Blueberry oatmeal muffins: a recipe

Blueberry oatmeal muffins

After focusing my time on making lots of soups and desserts lately, I  realized that I need to think a bit about breakfast again.

I'm back in a breakfast rut.

There are only so many ham-and-cheese mini paninis* that a person can eat in one week without crying uncle.

Uncle!

I found this recipe via Cooking Light (yes, I know, what a shock). I like it because it has quite a bit of oatmeal in it so I don't even have to use the cake-masquerading-as-breakfast ruse: this is actually designed for breakfast.

Sweet.

I dipped into my stash of frozen blueberries that I picked and put up in August, but any frozen berry would work here. Raspberries might be nice. Or even raisins.

Pulse the oats until they look like a coarse meal

Tossing the frozen berries with flour keeps the batter from turning bright blue

The batter should fill about 18-20 muffin cups

(* I put one slice of Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar and one slice of deli ham on one of those 100-calories thin buns and toast it in a panini press for about 3 minutes -- love it because it's portable!)

Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins (adapted slightly from recipe by Jennifer Martinkus in Cooking Light)

Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups quick-cooking oats
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup light brown sugar (packed)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk **
1/4 cup canola oil
zest of one small lemon
2 eggs
2 cups frozen blueberries
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Pulse oats in a food processor until they resemble coarse meal. Place in a large bowl. Add the flours and next 5 ingredients (through salt) to oats; stir well. Make a well in the center.

Combine buttermilk** and next 3 ingredients. Add to flour mixture; stir just until moist.

In a small bowl, toss berries with 2 tablespoons flour, then gently fold into batter. Spoon batter into paper-lined muffin cups; sprinkle 2 tablespoons granulated sugar evenly over batter. Bake for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Cool on a wire rack.

(** To make your own buttermilk for this recipe, just add 1 1/2 tablespoons of white vinegar to the milk and let stand for about 5 minutes.)