Lazy Sunday Mornings

It's 11:34AM and I have just now popped the Applesauce-Oat Bran Muffins from Veganomicon in the oven.  My youngest son, Derek woke up at 10:30AM, which is a full hour ago.  This is surprising as my oldest son, David is still asleep.  He is usually the earlier riser.  David and I are normally waiting on Derek to wake up for Sunday morning breakfast or we have to wake Derek up when the food is done.  Not today.  Derek is awake and he and I planned out breakfast.

I offered waffles, but Derek said no.  Then, I offered to make the Lower-Fat Banana Bread Muffins from Veganomicon that I had made a couple of weeks ago.  Derek said definitely and could I add some chocolate chips? I said sure and began to gather ingredients. That's when I discovered that the bananas I thought I could use were a day past usable.  So, I went onto Plan B.  Plan B was to search through my cookbooks for another muffin.  All I had to do was look at the next page in Veganomicon and I found my recipe.  Amazingly enough, I had everything I needed, including whole wheat pastry flour.

I followed the recipe pretty closely.  I used almond milk instead of soy or rice milk.  I only had a half cup of unsweetened applesauce, so I used half unsweetened and half sweetened.  I only added about 1/4 cup of raisins (if that).  We are not big raisin eaters here.  I will admit that my tastes have changed since adopting a vegan diet and raisins taste better and sweeter to me now than they did when I ate the Standard American Diet.

I made 6 jumbo muffins sprinkled with large decorator sugar (for my sons).  Although the sugar and half cup of sweetened applesauce will add more calories to my muffins, these are a calorie bargain.  If I had made 12 muffins, they would be a scant 100 calories (see the nutritional information here).  I figure the 6 jumbo muffins are about 225 calories, which is actually much lower than the 352 calories the Low-Fat Banana Bread muffins sported.

The muffins smelled heavenly when they were baking.  And, they taste as good as they smell.  One test I use is how do my sons like them?  David is the picky eater, so I pay attention to him.  He went back for a second muffin.  The muffins passed the family-friendly test.  These are definitely a keeper and will be in my rotation of Sunday morning treats.