Wild Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins and Primroses

When Meaghan started school, I stressed constantly about how little she ate. Her school teacher would call me daily to report that, once again, Meaghan had thrown her lunch into the garbage can. I tried everything to get her to eat, from offering her favorite foods to punishing her “for wasting her lunch”. Nothing worked…

She started hiding her lunch in her closet so that her teacher would not call me. I would find blue molded sandwiches and exploding containers of yogurt festering at the back of her closet. When I would ask her about it, she plead innocent.

So now, on top of “not eating” she was also lying to me. We went for weeks with her coming home everyday and stashing her lunch somewhere in the house. It became our routine…Meggie hides lunch…Mommy finds lunch…Meggie is astounded…Mommy is at her wit’s end!

I knew that eventually she would grow out of not eating. I was far more concerned with her ability to lie.

I decided that “being honest” would be my focus. When you are raising children, you pick your battles.

Rather than confronting her with the daily discovered lunch discussion, our conversations were about how hurtful and unkind it is to mislead someone. We spoke about how precious it is to have a relationship, with someone, that is completely based on faith. Faith that you will both, honour a silent promise to, protect each other’s heart.

Finally after several weeks, when I asked her if she had eaten her lunch that day, she looked up at me with a big grin and said, “No…aren’t you proud at me!” she was still having trouble with her prepositions!

She risked telling me the truth about not eating her lunch because she figured that being honest was more important than not eating. She was right!

I still laugh when I think about her standing there with her great big smile thinking she had finally figured out how not to get in trouble for turfing her lunch…ADORABLE!

I developed this muffin recipe while I was trying to find something that she would not throw into the trash. She loved them.

BLUEBERRY OATMEAL MUFFINS

makes 18 large muffins

preheat oven to 375*F

1 1/2 cups oatmeal

1 cup bran

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Mix together in a large mixing bowl…then add:

4 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup butter, melted

Mix well

Sift together:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Stir into wet ingredients until just mixed

Stir in 1 1/2 cups blueberries you can substitute dried cranberries or raisins but the blueberries are the best!

Fill paper lined muffin tins to the top and bake for 25 minutes

It’s always a good idea to do the tooth-pick check just in case your oven does not bake at the same speed as mine.

These muffins keep well for several days or can be frozen up to 6 months.

Thanks for reading.