What’s For Breakfast? Apricot Muffins

Studies show that people who eat breakfast lose more weight than people who skip it. One way to turn yourself from a breakfast-skipper to a breakfast-eater is by making sure that you have something that you'll really WANT to eat in the morning.

Muffins are a great choice. They're easy to eat right out of hand. They can be as healthy as you want them to be with the addition of fruits or veggies. Best of all, if you make them yourself, you can keep the calorie count to a minimum and the nutrition to the max.

Here's a recipe that uses a boxed mix as a shortcut, although you could also use your own Oat Bran Muffin recipe. Just remember that this will probably change the calorie count.

The apricots can be exchanged for any similar fruit. Dried apple, pineapple, cranberries or blueberries are good substitutions. Also, you can vary the juice to suit the fruit that you use. Think cranberry juice cocktail or pineapple juice.

Apricot Muffins

Number of Servings: 9

Preparation time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

1 box oat bran muffin mix or recipe for oat bran muffins, prepared according to directions except for the liquid

3/4 cup juice (apple, orange, etc)

1 large apricot, peeled, pitted and chopped

1/2 cup golden raisins

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 ºF. Use light olive oil to just coat 9 muffin cups. In a medium mixing bowl,

combine muffin mix and juice just until moistened. Do not over-mix. Gently stir in raisins and apricots. Spoon the batter into muffin cups until almost full.

Bake 12-14 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when you insert it into the center of a muffin. Remove muffins from pan and cool them on a wire rack.

Nutrition Facts

Servings: 9

Serving size: 1 Muffin

Calories: about 260 when prepared from boxed mix