My yummy nutritious muffins

Due to several requests, I am happily posting my muffins recipe on my blog. Let me know if you try these and what you think! The original recipe is from www.americastestkitchen.com

Banana Muffins
2 C all-purpose flour (I usually use 1 C mixed grain flour, ½ C hard white wheat flour, and ½ C all-purpose flour. If I am serving these to others other than my kids, I do 1 C all-purpose flour and 1/2 C mixed grain flour and 1/2 C hard white wheat flour.)
½ C sugar (I use ¼ C raw sugar and ¼ C honey)
¾ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt (I use sea salt)
3 very ripe bananas mashed well (appx 1 ½ C)
6 T butter, melted and cooled (I use 4 T olive oil)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
¼ C plain yogurt (I use buttermilk)
1 tsp vanilla
1 C chopped nuts, optional (I use walnuts)
½ C chocolate chips, optional
1/2 C natural peanut butter, for banana-peanut butter-chocolate chip muffins

Whisk the dry ingredients together. Mix bananas, eggs, honey, sugar, yogurt, butter or oil, (peanut butter if using it) and vanilla together in a separate mixing bowl. Gently fold the banana mixture with the flour mixture. Then fold in nuts and chocolate chips. Do not over mix.
Bake in a greased muffin pan at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean or with only a few crumbs on it.

Pumpkin Muffins (apply to recipe above)
Instead of bananas, use 1 ½ C cooked pureed pumpkin. Then add:
2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp all spice
1/8 tsp cloves
Increase the sugar to 2/3 C sugar (1/3 C raw sugar and 1/3 C honey)

Blueberry Muffins
Instead of bananas, use
1 C defrosted or fresh blueberries
1 C applesauce

Apple Muffins
Instead of bananas:
¾ C bottled apples or sautéed apples
¾ C applesauce
Fill muffin tin with batter ¾ full. Add crumb topping on top of each muffin batter before baking.

Crumb topping (24 muffins)
2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp all spice
1/8 tsp cloves
1 C rolled oats
3 T raw sugar or brown sugar
3 T mixed grain flour
¼ C melted butter

Mixed grain flour
Equal portions of the following grains put through a grain mill:
soft white wheat
buckwheat groats
oat groats
brown rice
millet
kamut
popcorn
rye
spelt
barley

If you don't want to use all ten of these, you can start with maybe buckwheat, brown rice, barley, oat groats, and millet. Add a grain or two as you go. Or you can just use half white flour and half wheat flour. It's up to you! Enjoy!!!

Garden project part 2

Read part 1 first if you haven't yet. So after we got all the clay soil out we had to fill it back in again. We bought some sand from a rock company, some compost from the dump, so quality compost/soil from a landscaping company and got a couple of load of soil from a guy from Matt's work that has some property 30 minutes north of here. We filled in our garden plot and then Matt decided to put a chain link fence around it with a long swinging gate. Now it is protected from the chickens, the dog, and the little kids. Just the wind and rain and hail are our fears. As long as the wind a rain are mild, the plants will be ok. We just literally pray that we don't have any freak hail storms like we did last year.

A couple of weeks ago we planted carrots, onions, beets, peas, potatoes, spinach, and romaine lettuce. We also planted an apricot tree in the chicken area. Yesterday Jileigh and I planted 24 tomato plants, 2 bell pepper plants, some zucchini, yellow straight neck squash, Brussels sprouts, Swiss chard, okra, parsley, basil, cilantro, and cucumbers. Here's hoping we have a successful garden this year! We also planted two elderberry bushes next to the blackberries and a cherry tree out front.

At the beginning of the day, Talon was helping us unload dirt and jumped out of the trailer. He landed on a rock and ended up spraining his ankle. I guess that's one way of getting out of a lot of work!

March 29th Happy Birthday to Me!

I woke up with a positive attitude about my birthday. I happily made breakfast and got my kids off to school. Before I ate, I stepped on the scale. Oh yeah! I finally hit my goal, my ideal weight! (129.4 lbs. at 5'9") I was about 180 after having Elody almost two years ago. I weaned her by the end of last August and was down to 161. Then I took off almost two months to recover from my surgery. Now at the end March I feel good and can fit back into my clothes that I had before I started having children. I posted pics of me after having Elody and of me on my birthday March 29, 2011.

Anyway, I went for a nice bike ride with my s-i-l and then went to our weekly picnic at the park. It was a gorgeous day outside! After school we went to scouts where we teach the webelos. We have had this calling since last November. It has been a challenge for me. It's just not my thing. Anyway, later the bishopric counselor called us in and released us. Whoo Hooo! Matt has been wanting to go into boy scout to be the assistant Scout Master and the scout master finally convinced the bishopric to let him!

My dessert is peanut butter fudge. It is my newest sweet treat that is not a bad sweet but a good one!

Peanut Butter Fudge from Health Home Happiness

½ C raw butter (pasteurized butter is ok too)
½ C natural peanut butter
¼ C virgin coconut oil
¼ C raw honey
3 T cocoa powder
Dash of salt

Whip all ingredients in a Kitchen aid mixer.
Line an 8 x 8 casserole dish with plastic wrap.
Pour PB fudge on plastic wrap and smooth out evenly
Freeze for about 2 hours or so.
Pull the fudge out of the freezer and out of the dish using the plastic wrap.
Cut into 1 inch squares and place in a plastic container.
Cover with a lid and keep refrigerated.

Also, my kids have been begging me plenty over the past year to try on my wedding dress once I lost all my weight. When they heard me rejoicing, they insisted that I try it on. So... here I am, almost 15 years later. It's kinda cheesy!

rip stick fun

Talon received a rip stick for Christmas after asking for one for three years. The kids loved it so much that when we found another one on clearance to picked that one up too. Beau decided he wanted to ride on it too and Talon went for it. He put him on with him and away they went. Angelique decided she wanted to try it too with Elody and away they went. They have so much fun together. When Elody is upset or just wants Mama when Mama is busy, the girls will roll around on the rip sticks with her.

Yummy favorite omelete

Matt has created the perfect omelet!

The eggs come from our chickens and are seasoned with sea salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder.
The inside is sauteed onions, red bell peppers, mushrooms, and minced garlic, and fresh tomatoes, avacado, and lots of cheese (monterrey jack or colby jack).
The top has avocados, tomatoes, and more cheese. Sometimes we sprinkle bacon on too.

Yummy! Yummy! Yummy!

Miss Elody in her ruby red shoes

I went to WAL-Mart looking for a gift for Elody's cousin Hannah who is 2 1/2 months older than her. I found these shoes on the clearance rack and bought a pair for each Elody and Hannah. I hadn't shown Elody her pair yet and we went to Hannah's birthday party and gave her pair to her. The next day, Elody saw her pair on a shelf. I was going to wait until her birthday to give them to her but she already saw them and wanted them. So, of course, I gave in. But... She calls them her Hannah Shoes. It's so much cuter coming from her mouth. So She wore them to church in her red dress and was so adorable!

Feb 2, Safia's birthday party

For Safia's birthday party, we had a few of her little friends over to play some games. Jileigh and Angelique ran the party for me. I was busy making pizzas. As soon as the friends left, Matt's family started showing up. We had a little pizza family birthday party for her.

March 14th, Jaren's 8th birthday party at the park

I wasn't sure what to do for Jaren's birthday, so I last day decided to just invite family and friends to the park. Matt had made some snickerdoodles the day before, so that's what we had to hand out to everyone. Everyone had a nice time and I didn't have to have a clean house for it! We were actually in the process of taking out the clay dirt out of our garden plot. So we were busy doing that. Matt's mom got him a nice swim suit and shirt and game. We got him the fishing pole.

Stove top sized griddle from my Momma

Years ago, my mother picked up a full sized griddle at a garage sale. She asked me if I was interested in it, but I had no way to use it. I told her maybe someday. Well, now that we have a full burner top stove, I can use it. It use to take us so long to cook up all of our pancakes on one regular sized griddle 6 at a time, but now we can cook 15 pancakes at a time! It's a big timesaver.

Garden project Part 1

After years of having a disappointing garden, we finally decided to do something about it. We borrowed a kabota tractor from a ward member and Matt dug out about 10 tons of dirt. He filled up the back of his truck and the utility trailer and we hauled the dirt off to the desert to a ravine. On the last trip, the trailer got a flat. Fortunately, we did have a spare with us. The chickens loved digging in the bottom of the garden plot for worms and there were of bunch of them.

Next construction project - rear garage door

We wanted to redo our garden but were troubled with how we were going to have access to our back yard. One day Matt called me at work and told me of his idea to put in a garage door in the back of our garage. I thought it was interesting but that was it. A few days later he came home with all the supplies and spent the next few days installing it. Done! We have loved having it there with all the work we have had to put into our garden.