morning glory muffins

I'm not a morning person. At all. I sleep until I have EXACTLY enough time to shower, groom, maybe blow dry my hair (more often then not I put it in a bun or pony tail), and (hopefully) make it to my daily 8:15 meeting on time. I don't take my time to do all that stuff, either, I hustle, checking my watch every free second I have. So unless it's a lazy weekend, my breakfast had better be grab and go... like a muffin!

I've been wanting something more substantial than yogurt and fruit, so I tried my hand at these healthy, not too sweet breakfast muffins. These are not your light almost cupcake like muffins you'll find at the store... these are hearty and dense, made with both yogurt and fruit plus whole wheat flour and oats and flax to boost the fiber content. This by itself plus a cup of coffee will last me until about 11, but when I eat it with another piece of fruit, I'm good until lunch time. Added bonus - they freeze well*, so you can grab a frozen one and have it as a nice 3pm snack to help you last until dinner. Morning, noon, or even night, these make a great treat.

Morning Glory Muffins
adapted from Cooking Light

1 C white whole wheat flour
1/2 C all purpose flour
1 C old fashioned oats
1/2 C brown sugar
3 Tbsp flax meal
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3 bananas, mashed
6 oz plain Greek yogurt
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 C chopped walnuts
1/2 C pitted dates, chopped
1/2 C dried apricots, chopped
1/2 C dried cranberries, rough chopped
turbinado sugar, for topping (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare muffin tins -- spray 18 liners with cooking spray then put in tins.

Thoroughly combine all dry ingredients (from the flour to the salt) in a large bowl. Combine all the wet ingredients (from the bananas to the vanilla) in a smaller bowl and mix well.

Make a well in the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and stir until about 80% combined. Fold in the add ins (from the walnuts to the cranberries) until evenly distributed and batter is just combined. Dish out evenly into the 18 liners. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until a a toothpick inserted comes out dry.

* If freezing, wait until they're cooled. Wrap in two layers of plastic wrap and then put into a freezer zip top bag.