Like many, my daughter’s Winter Break is almost over.  It has been so much fun sharing the wonderment of the season with her this year, and it went by quicker than I thought it would. Before I get blindsided by early mornings again, I’m going to whip up a batch of my breakfast muffins. My daughter loves them.  They are one of the few things she’ll eat at o’dark thirty on the way to school. And I hate to send her to school on an empty stomach, so I love them, too.

Breakfast Muffins

• 1½ cups oatmeal flour
• ½ cup agave
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla
• 1 banana, mashed
• chocolate chips, opt

Preheat oven to 400º.  Grind old fashioned oats in a food processor until it is flour consistency.  Thoroughly combine flour, salt, and baking powder.  Add oil, vanilla, and banana.  Mix until dry ingredients are wet, being careful not to over mix.  It should be somewhat lumpy.

This batch makes 8-9 muffins.  Don’t ask me why, haha.  It just does.   So I fill a muffin tin with 8 or 9 liners and fill liners ¾ full with mixture.  Top with 3-5 chocolate chips, or as desired.  Put a little water in the other spots to evenly distribute the heat during bake time.

Bake for 15-20 minutes.  They won’t look quite like normal muffins due to the agave (bonus: no huge sugar crash) and oatmeal “flour,” but I love knowing that I packed my kid full of some good carbs, fiber, vitamins … and yeah, a little chocolate … right before school.

Okay 2nd half of the year, let’s do this.