Our family has a breakfast rule; “You cannot leave home without eating breakfast.” When everyone is in a rush to leave home in the morning having quick breakfast available to all is critical. As the kids were growing up, taking into consideration their ability to feed themselves breakfast was also important. So I got into the habit of making muffins over the weekend and keeping them ready in the refrigerator for busy mornings. I have used a basic recipe and tweaked it over the years. Here it is:

Banana Flaxseed Muffins

2 ripe Bananas, mashed (I keep ripe bananas in the freezer and defrost them in the refrigerator the night before I am going to make the muffins)

2 Eggs

1/3 cup oil (I use peanut oil)

1/3 cup nonfat Greek Yogurt

1/3 cup Brown Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

1 cup  Whole Wheat flour

1/2 cup Oat Flour (I just grind quick oats)

1/4 cup Flaxseed meal (you can grind flax seeds or buy flaxseed meal)

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/4 cup mini, semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Blend together bananas, eggs, oil, yogurt and brown sugar. Add vanilla and mix well. Add whole wheat flour, oat flour and flaxseed meal to the wet ingredients. Add baking powder and baking soda, mix well. Stir in mini chocolate chips.

Lightly grease a 12 muffin pan. Divide the batter equally in the muffin tins. Bake in the preheated oven for 18 mins. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Remove from the pan and cool on wire racks. Store cooled muffins in airtight container. These muffins can be frozen.

Variations: There are many variations you can try. One of my family’s favorite is to add 1 cup of canned pumpkin, 1 tsp of pumpkin spice. You can also add 1/4 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans), 1/4 cup craisins instead of chocolate chips, 1 chopped apple and 1 tsp cinnamon or even 1/4 cup chopped dried apricots. Give it a try, make it your own. Enjoy!