A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Muffin

In case you couldn't tell (or you don't like reading-- GIRL, GO HOME) I'm back in school and the student life. The sore shoulders from backpacks, the early morning class & coffee combo, the rambling sentences about creating a general atmosphere of my current life experience. In one of my lectures (British Literature to 1660) as her introduction, the professor told us a little bit about herself. She said that when she was working on her Ph.D her escape from the mountains of pressure was sewing.

Well I might not be after a Ph.D, but this is my first time in university and I'm already apprehensive about what's expected of me. I'm no slouch when it comes to school. I slack like the Dickens, but when push comes to procrastination, I get it all done in the end. What I'm leery of is whether or not I'll be able to get a grip on all the higher thinking. University is filled with big concepts and it's built to open up your mind and teach you things to change the way you see the world. I just want to understand it. And survive. And not ruin my future. No worries, right? 

I might not be much of a seamstress, but apart from blogging and running, one of my best escapes from the pressures of life is baking and cooking. Paper panic? Cookies. Bad day? Squash Risotto. Another part of being a student is counting every penny and putting it to good use. Use meaning, when life gives you browning bananas, you make good on your money and bake muffins.

Moist, delicious, wholesome banana muffins from the recipe your mama swears by. So, last night, I threw on some tunes, my apron and brewed some coffee in my favourite mug. (Great Gays, ASSEMBLE!)

Monsieur Smith's Mix & Match Muffins

 CAST:
1 cup oats
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp each cinnamon & nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda 
1/2 tsp salt 

2 eggs (room temp)
1 1/2 cups yogurt (I used greek, vanilla)
1/2 cup oil 
Dash of vanilla
1 cup fruit of your choice (MASHED BANANAS!)

1. Get two mixing bowls, one bigger than the other. The big one is for dry ingredients, the smaller one, wet ingredients. Sift all the siftables into the bigger bowl. Then added the brown sugar, oats, and salt. Mix it!

2. Combine the wet ingredients in the smaller of the two mixing bowls. Eggs, yogurt, oil, vanilla. Blee bloo blee blah.

3. Mash up! You don't have to mash the fruit if you use other kinds, but bananas work better in muffins mashed. So I got to work, like a boss. Fork. Measuring cup. Badassery.

 

When you've adequately expressed all your angst and rage and panic, add your bananas to the rest of the wet ingredients and stir.

4. This is where the magic happens. You see, when two mixing bowls love each other very very much....

They add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients to make muffin batter. Stir just enough to incorporate the two together, no more and no less! Overmixing makes for tough muffins.

5.  Heat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease 1 1/2 muffin tins. (My mama said this batter makes 12 muffins. I want to live in her world of titanic muffin tins and humongous carbs. For the rest of us, two muffin tins are probably a good idea.)

Basically, use as many tins are you need. These babies rise, but not by much. I got 18 muffins from this recipe...
6. Bake 20-25 minutes, until a knife comes out clean.

7. Bask in your glorious, oaty children.

8. Now eat them. Bek put butter on one half of hers, and peanut butter on the other. I tried mine with pumpkin seed butter. Both were amazing.

The muffins are dense, moist, not too sweet but tasty. There's nothing quite like fresh baked goods... The best thing about baking is that it also ensures you have food ready to eat when you need a quick snack or a study break.

Uhh. I got muffin else to say here...

BYE!