Hello on the last day of October

I was thinking that I might want to start old-school blogging again.

I do often need a change of pace and I can quite easily hammer out a post for 15 - 20 minutes while at work.

At home, it's much more difficult because I'm practising in the evening before supper, straight after supper while D does reading with kids upstairs, and then I collapse.



Anyway, let's chat.

1. So today is Halloween.

My feelings are well documented on the subject here. But I'm thrilled our school doesn't do anything for Halloween!

Maybe it's all the unsubscribing I've been doing but there are only about 3 people I read/ follow that are into the Halloween so yay!

A friend has an issue with all the pumpkin wastage :) Must say I didn't think of it like that but it's true.

 

 

 

2. 11 days to exam time

And I think I will make it.... but I had a dream night before last, so vivid I still remember every detail.

How, of the 10 exercises, I was only able to do TWO and then the examiner said, "right, that's it - we've run out of time"

So I'll be practising DAILY til the exam. At the lifts, at the pause area, in the boardroom later once they all disappear.....

3.  Cooking

With all our realignment at work, all people who do the same job as I do are now sitting together. The bad part is the department only ever has at most 3 - 4 of us here at any one time (out of 14). Remember I'm an extrovert and I love the buzz.

The good part is there is someone who I'm very friendly with, and she cooks. I've gotten such a lot of good ideas from her so far.

E.g. you can cook chicken, potatoes, carrots with salt and pepper on low for about an hour and it is delicious. I've made this for my crew twice in October and they LOVE it.

Another tip - she always makes pastas two at a time. Then freezes the second one in the glass pyrex dishes ready for during the week. I used to do that with sauces anyway. But I did it this weekend with the pasta itself and it gives me such pleasure knowing there's a meal ready for us :) :)

4 - 10 - can be found here if you feel like reading about my October highlights and lowlights

What are you guys cooking in this heat?

I just made these delicious muffins for the babies

Now that the babies eat so much real food, I like to keep things with me (not just fruit) that they can eat if they're starving and we're still cooking their real food or waiting at a coffee shop.

I've made sweetcorn fritters for them before which I love, D is so-so about them and similarly, Connor loves but Kendra could take it or leave it. Oh well, more for us :)

Lately I've been carrying plain Provita with me - very boring. Poor children :)

I have always made muffins (they are one of my favourite foods in the world) but I must confess that lately they've been from a Golden Cloud or Snowflake mix.

I haven't been enjoying them that much and I don't know exactly what's in there so this morning I decided to whip up a batch of "proper" muffins. And it only took about 10 minutes to prepare and get ready for the oven.

So here is my favourite recipe exactly as it's supposed to be done and then I'll tell you how I made it healthier for the babies.

1 cup oats
1 cup yoghurt (any kind but if you use a strong flavour, your muffins will taste the same) - I used plain unsweetened

mix those two together and leave in fridge for half an hour - it looks horrible but it will turn out fine later...

then add in

1 egg
1/2 cup oil - I used homemade applesauce, you could use a jar of Purity apple and a 1/4 cup of oil
1/2 cup sugar - I used more apple and only 1/4 cup of brown sugar
any combination of fruit, spices, etc. (I used apple and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, a spice straight from heaven! I've used banana in the past, pumpkin, ANYTHING works)
1 1/4 cup self-raising flour OR plain cake flour plus 1 teaspoon baking powder

In total I used about a cup of cooked apple... you can't really go wrong with muffins though :)

Don't overmix the flour. With muffins, always mix until "just combined" otherwise they are hard as a rock.

Spoon into muffin trays and bake in a preheated oven at 22o degrees Celsius for 20 minutes. If you have a hot oven like mine, only bake for 15 minutes or at least check it at the 15-minute mark with a toothpick.

They should be golden brown on top.

I used two trays - one with 6 normal-sized muffins and 12 tiny ones which are supposed to be for the babies but I've already had two. Just to test that they were okay ;)

Enjoy!

What kind of snacks do you carry around with you?

P.S. If you make these muffins, please let me know if you like them.
P.P.S. after the success of these, I decided to never buy a mix again, unless I'm really desperate :)