Whole Wheat Oatmeal Blueberry Muffins

Since there was some interest in this recipe on Facebook, I thought I'd go ahead and post it.  We'll add pictures later.

You'll need:

• 1 1/4 cups of whole wheat flour (you can also make this half wheat and half white if you don't want to go all out)
• 1 1/4 cups of oats (the old fashioned kind)
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2-1 tsp cinnamon (depending on your preference)
• 1 cup of unsweetened applesauce (it's quite nice to make a big batch of this and have it on hand if you bake a lot--just core and peel the apples and throw them in a food processor until pureed) 
• 1/2 cup of plain yogurt (wisked) or buttermilk
• 1/3 cup of agave nectar (or 1/2 cup of brown sugar)
• 2 tbsp. of canola oil
• 1 egg
• 1/2-1 cup of fresh, frozen, or dried blueberries (cranberries would be nice too... with some orange zest maybe??)

Let's get started:

1.  Preheat your oven to 375 F and grease a 12 cup muffin tin.

2.  Wisk together all of the dry ingredients except the blueberries (flour, oats, powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon).

3.  Wisk together all of the wet ingredients (yogurt, applesauce, agave, oil, and egg).

4.  Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently mix with a scraper just until moist.  Do not overmix your muffins and don't concern yourself with "lumps."

5.  Fold in blueberries. ("Fold" basically means to pour the blueberries in and mix them by "folding" the batter over them again and again with a scraper until they're incorporated.)

6.  Pour the batter into the muffin cups.  I love using a large cookie scoop for this.

7.  Bake for about 15 minutes or until lightly brown on top.  

8.  Cool and enjoy! 

Blueberry Stuffed French Toast

Ok, so I know we're generally all about eating healthy, so two, though decadently delicious, mega cream cheese posts in a row might seem a little odd, but have you SEEN that enormous block of cream cheese we scored for a super low price?  Can you really blame us?

You'll need:

16 slices of your fav bread (may we suggest something whole grain?)
8 oz. cream cheese (softened or lightly whipped with that sweet mixer you have)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup (please steer clear of "pancake syrup" and all of its high fructose corn syrup)
3 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp cinnamon
salt (We'll talk about measurements in a bit.)
1/4 cup dried blueberries (You can probably use fresh, but those are unavailable to us here--lame, I know.)
1 cup milk
3 eggs
1/4 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
butter or oil for greasing

Let's start with the filling:
1.  Mix together cream cheese, brown sugar, maple syrup, 1 tsp. of vanilla, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt until it's all smooth.
2.  Stir in blueberries.
3.  Boom. Done with the filling.

Evenly-sized globs--very technical term, here.

Now to prepare those toasts:
1. Put evenly sized globs of filling on half of the pieces of bread.
2. Spread out the filling on each piece and top it with a second slice of bread making a "sandwich."

To the coating and the cooking:
1.  Wisk together milk, eggs, flour, baking powder, 2 tsp. vanilla, and 1/4 tsp. salt.
2.  Dunk each "sandwich" in the coating and flip it around a few times.  (Think covered, not soggy.)
3.  Let the excess coating drip off.  Put them on a greased skillet and brown them on the stove. (At the advising of one of our favorite cooks, Amy Renfroe, we registered a double griddle for our wedding.  Best. idea. ever.)

Browned, not burnt, mmk?

4.  Flip them over to brown on the other side.  This really shouldn't take very long.
5.  Place the browned toasts on a greased baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 5 minutes at 350 F.
6.  Make them appear restaurant-quality dust with powdered sugar if you like.  Eat, eat eat!