As an early birthday surprise, Ian took me to see the cherry blossom trees at High Park last Thursday. They were absolutely beautiful. I was amazed that we had never come to see these before or really knew that they were here. It was almost as good as being in Japan to see these gorgeous blossoms. They were magical, and I loved when the wind would blow a little and the precious petals would fall off the tree making it look like a blizzard.
Many other trees were starting to bloom as in the pic above (the bottom-left) the yellow-green leaves looked like a firework explosion from afar. It was beautiful.
The night before, Ian whipped up a batch of banana bread muffins to take with us. They were so good, that I thought I would share them. We also made a stop at Second Cup before getting to the park for our morning tea and coffee.
Makes 12 muffins
Ingredients:
- 1 cup quick oats
- 1 cup buttermilk *
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup natural cane sugar (or brown sugar; add more if you like sweeter muffins)
- 1/4 cup liquid egg white
- 2 ripe bananas, mashed
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Combine oats and buttermilk in small bowl. Let stand.
- Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.
- Add egg white and mashed banana to oat mixture.
- Add oat mixture to the dry ingredients.
- Stir just until all ingredients are moistened.
- Fill greased muffin cups and bake for 15- 20 minutes.
* Buttermilk can also be made with 1 cup milk (we used almond milk) + 2 tbsp lemon juice.
* Nutritional Information per muffin: 95 calories, 2.7g fat, 2.9g protein
Terrific photos of High Park & all of those beautiful blossoms(:
I am sure going to try these muffins.(: Just printed it out(:
Wow – the cherry blossom trees are soooo beautiful (wish I was there!) And, the muffins look delicious!! Yum!