Oatmeal Bran Banana Apple Muffins for Toddlers and Big People Alike

I would have photographed the whole batch, but they got gobbled up too quickly. Peanut loved them plain, with peanut butter, and with regular butter (I try to smear good fatty stuff on whatever I give her... good for her brain.) Oh, and my husband was the glutton who is mostly responsible for the disappearance of the batch. Without the butter or peanut butter, these are essentially fat free.


Oatmeal Bran Banana Apple Muffins:
makes approx 20 muffins
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat or multigrain flour
1 cup bran
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup molasses
4 ripe bananas
1/4 cup chopped dried apples
1/4 cup flax seeds
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tbsp baking powder
2 eggs

mix wet ingredients together in large mixing bowl, sift dry ingredients in separate bowl. slowly add dry ingredients to wet. grease muffin tins, and pop 'em in the oven. they'll be ready in 20 - 25 minutes. mmmmmm....

Oatmeal and Flax Whole Wheat Bread

so christmas came early this year! (i don't actually celebrate christmas, but it feels like what i imagine christmas to be right now...) -and i needed a little bit of christmas after what i'd been thinking about re: my last post. i splurged on a new bread machine! i love to make fresh bread, but being the mother of a one year old, i am far too scattered, tired and busy to keep my eye on rising dough. so, first i bought a crappy machine on craig's list, and then resold it because it sounded like a tornado was lifting our house out of the ground. plus it made crap bread. i knew i wanted a good one and that i'd use it a lot. so i went for the creme de la creme: the zojirushi bbcc x20. it's amazing. i'm in love!

i'm particularly enthralled with the idea of making my own bread because it's an easy snack for my babe (or part of a meal). I don't feel good about giving her store bought bread - have you read the list of ingredients on that stuff?! i KNOW what goes into my bread. i know it's healthy. no funny oils and preservatives. she loves the stuff, and i feel great about giving it to her. this morning we shared a piece of home made toast with natural peanut butter and banana slices on it, and she couldn't get enough.

my first loaf was adapted from one of zojirushi's recipes (i can never follow a recipe, always have to add my own touch)... but it turned out beautifully.

Bobcat's Oatmeal and Flax Whole Wheat Bread (can be adapted for the real bakers too!)

1 7/8 cups water
4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup bread flour
3 tbsp. cane sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. butter
2 tsp. active dry yeast
1/4 cup oats
2 tbsp. flax seeds

(Basic Wheat Setting on the Zojirushi Machine)

enjoy...

Identity Crisis Revisited

A few days ago, while I had my camera at my side to record sweet moments of my daughter crawling and exploring, I was busy cooking, baking and doing laundry. It was one of those days that I felt as though there must be something I'm doing incorrectly if there's this much to do at once.

I was making a curry inspired by the fresh corn I had just bought at the market. The peppers were arranged artfully on the cutting board. I grabbed my camera and snapped a couple of shots. I thought it was a good idea to document the work I do in a day to make myself feel better about the work I'm not doing in a day.


Then came the muffins. These were a successful try at inventing a healthful baked good for my almost 11 month old daughter. I had been feeling as though I had been feeding her the same old thing day after day, and not feeling good about giving her store bought breads etc. I still give her cereals, but want to include more grains in her diet. Baking was the answer, and here was the result:



I'm going to share the recipe with you before I get into why I think I must be insane, and how this all has to do with the identity crisis at hand...

Corn and Oat Baby Muffin Recipe (Mom and Dad love them too!)

1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup boiling water
1/2 cup raisins
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 cup whole yellow cornmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oat flour
2 tbsp flax seeds
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
2 large eggs

-preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
-greast muffin tin
-place oats in mixing bowl and pour boiling water over them. add raisins and butter. -stir to combine, then set aside to cool.
-whisk together cornmeal, flours, baking powder and soda, salt.
-stir buttermilk and eggs into the cooled oat mixture
-add dry ingredients and mix until everything is moist
-bake for 25 minutes.

-adapted from King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking Book

Okay, so my insanity has brought us a new recipe which my kid looooooves. Honestly, she went nuts over these. It was hard to get her to eat anything else once the muffins were introduced.

But in looking at my photos, I see a perfectionist. A perfectionist that I don't normally associate with myself. Then I feel sad and I mourn the creator in me who just enjoys making things. In the days before the baby came along, it would have warmed my heart just to make a nice meal for friends. Now I'm documenting it to prove something to myself about productivity. I'm producing a human being over here for god's sakes! What the hell am I doing to myself?

And in that day that I baked the perfect muffins, made the awesome and artful curry, I did 3 loads of laundry, washed dishes, took my kid to the park, ran for half an hour, and did 3 hours of money earning work.

My therapist and I have been talking about this at length. I have been crying about this at length. As it turns out, I am realizing that not only am I trying to be the great and present parent that my parents were not, I'm also listening to a voice in my head that isn't altogether my own.

My dad passed away almost 2 years ago. He was a tough guy. Lovely in some ways, and particularly if I were "hitting home runs", as he used to call it. In other ways, he could be very hard on me, particularly if I wasn't doing what he considered productive (aka making moolah.) Apparently when a parent passes away, the negative or positive voices they once spoke become stronger as a way of keeping them alive. And while I had some very positive words from him, I was very sensitive to the negative, and that's what I hear.

I have no doubt that I'm being hard on myself for several reasons, many of which I blame Hollywood and the boob-tube for. But I can't ignore the fact that my dad's voice creeps up the moment I find myself relaxing. I remedy the voice echo by getting up and working my ass off. This is nothing new, but has become worse since I have become a mother. It's a many layered problem with reasons feeding reasons.

I'm glad to know that though the millions of baby books out there don't usually touch on this subject, there are others out there who are experiencing the same thing. My bestest friend S sent me to this blog entry, and I was happy to read that my insanity in this respect is not altogether unusual.