Too busy to cook in the morning or not a breakfast person?

I often observe that for some the challenge of meal management is made much harder by busy working lives.

I don’t work any more but when I was working my eating habits were dreadful. I rarely had breakfast, would snack on the rubbish available in the staff room and grabbed food on the way home (even if an evening meal was the norm).

There are great breakfast options that can be prepared before hand, like overnight oats, but if you are the grazer and snacker that I was these might not fit the bill.

I have been playing around with recipes for baked oats and have turned it into a muffin like breakfast and the great news is that one portion of baked oats will make two large muffins which means you can take a couple of pre-made muffins to work and graze on them in the morning if that is your way. The ones in the images are apple muffins.

Ingredients (for one portion / 2 muffins):

• 40g oats
• 2 eggs
• 150g thick Greek yoghurt (no fat)
• 2 tsps of sweetener (if you have a sweet-tooth like me)
• 100g of fresh fruit (chopped apple, chopped banana, blueberries, raspberries, chopped strawberries even fruit purée if you allow for the concentrated sugar).
• Add any spice that might go with the fruit such as cinnamon if you like that flavour.
• Instead of fruit you could include a small quantity of dark chocolate drops, nuts etc if your food plan allows).

Method:

• Mix together all the ingredients (apart from the fruit) in a bowl until a smooth mix.
• Stir in your fruit.
• Spoon into muffin cases. Silicone ones are really good here and reusable.
• Bake in the oven for 20- 30 minutes (Gas Mark 6/180 degrees Celsius) or until golden brown or dark brown (depending on your taste).
• Eat when warm or cool and store.
• If you want to plan ahead you can make a bigger batch and make several days worth for an easier week all round.