Cranberry Banana Oatmeal Muffins

As previously mentioned, the weekend didn’t warm up as much as I had hoped. Where are you, Spring??? I had high hopes of spending days outside with the sun warming my face. Only the temperature barely broke out of the teens and the ground remains frozen.

Rather than face the daunting task of weeding and yard cleanup wearing my winter coat and mittens, I decided to turn my attention to Pinterest and find a couple of recipes worthy of the oven. Specifically I was looking for anything that would use overly-ripe bananas. I had a bunch of them sitting on the kitchen counter, skins already black, and liquid mushiness on the very near horizon. They were getting scary.

GreenLiteBites had a baked oatmeal recipe that showed some promise, but I could do without the chocolate chips.  Hey, my elliptical is dead (finally dying after a second bout of burned out bearings and something funky with the magnetic resistance system), so I’m extra diligent when it comes to empty calories… no chocolate! At least not until I get a new elliptical machine. Or I lose my sweet tooth. Or aliens snatch up my body and take me to a planet with weaker gravitational pull where chubby women are worshiped…. One can always dream.

So here’s what I came up with and it was quite yummy and extremely filling.  Lots of fiber in these muffins!

Cranberry Banana Oatmeal Muffins

• 3 mashed bananas (super ripe bananas work great!)
• 1 cup vanilla Almond milk (any milk will do, I used unsweetened almond milk)
• 1/3 cup egg whites or 2 whole eggs (I used the egg whites in a carton to help keep calories down)
• 1 tbsp Baking powder
• 3 cups Old Fashion or Rolled Oats (I don’t know the difference, the Quaker guy was on the container)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries (or any other dried fruit, like dates, blueberries, apricots, or cherries)
• 1/2 cup of nuts (optional, if you’re a nut fan, I left nuts out)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Mix the bananas and liquid ingredients in another bowl.  Combine all ingredients and mix well.

Spray a muffin pan and/or liners with with non-stick spray.

Divide batter into 15 muffin cups. They should be just about filled. Disclaimer: For my purposes, I used a giant muffin pan and ended up with 6 huge muffins and I filled those muffin cups up to the top. There wasn’t really any rising action with these, so no spillover as they baked.  I just didn’t feel like washing two muffin tins.

Bake 20-30 minutes, you’ll see the edges just starting to brown and they will be firm to the touch. I baked the giant muffins for 30 minutes and tested with a toothpick to make sure they were finished inside. The muffins may stick when hot but are removed easily when cooled for a bit.

I suppose you could add a nice sweet streusel topping to the muffins, but they were sweet enough without the extra sugar. Some chopped up almonds sprinkled on top would be nice as well.

To reheat for the next day’s breakfast, I popped one in the microwave for 30 seconds and it was delish!

For the giant muffins, each came out to 255 calories with 7.3g of protein, 3.6g fat, and 50.4g carbs/6.5g of fiber. Not bad for a breakfast. With all that oatmeal, I was full for hours. Son #2 loved them, and he’s normally a tough sell for anything healthy.  

FYI, you can find me on Pinterest under the pinner name Deja Vow. I have a board dedicated to recipes.  Come over to the Dark Side and join me as I look at food porn.