Steel Cut Oatmeal and Blueberry Muffins

I have been really into the NY Times Recipes for Health lately.  Recently, the week's recipes were whole-grain muffins.  The main article was posted, along with the first recipe, the day before the rest - and I was so excited to see those recipes, I kept checking back until they appeared!  I happened to have some extra cooked steel-cut oats in the fridge, so I started with the Steel Cut Oatmeal and Blueberry Muffins.

I used frozen blueberries and didn't bother tossing them with flour as suggested.  I think next time I will try it, though, as the berries smeared the batter with purple streaks.  The muffins weren't very sweet.  I like them this way, and I think with fresh Jersey blueberries in the summer, they will be perfect.  Ken wanted more sugar in them, though.  I think they would be a nice side to an omelet or similar savory breakfast.  Next time I will also try to eliminate the 1 cup of all purpose flour that is included in the batter, although they did rise beautifully and form nice domed tops, but it's worth a shot.  This is a great recipe for when you cook steel-cut oats for the whole week but get sick of them by Friday - the leftovers can just be stirred into the muffin batter!

Blueberry Buckle

As with the rest of Good to the Grain, and I'm sure you're sick of hearing (reading?) me say this, I have wanted to try this recipe since my first flip through the book.  I finally had my chance when some friends joined us down the shore.  I do not make a habit of making delicious, carby, sugary breakfast cakes just for myself, so I was glad to have a bigger crowd (7 people) to serve this to.

I wanted to bake this down the shore, but knew I didn't have a stand mixer available there.  Luckily, I read the recipe notes, which suggested that you could make the batter the night before.  I mixed up the batter and tossed it in a cooler along with a pint of blueberries and a sandwich bag full of the dry ingredients for the streusel topping.  In the morning (after a 7am spinning class... fun!) I made the streusel, washed the berries and assembled the cake.

The only bad thing was that it took so long to bake.  I had hoped someone would wake up and get cracking on it before I got back from spinning, but no one was up when we got back.  We were very hungry and ready to go to the beach by the time the cake came out of the oven, but I made everyone wait - and for good reason - it was delicious!  The copious amounts of blueberries make it a bit sloppy, especially when warm, but it was soooo good.  I totally messed up the streusel topping - I overworked it and the warmth from my hands melted the butter, so it really just made a sweet, buttery layer on top, but this did not take away from the taste at all.

I have a bad habit of remembering things when I'm out shopping instead of making a list before I go.  I saw the blueberries and thought, oh right!  I wanted to make that buckle.  So I got two pints of blueberries.  Then when I looked at the recipe I saw it called for two cups (one pint) of blueberries.  I thought maybe I could add more, but that definitely would not have worked out.  So since I prefer cooked blueberries, I just left them in the fridge and waited for something to come to me.  Nothing did, and I decided to make the buckle again.  I had a few raspberries in the fridge as well - a little soft, but still in decent shape - so I added those in with the pint of blueberries.  I cut the butter into the streusel topping with a fork instead of my fingers, so it came out right this time.

Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins

In case you haven't yet noticed, I love muffins. When we went to Whole Foods on Friday I found 32 oz of delicious blueberries for $6 and decided to make a double batch of my favorite (so far) muffin recipe, which you can see here. You are probably wondering how I can eat these every day and not feel bad about it. My conscience doesn't mind because these muffins are mostly whole wheat! Plus, blueberries are SO good for you. How are my muffins so very white and pretty if they are whole wheat? Well, because I use white whole wheat flour, which has a lighter color and consistency than regular whole wheat flour. It's great for baking for that reason. You can also get whole wheat pastry flour which might be better for certain recipes. The recipe calls for a little bit of all-purpose flour also, which I think can be substituted with the white whole wheat flour for a 100% whole wheat muffin, but I love these muffins too much to take the risk of messing them up. As you can see, my muffins are full of berries, and I still only used half of the blueberries making a double batch. One thing I like about this recipe is that the batter will keep for a few days in the refrigerator. If you like freshly baked muffins, you can make this on Sunday and bake a few at a time for the next few days. I am out of muffin papers, so I was only able to make one dozen muffins. Like my other muffins, these freeze very nicely. Just wrap in plastic wrap individually, put them all in a gallon size ziplock bag (I like to label mine with a description and the date), and toss in the freezer. You can have a muffin on the go! If you have to wait 2 hours before eating it, like me, it will defrost itself. If you want it right away, you can just pop it in the toaster oven (or even the microwave) to warm it up like it just came out of the oven. This is an easy recipe and the sour cream makes the muffins really moist and creamy. If you don't freeze them, store them in the refrigerator. It is blueberry season in our area right now and it won't be for long so this is a great way to use them so that you can have some blueberry goodness later in the winter.