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It’s that time of the year again! Time to go back to school! Do I sound a little overly enthusiastic?
Maybe, but truth be told, I’ve always loved going back to school… at least for the first week or two before the reality of homework and exams set in.
There was always so much excitement associated with going back to school, though… New classes, new teachers, new friends, new stuff. I’m not gonna lie — one of my favorite parts about going to back to school was going back to school shopping.
I may be a bit of an oddity here (although I have a feeling most people can relate), but I loved buying new school supplies. Pencils, pens, notebooks, Crayolas!… be still my fluttering heart.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the supplies I already had, but I needed brand new ones because how well I did that year obviously depended entirely on the quality of my pens and the cuteness of my notebooks.
Now I just have a lot of office drawer clutter and fireplace fodder. What? It’s true!
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Sadly, I won’t be headed back to the classroom this year since I’m all graduated and living out in the “real world.” I say sadly because I miss being in school and I always get hit with a twang of longing when I see kids standing on the bus stops with their backpacks and lunch boxes.
Maybe that’ll change when I have kids of my own and get to live vicariously through them, but until then, I’m allowed to reminisce…
That being said, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I’ve already mentioned the homework and exams… and then there were the early morning wakeup calls.
After a summer spent staying up until 2 AM and sleeping in until noon, it was hard to get back into the habit of having to wake up at 6 and be out the door by 7. There was a lot of moaning, groaning, and general cursing going on.
In a cruel twist of fate, I somehow managed to become a morning person only after I finished college, and now naturally wake up around 5:30 without an alarm clock… but back in the day? Pft.
Every precious minute of sleep counted, which is why I tried to keep my morning routine as simple as possible. Get out of bed; brush teeth; make self presentable; grab breakfast; run out the door. No fuss, no muss.
And in case it hasn’t been made obvious by the muffin pictures sprinkled throughout this post, muffins were indeed my favorite grab-n-go breakfast, with the best of the best being Chocolate Chunk Banana Oat Muffins…
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The only thing is that the store-bought muffins I ate back in the day probably weren’t all that great for me… a minor detail I didn’t realize until after the fact.
These homemade muffins are so much better, and they’re loaded with so many good-for-you ingredients that they’re basically health food. I mean, you’ve got your Greek yogurt, your bananas, your oats, and a little bit of chocolate to make the morning commute a little easier.
Yup… Keep a batch of these unhand throughout the school year, and I have a feeling you’ll be juuuuuuust fine.
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup old-fashioned oats
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 1 large egg
- ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp. coconut oil
- ½ cup plain Greek yogurt
- 2 ripe bananas, mashed
- ½ cup chocolate chunks/chips
- Preheat oven to 400F and prepare a muffin pan by spraying cavities with cooking spray or lining them with paper liners. Set aside.
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk egg until it is slightly frothy. Add applesauce, brown sugar, coconut oil, Greek yogurt, and mashed bananas, mixing well until everything is fully incorporated.
- Gradually add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Do not over mix. Gently fold in chocolate chunks.
- Divide batter evenly among the muffin cavities, filling each cavity until it is about ¾ full. Optional: sprinkle a few chocolate chips over the top of each muffin.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the tops of your muffins are set and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow muffins to cool in pan for ~5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an air-tight container for up to a week.