I don’t generally love to cook or bake, but when I put my mind to it, my food usually turn out pretty darn good.
So, yesterday when Julie over at Healthy Mom posted her Healthy Blueberry Muffins recipe, I thought to myself, I could make a decent muffin. And her picture looked so great, that I just had to try them for myself. I thought we had most of the ingredients in the house, so off I went.
In the course of preparing I discovered that I actually had almost none of the ingredients in the house. But, I was determined to make them from what I had around – the weather wasn’t great and I didn’t want to make a special trip to the grocery store. So they quickly became Healthy Raspberry Muffins. And, I succeeded making up substitutions, until I realized I had no eggs. But since all the substitute ingredients were already mixed, I sent my husband out for eggs and called it good enough.
So, here is my substitute filled version of Julie’s great recipe.
Dry ingredients:
- 1/2 cup cake flour
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup oat flour (ground rolled oats)
- 1/2 cup ground blanched almonds (a little less than this because I ran out)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 3 Tbsp white Sugar
- 1/2 tsp lemon zest (I just guessed on this one)
Wet ingredients:
- 1 very ripe banana
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 4 Tbsp organic wildflower honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 Tbsp homemade buttermilk (made by my husband – who would have thought that he would know how to make buttermilk?)
- 2-3 handfuls fresh and frozen raspberries
- Sprinkling of coconut on top of each muffin
I mixed all the dry ingredients together randomly in one bowl and the wet ingredients together randomly in another bowl. Then, I mixed both bowls together and put them in the oven for 27minutes at 200C. No fancy mixing steps for me.
And here’s the final product. They stuck to the wrappers pretty badly, but they tasted pretty good!
Thanks Julie for the great recipe and a wonderful Saturday afternoon in the kitchen.
I’m not typically an overly grouchy person. Not to say I am an eternal optimist with sunshine radiating out of me – I am definitely not Little Ms. Sunshine.
With the exception of during a miscarriage, I am pretty even keeled. (I figure during a miscarriage, when my hormones and emotions all over the place, I am allowed to be a bit nuts). Anyways, it takes a good amount to get me visibly mad or upset, particularly in a public setting. While, I’m pretty good at portraying the appropriate social responses to situations, I am actually a pretty emotional person (although, very few people know me well enough to know that).
Anyways, back to the point. The other day Mr. Grumpy settled in and I experienced a severe case of the grouchies in the other afternoon/early evening. Although I did not see any sort of medical doctor or psychologist to confirm that I did in fact have a severe case of the grouchies, based on experience I’m confident that is exactly what I had.
The day started off not too bad. First, I drove across the city to pick up short term disability paperwork from my clinic. Then, I got in my car to leave and it won’t start so I place a call to AMA. Wait 90 minutes for a tow-truck. I killed time by responding to emails including work that is now being sent to my personal email account (what do they not understand about medical leave?!); wondering around a nearby Chapters which I always enjoy; reading other blogs and playing five lives worth of Candy Crush. Then I had a lady give me devil eyes for inconveniencing her for 6 minutes (yes, I timed it) while the tow truck double parked her so they could get my car out. Then my husband met me at the mechanic with the tow-truck. We drive home together. I wrote a post for my blog and then walked the dog. At this point I’m still surprisingly cheerful. Sure, my day wasn’t going perfectly smoothly, but it was nice out and things definitely could have been worse.
Then somehow, a few hours later, in the course of driving with my husband to go pick up and pay for the now fixed car, I turned into an evil she-devil. Somehow, my day was running away from me and I wasn’t able to keep everything in check. And from there, everything just got worse. I sat in rush-hour traffic (which I hate); opened a new giant bag of dog food and the bag ripped and sent dog food literally everywhere and to my surprise, we have lost our broom so cleaning it up on my hands and knees was tonnes of fun; I then proceeded to pick a fight with my husband over what’s next in our lives; then we passionately discussed the stress of money since I’m not working and my medical leave benefits don’t pay as well as full time work; we called to book our other car in for service as it seems to be having an issue with the power steering (or so I’m told) and it turns out the warranty expired a week ago (just our luck and why not increase the money stresses); when I shaved my legs I managed to cut myself; and, my husband heeded my advice that I’m in a bad mood so he should steer clear, which just made me madder (irrational I know).
So at the end of the day, a good friend called and said to me, what’s really bothering you? Not, all this little stuff that you are using as excuses today. So, what’s really bothering you deep down? And why are you letting it? (according to her, apparently cutting my leg shaving doesn’t count as something to be this upset about – she may have a point). The answer is simple. I know exactly what’s bothering me, but I also know that I cannot change it and right in that moment, I just wanted to be grouchy at the world.
I should point out that when I told her I had a shower today because I couldn’t have a hot bath in case I am pregnant and because I was “afraid of cooking the baby” (yes, I actually said this), I think she may have peed herself laughing so hard at me and my paranoia as there is no possible way we are pregnant right now. Although many of you might think this response wouldn’t be the most supportive response, it really was what I needed to hear. It kinda made me think about just how crazy I am being. But, this is where my mind went, and this gets exactly to the root cause of my case of grouchies – our struggle to have kid(s) and what this does to every single decision I make right down to how I bathe.
I’m mad at our situation. I’m mad that we have to go through this. I’m mad that I’m now working through trying to accept that there is a very good chance we will not have children. I’m mad that I am no longer in control of the situation and the outcome. I’m mad at our reality. This just isn’t how having children was supposed to go. And, right now, I think I’m allowed to be mad.
Tomorrow I probably won’t be mad, but right now I am.
My Perfect Breakdown 