Muffins

I found a good banana muffin recipe I thought I'd share. Claire really liked them. And since we're talking about muffins, I thought it only right to show my favorite muffin video. Teehee.



Whole Wheat Banana Muffins
Ingredients

1 C whole wheat flour
1/2 C whole oatmeal
3 tsp baking powder,
1/2 tsp baking soda,
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 C brown sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg white
1/3 C unsweetened applesauce
1 C mashed banana


Directions

Preheat oven to 400. Mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix applesauce, egg, egg white, and mashed banana together before adding to dry mixture. Stir just until well blended. Spoon into 12 muffin cups.

Bake for 12- 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool before serving.
If you want them a little sweeter, you can add chocolate chips or spread some peanut butter on them.

Snack time Recipe

Well I mentioned that snack times have been hard as far as staying away from processed foods. But, I have found a few that the kids LOVE and this ones nothing new. It's hard finding things that aren't just filler junk. Today we had yogurt with granola and fresh strawberries. The strawberries were on sale. The yogurt is made with rBGH-free skim milk and organic agave and the granola was homemade. Claire asks for this and Jake downs it like there's no tomorrow. If I don't have fresh fruit to add I add a few frozen blueberries. It's great because I know their getting a serving of fruit and whole grains and I know the yogurt isn't full of corn syrup and artificial flavorings and colors. So on to the recipe for super easy granola...

Granola

3 1/2 cups oatmeal
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup honey
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Combine all ingredients and spread onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 300 degrees for 10 minutes.

I added coconut to mine. I would suggest maybe peanut or palm oil and it does seem like a lot of oil, but it makes quite a bit of granola.

The Omnivore's dilemma

On my quest to find not just "healthy" food, but sustainable REAL food, I found this book. And now I want everyone to read it. It was great in the fact that it was interesting and eye opening, but also quite large and extensive. The author Michael Pollan answers the question - what should I eat, by tracing 4 meals back to where they started. It's shocking. Let's just say there are a few things that have gone on the black list for me as far as food goes. He put a TON of time and research into this book. It definitely opened my eyes to what I eat and where my food comes from. I think it touches on a few things that everyone needs to hear and some things we really need to change in our society today. It almost makes me want to go to D.C. and protest--almost :) I highly recommend this book!

Honey Chocolate Cupcakes

Honey Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes
You will need:

50g (2oz) butter or margarine (I used my homemade)

180ml (6 fluid oz) honey

1 egg

80ml (3 fluid oz) skimmed milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

225g (8oz) plain flour (I used whole wheat)

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Method:

1. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter until light and gradually add the honey, beating until light and creamy.
2. Beat in the egg, vanilla and milk.
3. In a seperate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, and gradually add to the butter mixture, mixing until well blended.
4. Spoon the batter into 12 paper-lined or greased muffin cups, filling each three-quarters full.
5. Bake at 180°C (350°F, gas mark 4) for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the cakes from the oven to a wire rack and cool. Spread the top of each cupcake with chocolate icing or melted chocolate, if desired.

This is a yummy little treat you can't feel too guilty about. I covered them with natural chocolate chips.

This recipe is an extract from the book 'Honey and its many health benefits' by Margaret Briggs. And is available for purchase from Bookmart Ltd, Blaby Road, Wigston, Leicester, LE18 1SE.

Seriously?

Snow?!?

Really??? It's been snowing on and off for the last week or so. Then I talk to my mom who says it's 94 degrees in virginia. Why is spring so misleading?



Okay I'm a nerd for taking a picture of my butter, but I was proud. My latest adventure into the world of natural food. Homemade butter. And it was so GOOD and EASY. If I can find a good price point it just may become an everyday thing. I think I am going to start posting more new recipes I have been trying that are healthier and more natural. Oh and btw I had to blog about the new show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Loved it! It's exactly what our country needs and it was shocking to see how much opposition there was to it. It's sad. But I hope he can make a difference, it's actually a reality show doing good work and he really seems like a nice guy too.



Guess what? The Easter bunny came to our house! Claire was pretty excited to find a new barbie and a carebear movie. Jake got a new train for his set. They had lots of fun dyeing eggs, although Jake was pretty sad he couldn't keep the eggs and carry them around with him. And if you're wondering if my natural foods adventure has led to cutting off Easter candy, sadly you will be dissappointed. I can't deprive them of a little candy. They still got peeps and jelly beans, but I think they know that it has to be some kind of holiday to get candy (which Jake proceeded to spit all over Claire's new bedding).


This one's just in here cuz I thought it was funny. Nothing like a little love from your big sister!

Yes, I'm alive

Well it's been too long since I've blogged. The keyboard has been broken on the mac so I couldn't type anything! Wellicouldbutitwouldhaveturnedoutlikethis. Anyways. We have been just enjoying the marginally warmer weather. We took another trip down to Salt Lake. My sister had her senior recital (at byu) and so my parents and sister came. It was a lot of fun. Kimberly is amazing and I wish I was as passionate about something as she is about music. After this semester she is moving to Nashville to live her dream! Go her. Well her concert was AWESOME! I have a new favorite song from her and I can't wait til she gets it recorded.

Well we've been busy looking at houses. I think we decided it was finally time for us to lay down roots once again. And we found a great house that we've put an offer on and are crossing our fingers it all works out.

I think I mentioned but I have been on this healthy food thing. I watched a food documentary and read a few books on the subject and I want to change. I have really wanted to go organic for a long time now, but I've realized that's just not going to cut it. So I have also been slowly but surely cutting out processed foods, adding more fresh produce and whole grains, cutting sugar, meat, milk, and corn products. I've also been trying to follow a strict budget (dave ramsey's book) which has made this so much more challenging, but I've really been blessed.
I just can't stand the thought of causing my kids unneeded health problems because I was too lazy to put forth a little more thought and effort into what I feed them. I hated going to checkout and realizing that there was more prepackaged stuff on the conveyor than fresh food.
Snacks have been the biggest challenge and so I started making a lot of stuff from scratch. Crackers, granola, tortillas, bread, bagels. It's been really fun actually because we've been trying a lot of new recipes. I am quite surprized how willing the kids have been to try new stuff. I feel happier, meal times have been less stressful because I already have everything planned out and hopefully it won't be too bad for the waistline either.

Things n' stuff

It seems like I have about four posts that I've needed to do, but don't really feel like I've been very busy.

At the beginning of February the kids and I took a trip to Salt Lake and stayed with my grandparents. My sister Hilary and her kids came and stayed too and we had fun and shopped. Since neither of us live there we always have a list of stuff we want to do while we're there. We went to the Hatch Family Chocolate shop. If you don't know, it's a cute little shop owned by a dwarf couple (I hope I've said that correctly) who have a new show on TLC called Little Chocolatiers. The pot de creme was awesome. A fun little trip that the kids enjoyed too. We also went to Whole foods, it's an organic grocery store. I've been on an organic/natural/whole foods thing for a while now and wanted to see what they had there. They had some interesting stuff. I just wish I had one of these where I live! I took Claire to build a bear to pick out some more accessories for her kitty with her birthday money. Of course our trip wouldn't be complete without a stop at Ikea, Target and Cafe Rio. There were about a dozen other things we did while we were there and of course the kids had fun playing together.

So for Chris' birthday I surprised him with tickets to the Lakers v. Jazz game, it happened to fall right on his birthday and he is a pretty big Lakers fan. So we went back down to Salt Lake for the night and it was really fun to spend the whole evening together-alone. Chris' mom was nice enough to take the kids over night. And, the Lakers won. Unfortunately Kobe Bryant was injured so we didn't get to see him play. It was fun to remember back to the last time we went to an NBA game together --our honeymoon.




I wish I had some good pictures to post but I don't. The kids are great. Jake is loving nursery! He is also a lover of bug squishing and bed coloring! He actually has quite a long attention span for a 20 month old. He plays that little fishing game and is patient enough to wait until his pole falls into the fishes mouth and pulls it out. He's talking a lot and even starting to put together phrases. The other day he said "oh no Claire, don't do it!" he is so mischievous and so dang adorable.



Claire has taken her drawing/coloring to a whole new level. She has developed such an imagination that it shows in her drawings. I'm sure I'm not biased, but I think she is drawing so well for a barely 4 year old. Todays drawing included a school bus, complete with people inside, a road for them to drive on, a stop light, a bed and jewelry box and she actually spelled a word on it, by herself! This is not a word that we've worked on and she spelled it right! (okay, so it had an extra L, but that's not bad!) She is also singing a lot more now that she's in primary (and I'm the primary chorister) and it's impressive to me how much she retains.

Also I wanted to note the BEAUTIFUL roses Chris got me for Valentine's day. Good job honey!

Well I've been up to momming it. It's been difficult! It seems like the kids have had runny noses and coughs the whole winter. The winter time is hard alone with two active children. So when I'm not trying to think of ways to entertain the little ones I've been working out, reading, going to the library, writing, my photog biz, cleaning, baking, and momming. Trying to find contentment in this interesting time in my life! Oh and we've been watching the Olympics too- great stuff!

Awww there, I'm caught up.