Just like Brenda suggests I decided to freeze them.  I, myself, can not eat all of these before they start going stale.  I certainly do not want to waste any of them.

Is it weird I like sucking the air out of these kinds of things?

Minis!

My total made count?

17 normal sized
15 mini sized (one not pictured because I just had to eat one)

Will I make them again?!

HECK YES!  In trying to stay away from sugar I probably won't be doing the chocolate chip ones, but I could put peanut butter (or almond butter) and other such things in them.

If you like oatmeal but hate cleaning the messy bowl afterwards?  This is perfect for you.

Have a great Friday night!!