Sunny Days

January, the bleakest longest month of the year. Or is that just me? The mad rush of the holiday season is over, your fat, broke, hungover. There is really nothing to look forward to until the arrival of spring, unless you are one of those lucky bastards people that jets off to somewhere hot during February break. Add to that, where we reside, it is MISERABLE. Cold as Trump's heart. We had some beauty of days *insert sarcasm* that actually brought temperatures of -45* with the windchill. 

Confession: I wasted a little too much time googling jobs and houses available in Hawaii and wondered many times why we live here. 

We did survive the nasty cold snap and in good old Saskatchewan fashion, we have been rewarded with some sunny balmy days of 4*! Oh, how we basked in the sunshine. 

On Saturday, even with the nicer weather, I tried out 3 new "healthier" muffin recipes. Oddly enough, the least healthy of them was a total flop. The other two were amazeballs. Sunday we went out ice fishing and gorged on hot dogs and KFC. It's all about balance, am I right? We won't talk about the skor Mcflurry on Saturday night. I'll find my wasteline when the snow melts.

First up is a Greek Yogurt Chocolate Banana Muffins - I only slightly adapted from Chelsea's Messy Apron

Greek Yogurt Chocolate Banana Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup white whole wheat flour (minus 1tbsp) or plain white flour
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup vanilla or plain Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup melted coconut oil ( I used butter, next time I might try more apple sauce)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup brown sugar lightly packed
• 1 cup extremely ripe bananas (2-3 bananas)

Here is a little tip I learned from her blog and it truly works! When using whole wheat flour, replace a tbsp of the flour with a tbsp of cornstarch! It makes a lighter flour!

• Preheat oven to 350*
• Grease your muffin pan (these will stick to liners, so not recommended)
• Mash the bananas and mix withall your wet ingredients
• Sift together dry ingredients 
• Blend wet and dry until just combined and fold in chocolate chips. 
• Divide into 12 muffin cups or 48 mini muffin**
• Bake for about 20 minutes (12 for the mini version) or until toothpick comes out clean.

These turned out awesome, even with cutting down the amount of chocolate chips she recommended. Perfect bite size yummyness and I like the extra protien the greek yogurt adds. 



Post Script: This morning while making the second double batch of the week had an epiphany! Or a craving, either way, it was brilliant. I blended together greek yogurt cream cheese, a little sugar, splash of vanilla and an egg white then placed a scoop ontop of each mini muffin before baking. Think healthier Black Bottom Cupcake. The results were O. M. F. Gosh. Da bomb, Mic drop. Make them now. Peace. 

Second muffin winner of the week from Mel's Kitchen Cafe

Apple Sauce Carrot Muffins

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (use the same cornstarch trick from earlier!)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 3/4 cup finely shredded carrots (about 2-3 medium carrots)

I think the addition of raisins would be great in these, or sub half the carrot for zucchini, or add some grated apple and raisins! 

• Preheat oven to 350*
• Grease your muffin pan (these will stick to liners, so not recommended)
• mix all your wet ingredients
• Sift together dry ingredients 
• Blend wet and dry until just combined and fold in carrots. 
• Divide into 12 muffin cups or 48 mini muffin**
• Bake for about 20 minutes (12 for the mini version) or until toothpick comes out clean.

If you make them and you love them, comment and share :) 

Mornings and Muffins

Fact: I am NOT a morning person. I don't mean I grumble and groan and wish I could sleep in while I drag myself out of bed. I mean straight up, hate mornings. No matter what time it is, what time I went to bed or how much sleep I get, I struggle every morning to remove myself from the coziness of my bed. Even if I have been awake for an hour, I still don't like to get up and start my day. I have tried all the things. I even went through a brief (3 whole weeks) period where I got myself out of bed at 5:30 to exercise. If I'm honest, once I was up and started, it wasn't that terrible. I pep talk myself often on how wonderful it would be to get up early, enjoy a cup of coffee before the little people wake up. A beautiful morning run, or go swim some laps to get the blood flowin. I dream of getting up at the crack of dawn this summer to go paddle boarding on the beautiful calm waters and drink in the peacefulness of nature. But, instead I lay in bed for the very last possible second (and often a few too many) then finally peel myself from the safe confines of my bed only to start the immediate panic and rush of trying to get shit done. I think it is time to accept my reality.
Surprisingly this morning I did manage to get up a whole 10 minutes earlier than usual. It is AH-MAZING what an extra 10 minutes can do for you. *remind me of this later*. I actually sent the kids off to school, had everything ready and started a batch of muffins before the rest of the kidlets arrived. Muffins are perfect in our house for mornings (when momma gets up to late and your sick of pouring yourself cereal), packed in lunches and of course snacks. Kids love muffins and if you are msart about it, you can pack a lot of stuff that the picky beasts might not normally eat. Like, Avocado!! One of my kids loves avocado as much as I do. The other two are 50/50. Somedays they do somedays they don't. I had purchased a bag of 5 the other day (because it was cheaper than one, go figure) and of course forgot about them until they were too squishy for anything good (and I was out of tostitos to eat with guacamole). Enter, muffins. Turned to good old Pinterest and found a recipe that looked like a good base. I of course can't just follow a recipe, so I tweeked it a bit and changed this and that to come up with some pretty darn good muffins, filled with all the goodness of avocados.  7 out of 7 kids agreed they were a winner.

I based my recipe off of Mostly Homemade Mom's recipe. I added banana, used less oil and switched sugars.

Chocolate Chip Avocado Banana Muffins 

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 1 cup avocado, peeled and mashed
• 1 cup ripe banana mashed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• chocolate chips

Directions

1. Mix all wet ingredients together


2. Sift dry ingredients together
3. gently fold banana avocado mixture into flour mixture until just combined. Add chocolate chips.
4. Divide into 12 cupcake tins that have been lined or sprayed. *next time I am going to make them in a mini muffin pan, 'cause kids love mini things.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 23 minutes *15 for mini or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool before serving.

I am a little dissappointed that they didn't come out more green.

Let me know if you try them and how you like them. Also, any morning advice will be taken, with a cup a coffee.

Hello, Again.

Ok, I am truly going to get better at this blogging thing.  Many nights a lay awake, basically writing blog posts in my head, then I never sit down to type it out. Let's be honest though, I am not sure many people would actually want to read the rambling from my brain, but I shall write it out anyway.
I am trying to find some structure, a focus for my little space on the interwebs. It's hard, I have many things I enjoy talking about, reading about, doing and pinning on Pinterest . Somedays I want to sit down and just type out that days anxiety or happy moment. Other days I want to share something I am working on, finished or want to do. I want to talk about my favourite gadgets, recipes and blogs. I want to brag about my kids, cry about motherhood, give ideas about little people or ask for advice. Some days I am all about crocheting, other days all about cooking, or dreaming about camping and paddleboarding (something I discovered near the end of summer and can't wait to get out there again). I might be going through my running phase (don't worry, this never lasts long) or I might just want to hide in a corner a drink a glass of wine, or Paint Nights! Another new favourite.
 .... so, as you can see, it really is hard to find a perfect niche for my Blog.
maybe that is my niche? As the name of my blog says, It's my Daily Dish. A little bit everything rolled into one. It actually defines motherhood perfectly. We have so many pieces of us, that combined, create who we are.
I guess you will have to check back often and see what is on my mind.