Good Morning!

I apologize to anyone out there the reads my Fitness Friday posts-  I decided to head home yesterday afternoon and spent the majority of my time at home getting some homework done until dinner was ready.  I will be sure to write a great post next Friday!

I love being so close to home since it allows me to basically go home whenever I’m ready for a yummy home-cooked meal and a fun evening with my family.  They always make me smile 🙂

Being at home for a few hours also means I have access to a fully stocked kitchen.  I’m always on the lookout for portable snacks and quick bites for in-between classes.  I love taking granola bars or things like that, but buying them gets expensive, especially at school where they are over $1.50 per bar!  After dinner, I took some time to scrounge the cabinets for snacks to take back to school, and after spotting some key ingredients, I decided to make muffins!

I didn’t really have any sort of plan going into these, except I knew that I wanted them to have peanut butter and banana, so here is what I came up with!

Peanut Butter Banana Protein Muffins

Dry Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup white flour
• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup oatmeal (dry)
• 1/2 cup peanut flour
• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

Wet Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 3 Tbs maple syrup
• 1 Tbs molasses
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter

Mix-Ins:

• dried cranberries
• pitted, chopped prunes
• slivered almonds

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients and whisk them until combined.  In a separate bowl, mix all of the wet ingredients together, but make sure to mash the banana as much as possible!

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix it until everything is combined.  Fold in your mix-ins.

Grease a muffin pan (when I first typed this out, I wrote “grease a muffin man”, which you may do, as well).  You should fill each one about 3/4 of the way full, or they will overflow.

I put diced candied ginger on top of a few of them, and slivered almonds on the rest.

Bake them for 25 minutes, or until nice and brown!  Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool.

Be sure to resist eating one while they’re still piping hot- or not.  I didn’t wait 😉

I think they turned out really well!  They definitely have a distinct peanut butter and banana flavor and they’re not too sweet, which I like!  I only left three of them for my family, but they’ll be perfect for taking to class and eating on-the-go!

These would also make a great quick breakfast with an extra spoonful of peanut butter, or broken up and sprinkled on yogurt.

Enjoy!