TEENY MCMUNN: MY RECIPE BOX

I apologize. I said this week would be chicken enchiladas, but having recently been through and over the flu, I couldn’t quite think about them, so I chose a carb.

I found this recipe in a carpet cleaning pamphlet. [Huh? – Ed.] I had all the ingredients---except whole wheat flour and buttermilk. I purchased a couple of cups of whole wheat flour from one of the bulk bin stores, and canned powdered buttermilk that I usually have on hand. Buttermilk is rarely thought of except in baking (in my household). I’ll give you an easy substitution that I have used successfully. I guess I didn’t have oat bran either. Not even sure what it is!

So I’ll give you the recipe and note what I did differently. They are in the oven baking now.

Ingredients:

¾ c. all purpose flour 1 c. blueberries

¾ c. whole wheat flour ½ c. chopped walnuts

¾ c. white sugar 1 banana mashed

¼ c. oat bran 1 c. buttermilk

¼ c. quick cooking oats 1 egg

¼ c. wheat germ 1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan or use liners.

In a large bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients. Gently stir in the blueberries and walnuts in a separate bowl, mix together the mashed banana, buttermilk, egg, oil and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix just until blended. Spoon into the muffin cups, filling all the way to the top.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the tops of the muffins spring back when lightly touched.

MY NOTES:

If you don’t have buttermilk, it can be easily substituted for 1 cup milk (minus 1 Tbsp) and one tablespoon of white vinegar. Let set for 5 to 10 minutes. If you bake recipes that call for buttermilk a lot, then you might want to get the canned powdered buttermilk that lasts in the refrigerator for a long time.

I used the regular oats, not the quick oats, and I think it was fine – maybe a bit chewier, I don’t know. I added chia seeds because I had them. I noticed this recipe calls for very little oil or butter, so that justifies putting butter on it.

I tried a muffin before I finished this post. They are not very sweet, not like those huge cake-like muffins one buys, and they taste healthy.

By the way, I doubled the recipe; it doesn’t seem that much more work. I will freeze some and share a few.

Enjoy: We will have them for breakfast with eggs and grapefruit.