Oatmeal On My Mind

You know I've been thinking about oatmeal quite a bit lately. When I woke up this morning, I had it in my head that I was going to make something out of oatmeal. I checked out recipes on Food.com, formerly Recipezaar.  I decided on oatmeal muffins ( a link to the original recipe, because of course I had to make it my own by adding some apple, cinnamon and vanilla). I am also posting my version.

The recipe is a bit time consuming, because you have to soak the oats in buttermilk for an hour, so it wasn't going to be my breakfast. I just can't wait that long. I didn't even use to eat breakfast, but now I am starving  as soon as  my eyes open, so I just had a bowl of shredded mini wheats. It was quick and I could get started on the recipe.

In reading the recipe, I realized I didn't actually have buttermilk, I also know I can substitute a Tbsp. of vinegar (I used white) and enough milk to equal one cup to make one cup of buttermilk. It is slightly less thick, but still works. I hardly ever get actual buttermilk, because I can't see paying almost as much for a quart as you would for a half gallon and if I buy a half gallon, then it usually goes to waste. Anyway...

what I didn't realize was that my baking powder had expired in August. I did realize it before using it, but I wasn't sure if I should go ahead with it or not.

I decided to look around on the internet to see what I could find out about it. I quickly came across a blog called Bowl of Plenty with lots of information about baking powder. Although it is best to throw it out, there is also a video that shows how to test the baking powder to see if it is still good and since this was somewhat of an emergency ( I already had my oatmeal soaking and I was out of self rising flour), I decided to test it and see. Luckily it passed the test.

On with the making of the muffins.... From there things went fairly smoothly. The muffins turned out quite well, but I do believe they didn't rise quite as well as they may have otherwise.

Here is the recipe according to the way I made the muffins:

Apple Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup quick-cooking oats 
• 1 cup buttermilk ( I used 1 Tbsp white vinegar + enough milk to equal 1 cup)
• 1 eggs
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup margarine, melted (normally I use oil, but since this recipe said not to, I didn't)
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 apple chopped into small chunks (I think it was a fuji, but I believe a granny smith would have been better)
• 1 tsp. each - cinnamon and vanilla ( I also believe a little more cinnamon would have been better.)

Directions

1. Soak oatmeal in buttermilk 1 hour; add egg and vanilla and beat well.
2. Add sugar and mix.
3. Add cooled margarine.
4. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and soda
5. Stir apple chunks into flour mixture
6. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients
7. Bake in greased muffin pans in hot oven (400 degrees) 15 to 20 minutes.

And here are the muffins. These were very yummy and moist. 

I would love to add more photos, but I am still having issues with photo storage. I hope to somehow get this resolved eventually.


The day was another uneventful day except for my lovely batch of muffins. I spent a lot of time online trying to figure out what to do about my photo problems. I still haven't come up with a good solution, not one I am satisfied with. I got so caught up in figure it out, I was late getting lunch. It was so late, that I decide to eat something that would last a while, but not as long as usual, so I just had the leftover kidney beans in their soup/juice whatever and a little butter. I had forgotten how dried kidney beans can be. I also had a piece of garlic toast with them. 

When it was finally time for dinner, I was in the mood for some salad, but I was out of lettuce, so DS and I decided to go and get a few things from the store. It was nice to get out of the house for a little while, even though it was just a trip to the grocery store. By the time we got back, I was starving. I threw me a big old salad together with the baby mixed greens I bought, some cucumber and carrot and what was left of the tuna salad I had. I topped it with a little Light Honey Dijon Mustard dressing. Loved it!

After dinner, we watched a Netflix movie, Robin Hood with Russel Crowe. It was a lot better than I had expected, a little bloody for me, but the story line was great.

Well, luckily I managed to get some photos posted. I'm still interested in ideas of how to resolve this issue. Good night!