banana oat muffins

Little did we know that two days after celebrating Easter and about a month since nearly melting in my classrooms from the unbearable heat, winter would decide to return to Northern Ohio.

This morning was beautiful.  It was cool, partially cloudy and pretty much perfect.  And my husband and I both had off at the same time and had absolutely no plans!  That hadn't happened in quite a while.  We took it slow this morning by sipping coffee and cuddling on the couch with the pooch.  By the time we had gotten ourselves together, it was already early afternoon.



We figured that the dog could use some time outside (and so could we).  So, we decided to go geocaching.  It's basically a treasure-hunt with a GPS where you find "caches" hidden by other geocachers.  It's something we really enjoy doing, but hadn't geocached in a while.

We got ourselves together, got the dog ready to go and headed out the door.  Upon stepping outside, we were both a little surprised at how cool it was.  But we figured that the cool weather would keep people away from the park, making the geocache hunt easier without the risk of being spotted.

About 3 minutes after getting into the car, it started to rain.  Within moments, the rain changed to snow.  You read that right...snow.  Despite being terribly under-dressed for the sudden chilly weather, we decided to continue on our geocaching adventure.

We quickly (luckily!) found the two caches we were searching for, the dog "took care of his business", and we were heading back to the car when we realized how wet and cold we really were.

On the car ride home, I decided to make something that would warm us up and fill up my husband who would soon be heading to work for the afternoon.  With the overripe banana on my kitchen counter as my inspiration, I quickly looked for a recipe for banana muffins.  I found a recipe, adapted it slightly, and whipped up these light (yet hardy) muffins in no time.

They warmed us up from the freak April snow.  They'll warm you up too.

Banana Oat Muffins
Recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com
Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c all-purpose flour
• 3/4 c whole wheat flour
• 1 c rolled oats
• 1/2 c sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 3/4 c milk
• 1/3 c vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 c mashed bananas

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine the flours, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.  In a large bowl, beat the egg.  Add the milk, oil and vanilla to the egg and stir everything together.  Add mashed banana to the wet mixture and combine.  Slowly add the dry flour mixture to the banana mixture.  Stir until just combined.  Divide the batter into 12 lined muffin cups.  Bake muffins for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.