Leftover oatmeal muffins

Am I a little weird for being very excited about a recipe for "leftover oatmeal muffins"?  This might be a bore to non-oatmeal lovers but if you're a fan like me, you might enjoy this as much as I do.  I've been casually looking for a good oat muffin recipe for a long time since I adore oatmeal and oatmeal cookies.  I haven't had much luck but then Molly came along recently with something very interesting...

This one's for my fellow oatmeal lovers: Leftover steel-cut oatmeal muffins, with walnuts and mini chocolate chips

Why had I never thought of oatmeal muffins?  As in cooked oatmeal in the muffins as opposed to using rolled oats.  And I get to use my favorite steel-cut oatmeal at that.  I loved the idea and I had to try it.  

To explain why I really wanted to make these, you have to understand that I really, seriously, love oatmeal - crunchy, chewy steel-cut oats, to be exact.  I buy tins of McCann's Steel-Cut Irish Oatmeal almost as regularly as I buy eggs and milk.  I eat it almost everyday, not because I'm purposely trying to be healthy but because I honestly crave that texture and it fills me up properly. My son once asked me why I always eat oatmeal at dinner because I often have it as the carb portion of my meal.  I had to explain that I just really love it; he's used to it now and accepts it as one of my quirks.

The bulk of these muffins: leftover steel-cut oatmeal and a blend of walnuts and miniature chocolate chips

So maybe it'll come as no surprise that I really, really dig these oatmeal muffins!  They are hearty, not heavy.  With very little butter and just a bit of milk in them, the flavor is mild but texturally, they're a little magical because the steel-cut oats snap under your teeth in a very satisfying (at least, for me) and somewhat unusual way.  If you use old-fashioned rolled oatmeal instead, I imagine you'd get the more standard chewy texture, which is surely not a bad thing at all either.    

These muffins leave some room for add-ins and I went with walnuts and miniature chocolate chips. You could use other nuts or some fruit.  I feel like you could never go wrong with the subtle crunch of walnuts in baked goods and I'll grab any chance to add a little chocolate into anything so those were my natural choices, and I'm sticking with it.   

I think it's safe to say that no one will mistake these muffins for cupcakes and that's perfectly suitable here.  I feel good eating it.  The bits of chocolate chips add just enough allure and a little extra sweetness to make the muffins satisfying.  Because there's just a small amount of butter in these muffins, they are one of those baked items that are inevitably best fresh.  In fact, they taste best fresh from the oven, eaten while they're still warm. 

I made a small, half batch, of these in my first endeavor because of that very reason but I'm happy to report that a day-old leftover oatmeal muffin was still very tasty after it'd been refreshed for a few minutes in a warm oven.

One last thing...in my attempt to jazz things up and since it was on hand, I had the idea of crumbling some homemade granola over the top of the muffins so I tried it on a couple of them.  In the end, I discovered that granola makes a great add-in for cookies but they have no place here. It just did not work well on these oatmeal muffins.  All of us (surprisingly, even including the little one who I thought the crunchy top would appeal to) much preferred the muffins without the granola.  It was just too distracting and took away from the gentle warmth and snap of the oatmeal muffins.  There's no knowing without trying, I suppose, but I won't be doing it again...and I do plan to make these again.

I can finally say I found myself a good oatmeal muffin recipe.