Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Banana Muffins with Chia Seeds -- 5 muffins a day is not too crazy

I am convinced this is D's new favorite. Every now and then I would whip up a dozen of breakfast cookies or muffins, which usually last for a longggg time. Usually after day four they stop being attractive -- not as moist, soft or fragrant. Then I'd grind them in a food processor to make a pie crust or something, or they'd sit in a freezer forever, together with the failed bread attempt, because I hate wasting food.

Two days ago I made some muffins, and this time I learned from the past and became smarter: instead of fill an entire muffin pan, I halved everything and made six only, so that there would not be any waste. (Our freezer was getting pretty full!) To avoid muffin piling up in our apartment, I took one of those to work the next morning and gave it to a fellow grad student. Her reaction was -- " OMG this is so good! What did you put in this!?" I was happy -- these muffins would disappear within three days for sure!  Boy was I wrong. When D asked about breakfast the following morning, I reached out to the cookie  jar (yes, we store muffins in our cookie jar), only to find it empty!

-Where were all the muffins? (I was in disbelief)
-Well, those muffins are tiny and I had snacks! (D always has good reasons)

Five muffins in one day? That means SUPER good by D's standard.

It was so simple and inexpensive to make, too! I am glad it turned out to be such a big hit.

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

serves 12

• 2 Tbsp walnut or coconut oil (melted butter also works)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 Tbsp chia seeds
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 cup milk
• 1 banana (mashed)
• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1/4cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut (optional)
• 1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the first 8 wet ingredients.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients.
3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients.
4. Spoon the batter into 12 muffin cups, and bake for about 20 minutes.

Cost:

We have got a great deal on the walnut oil and chia seeds from amazon.com, that each muffin ended up costing about $0.75! (Our local Stop&Shop had peanut butter for $1.00 helped as well.)

Nutrition:

Each (large) muffin provides you with 190 calories, along-side with almost 6 grams of protein and about 37% of your daily need of Manganese. It also fulfills over 10% of your daily calcium needs. (For more details, please see http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/recipe/3068693/2?quantity=12.0&nc=1&autosave=form.info.autosave) Overall I'd say it's pretty healthy. Probably not too crazy to have 5 of them (3 as breakfast and 2 as snacks according to D) within one day...

Caution:
You are likely to encounter this really soon should you choose to make these muffins: