Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Not-so-Lazy Day

Do you ever have those days where you feel like being productive inspite of the fact that you're sick? Have you ever felt like getting things accomplished, as if it were an act of defiance against your sucky-feelingness? That was today for me.
Truth be told, I had vowed to not get anything done today - I even warned my husband of this! I've got a sore throat, congested sinuses, and am just feeling crumby - but even though I had resolved to be totally unproductive, Pinterest got the better of me. I ended up making two types of blueberry muffins, Molasses Breakfast Cookies, Honey Mustard Sauce and Pizza Dough to freeze. Pretty lax afternoon, huh?
Matt and I are cutting back on our spending, which includes my grocery budget (okay, which is mostly my grocery budget... apparently I get a bit carried away when I find a new recipe to try!) and Matt's morning coffee-and-a-muffin habit, so I'm back to $300 a month for groceries (I can do it, it's just tough during Farmer's Market season!) and Matt's going to have to grab breakfast at home. To help in his endeavor, I decided to make him up some muffins that we can keep in the freezer and he can pull out the night before. Why two different types of blueberry muffins? Well, if you remember (which I doubt you will), last summer my grocery store had a ridiculously good sale on a whole lot of blueberries - I think it was something like two flats for $8. Anyway, I bought them up, washed them and froze them to use in baking through the winter. Well, I decided to use up the very last bit of it today, as well as 3 ripe bananas I had in my freezer, but the first recipe I found for Banana Blueberry Muffins only used one banana and half the blueberries I had, and the second recipe only used two bananas and the other half of the blueberries - so really, what was I to do? The 2-banana ones may be my favorite, but they're both quite yummy.

Once I had made the muffins I figured I needed some pizza dough in our freezer for those nights when I'm most prone to order in food - you know, the days where nothing goes right, I don't feel imaginative and just plain don't want to make supper. Considering I can throw BBQ sauce and cheese on these and bake them in 10 minutes basically takes away all of my excuses. This recipe is great, either rolled thin, or left with a puffy edge. The Honey Mustard Sauce was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I was deciding what to make my little boy and I for supper (Matt's working late) and I was debating between egg salad sandwiches and salmon sandwiches. I decided against the egg salad sandwiches because I didn't have any of the honey mustard sauce I normally use in my egg salad, so we had salmon, but then I decided it really was a pity I didn't have any honey mustard in the house, so I whipped it up anyway. The Molasses Breakfast Cookies are totally for me. Muffins are actually quite high in fat, even most of the 'healthy' varieties, and if you put too much fruit in a muffin it falls apart. A breakfast cookie is a yummy option that you can fill as full as you want of good-for-you things. I had an idea of what sort of a recipe I wanted, based off of a cookie that I used to make at the cafe I worked at through high school, but I couldn't find a very similar recipe. Finally, I gave up, and made my own! Note, these cookies are big, and they are filling. Seriously, this and a cup of milk = one good-for-you breakfast.
Molasses Breakfast Cookies: Makes 15 cookies
¾ c. vegetable oil
1 c. brown sugar
3 tbsp molasses
2 eggs
½ c. skim milk
½ c. whole wheat flour
¾ c. white flour
1 c. oat bran
¼ c. flax seeds
¾ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cloves
2 c. oats
½ c. raisins
¼ c. snipped dates
¼ c. snipped dried apricots
Preheat oven to 375 degrees In a large bowl, stir together the oil, sugar, molasses, eggs and milk. Stir in the bran and let sit for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl mix together flours, flax seeds, oats, baking soda, salt and spices. Stir dry ingredients into oil mixture. Stir in fruit. Using a ¼ c. measure, divide batter into mounds on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 – 12 minutes, or until firm on top.

So much for my lazy day!

Mrs. VanderLeek ;)

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