Mornings and Muffins

Fact: I am NOT a morning person. I don't mean I grumble and groan and wish I could sleep in while I drag myself out of bed. I mean straight up, hate mornings. No matter what time it is, what time I went to bed or how much sleep I get, I struggle every morning to remove myself from the coziness of my bed. Even if I have been awake for an hour, I still don't like to get up and start my day. I have tried all the things. I even went through a brief (3 whole weeks) period where I got myself out of bed at 5:30 to exercise. If I'm honest, once I was up and started, it wasn't that terrible. I pep talk myself often on how wonderful it would be to get up early, enjoy a cup of coffee before the little people wake up. A beautiful morning run, or go swim some laps to get the blood flowin. I dream of getting up at the crack of dawn this summer to go paddle boarding on the beautiful calm waters and drink in the peacefulness of nature. But, instead I lay in bed for the very last possible second (and often a few too many) then finally peel myself from the safe confines of my bed only to start the immediate panic and rush of trying to get shit done. I think it is time to accept my reality.
Surprisingly this morning I did manage to get up a whole 10 minutes earlier than usual. It is AH-MAZING what an extra 10 minutes can do for you. *remind me of this later*. I actually sent the kids off to school, had everything ready and started a batch of muffins before the rest of the kidlets arrived. Muffins are perfect in our house for mornings (when momma gets up to late and your sick of pouring yourself cereal), packed in lunches and of course snacks. Kids love muffins and if you are msart about it, you can pack a lot of stuff that the picky beasts might not normally eat. Like, Avocado!! One of my kids loves avocado as much as I do. The other two are 50/50. Somedays they do somedays they don't. I had purchased a bag of 5 the other day (because it was cheaper than one, go figure) and of course forgot about them until they were too squishy for anything good (and I was out of tostitos to eat with guacamole). Enter, muffins. Turned to good old Pinterest and found a recipe that looked like a good base. I of course can't just follow a recipe, so I tweeked it a bit and changed this and that to come up with some pretty darn good muffins, filled with all the goodness of avocados.  7 out of 7 kids agreed they were a winner.

I based my recipe off of Mostly Homemade Mom's recipe. I added banana, used less oil and switched sugars.

Chocolate Chip Avocado Banana Muffins 

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 1 cup avocado, peeled and mashed
• 1 cup ripe banana mashed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• chocolate chips

Directions

1. Mix all wet ingredients together


2. Sift dry ingredients together
3. gently fold banana avocado mixture into flour mixture until just combined. Add chocolate chips.
4. Divide into 12 cupcake tins that have been lined or sprayed. *next time I am going to make them in a mini muffin pan, 'cause kids love mini things.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 23 minutes *15 for mini or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool before serving.

I am a little dissappointed that they didn't come out more green.

Let me know if you try them and how you like them. Also, any morning advice will be taken, with a cup a coffee.