Thursday, May 2, 2013

power muffins

As I'm learning to be a grow up, one of the big changes is buying, preparing and cooking my own food. I really don't like grocery shopping and routinely struggle to buy the right amount of breakfast, lunch and dinner plans without food going bad or having to go back to the store within 1-2 days.

I keep telling my student athletes... life is easier when can just do what people tell you to do. Being on an athletic team helps tremendously with forcing you to manage your time. Practice and game schedules determine when you work out, when & where to eat, and the rest of time is allotted to sleep and getting work done. You don't really need to schedule time to hang out with your friends because your teammates are your friends. Therefore, any team time equals hanging out with friends. 

During the collegiate athletics time of my life, eating was easy. I could pretty much eat anything I wanted and I didn't have to buy the ingredients, cook it or clean up after it. Now, as I'm learning to be an adult, I have to do it all. (And I have to design my own work outs and actually do them... but that's another topic for another day). 

These power muffins are a great snack or breakfast. Greek yogurt and oats with a small serving of fruit in them fills me up. Eating 2 muffins with my coffee in the morning (about 9:00am) has been a GREAT way to start my day and holds me until lunch at about 2:00pm. 

Yes, they still have some butter and regular sugar in them, but not as much as a cake or regular muffin recipe. Enjoy: 

Ingredients: 
cooking spray or muffin liner papers
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup quick oats, plain
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1.5 cups nonfat greek yogurt
2 large eggs or 1/2 cup egg beaters
4 tablespoons, unsalted butter, mostly melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1.5 cups of fresh blueberries, or 4 bananas cut up into small pieces

Directions:
Preheat oven 365 degrees. Coat muffin tin with cooking spray or liners. Combine flour, sugar, oats, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Combine yogurt, eggs, butter and vanilla in a second bowl until consistent texture. Fold yogurt mixture into dry mixture, stir until combined completely. Fold in fruit. Spoon into muffin tins. Bake 20-25 minutes. Let them cool on a cooling rack. Makes one dozen. 

Store in a plastic bag in refrigerator (after cooling entirely). Reheat in the microwave for 30-45 seconds.  



Blueberry
Choc chip & Banana


Improvements for next time: 
1. I also did them with chocolate chip. Amazing. 
2. I also did this recipe making 6 chocolate chip muffins and 6 bananas. I split the mixture before adding fruit/chocolate. 
3. Try combinations of fruit. blueberry + banana? apple + cinnamon? 
4. Try a recipe with more oats and less flour. I couldn't even tell the muffins had oats in them.