In spite of the name Fishsticks, which might lead you to believe that I feed my family . . . um . . . fishsticks, we actually eat virtually no processed food in our home at all. About four years ago, we started on a journey towards eating a healthy, natural, “real food” diet. Along the way, I’ve come up with a few recipes that we really enjoy. I’ve been promising friends and family that I’d share some of my recipes for ages, and I’m finally going to try doing so!
When we first stopped eating food from a box, breakfast was a really big issue. Before our big diet change, brightly-colored, sugary cereals and artificially-flavored instant oatmeal were our early morning choices. My children have always enjoyed muffins, though. You probably know the kind I mean, from a bagged mix, with dried bits of something that is supposed to be “fruit”. Anyway, muffins seemed to be a good place to start. I tried out quite a few recipes that I found online and in the cookbooks on our bookshelf. Eventually, I combined recipes and altered ingredients until this one emerged, and it’s become my go-to, ready-for-the-oven-in-10-minutes recipe.
The Great Mornings Muffin Recipe
The Ingredients:
For 2 dozen muffins
2 cups milk (or water, if you’d prefer to skip the milk)
2 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup butter (the real stuff, no margarine allowed) or coconut oil
2 eggs (local, organic, cage-free, if possible)
3/4 cup honey (local raw honey is the best) or real maple syrup (opt for the maple syrup if you have little ones under 12 months eating the muffins)
2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour (we prefer white whole wheat)
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder (look for aluminum-free)
1 tbls. cinnamon
The Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, combine oats and milk (or water) and set aside. (This lets the oats soften up and makes them easier for your body to digest. The longer they soak, the better. If you’re a better planner than me, you can mix the oats and milk the night before and keep them in the refrigerator until you’re ready to mix up the rest of the ingredients in the morning.)
Toss the butter into a pan and melt it. (We’ve tried coconut oil in place of the butter, and it works well. We just prefer the texture and taste that we get from real butter.)
Measure flour into a large measuring cup. Add salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon and mix them up in the measuring cup. (No need to pour them into a separate bowl, if there’s room in the measuring cup, right?)
Beat eggs in a separate bowl, then add eggs and honey (or maple syrup) to the oats and milk. Mix.
Mix in melted butter.
Pour in the dry ingredients and mix well.
Spoon into buttered muffin cups. I fill them about half full, and usually end up with about 2 1/2 dozen kid-size muffins. For larger, grown-up sized muffins fill the muffin cups about 2/3 full.
Bake at 375 degrees for 18-20 minutes.
Enjoy! I love these plain or with a little butter. My little ones prefer them with natural peanut butter. Yum!
Thank you so much for sharing, Bonnie. How are they leftover, like the next morning?
They keep really well, Anna! My family goes through 2 dozen in about 3 days, so I just keep them in an airtight container on the counter. If you need them to keep longer, though, they refrigerate well. We don’t use a microwave, so we slice them in half and warm them back up in the toaster oven. It makes them a little crunchy on the outside but warm and soft on the inside. Yum!
I make these quite often (I’m making them today again actually), and we all love them! We also like adding dried cranberries in occasionally. 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!