One Minute Muffin Recipe

     I haven’t been taking the best care of myself the past few weeks. I’m on a deadline for a new cookbook and the dirty little secret of cookbook writers is that while you’re recipe testing you eat really, really well, but when you’re actually writing? You eat lots of fast food and consume litters of chocolate bunnies.

I guess I should clarify that by saying that You means Me. I’m sure there are some better disciplined people who would never eat a chocolate bunny.

I seem to not be that person.

Anyway, I’ve begun to emerge from my sugar coma and have fallen in love with the One Minute Muffin. It’s not a crockpot recipe.

Instead, it’s healthy, inexpensive (after you buy the flax meal), packed with fiber, and low-carb. My kids will tolerate them, but aren’t falling over themselves to eat one. They still prefer chocolate to One Minute Muffins. They also still have ridiculously high metabolisms…

The Ingredients:

1/4 cup flax meal

1 egg

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon (not pictured, sometimes I use pumpkin pie seasoning)

1 1/2 teaspoons sweetener, I use honey

1 tablespoon fresh or frozen blueberries (or smashed banana, shredded apple, etc)

hearty coffee mug sprayed with cooking oil

microwave

The Directions:

 Put the first 6 ingredients in a large glass measuring cup or bowl, and whisk to combine. No need to melt the butter or get it to dissolve–if it’s still in a clump, it’s okay. Mostly try to get the baking powder evenly dispersed. Now stir in the blueberries or whatever fruit you’re using. Pour into a greased coffee mug and microwave on high for 1 minute.  Let it sit for a bit, then pour onto a plate; or you can just eat it out of the mug with a spoon. The butter will have melted and made a tiny bit of a “sauce” with the melted blueberries. YUM.

The Verdict:

This is a pretty customizable recipe; feel free to swap out the honey with splenda, agave, brown sugar, etc. There isn’t a drop of flour, making this a naturally gluten free muffin, and if you use non dairy butter it could certainly be dairy-free and I’m imagining an egg-replacer would work okay. If you change up the ingredients and it works, let me know!

It tastes good. Not oh-my-gosh-this-is-the-best-muffin-ever, but actually pretty good considering it’s made completely out of flax meal and has just a tiny bit of sweetener. You can certainly junk it up by adding lots of sugar and more oil, but it’s really actually pretty good just like this. I like that the flax has so much fiber and the egg has a nice shot of protein so if I eat this along with my morning coffee I’m pretty sustained until lunch time.

have a great day, and enjoy your muffin!

 

Easy Way to Clean Silver Jewelry

 

I’m not that much of a girly girl, but am realizing that I can get away with wearing the same plain shirt and jeans quite often if I switch up my jewelry. Recently, my friend Jennifer’s (yes, I realize ALL my friends are named Jennifer..) mom started selling jewelry, which means I’ve started to buy more pieces.

I love my new jewelry, but find that real silver tarnishes much too quick for my liking, and I stop wearing it completely after a few months. After a bit of googling, I discovered the quickest and easiest way to wash it all at once to remove the tarnish: a salt water bath with aluminum foil. The hot water and salt loosens the dirt and grime, while the aluminum foil attracts the tarnish (for the super-geeky, this is an ion exchange), and it then wipes away from the jewelry (or silver pieces) easily with a soft towel.

This wiki post intrigued me, but it was the testimonials from this message board that won me over.

I would not use this method to clean jewelry with precious stones. All the stones I dropped in the solution were made from glass.

The Ingredients.

tarnished silver jewelry, silver pieces (flatware, etc) (I also threw in a hammered copper pendant, which cleaned beautifully)

aluminum foil

1 tablespoon table salt

hot water

glass container or jar

 

The Directions.

Fill a glass jar or container with hot water, and stir in a tablespoon of table salt. Make sure the salt has dissolved completely, and throw in a few (I did three) 1-inch aluminum foil strips. Add jewelry. Let soak for a few hours, stirring every so often to remove dirt (the water will get brownish in color).

Dry jewelry completely with a soft towel and store in a silver cloth or tarnish-free tissue paper to keep this from happening over and over and over and over and over again. Sigh.

 

The Verdict.

This worked much better than I expected it to– the dirt and tarnish just wiped away with the towel. I found some of my really badly tarnished chains needed to soak longer, but they still were ready to go in a few hours. I only wish I was gutsy enough to tie the crockpot in with this one…

monday!

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Good morning!

I am late with this today’s post—I completely forgot to write it last night! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Ours was quite productive—filled with PROMing, errands, visits, and laughter.

Today:

kids are off school— can today be a jammy day?

finish all wrapping

candy making/baking

keep up with the Daily 7, especially the laundry so it doesn’t get out of control

drink extra water, try to limit the sweets if you can

have a great day!

friday–the end of line is near

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I loved reading your emails and comments yesterday on my technology rant. Thank you for being the very best people in the whole entire world.

Let’s start a compound! I’m not sold on living where we’re living forever… I’d move in a heartbeat if my neighborhood had all of you in it.

Today:

daily 7

finish all wrapping

begin candy/fudge making

341 Tuesday

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Yesterday was a series of unfortunate events. Nothing went according to plan. Instead of fighting the apparent laws of nature, I decided to put on pajamas at 7:15pm and climb into bed with the girls and read.

It was a good choice.

I started a discussion on the forums about new year’s resolutions. I’m inspired by Melissa and Sandy to work out more. And I love CBeth’s One Minute Writer— being creative always feels so good.

Today:

daily 7

run errands

wrap/mail/etc.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Have a wonderful and joyful Thanksgiving!

Remember:

lumps in the gravy means it’s homemade.

someone will say something inappropriate. Don’t let that someone be you.

make eye contact with whomever is speaking.

bribe the kids with pie to get them to stay seated at the table.

I am so very thankful for each one of you.

lots and lots and lots of love.  xoxo

it’s my birthday!

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so I’m taking the day off.

HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!

Today:

keep a thankful heart

remember that every little bit you do IS important and IS appreciated

if you have to go to the store, go early and be cheerful. If you have to go late in the day, still be cheerful.

daily 7

Monday: prepare for the madness

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I hope you had a great weekend and are feeling well-rested. Today we’re going to roll up our sleeves and get a bunch of work done.

During today’s weekend recovery, look around and put extra things away. Do you need all the birthday cards out on the mantle? What about the half-burnt candle on the sofa table? How long are you going to move the pile of catalogs from table to table?

just do it. get it done.

then give yourself a pat on the back!

What can you do in the kitchen to lighten the load? I made cranberry sauce and cornbread yesterday (for stuffing). Today I’m going to peel potatoes and onions and store them in zippered bags. Look over your menu—if you can get things done now, do so.

Today:

weekend recovery

keep up with the Daily 7

Thanksgiving countdown

the weekend!

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If you’re having a house full of people for Thanksgiving, start prepping now. Do any major cleaning that you feel you *must* accomplish in order to feel confident. Do you need to wipe down the kitchen cabinets? Move out the stove and clean underneath? the fridge? Clorox wipe the blinds? You know yourself, and you know what is important—and it’s different for every person. I like to Cinderella-clean the kitchen floor. Twice. I like to go over it once with a Magic Eraser, then again with a scrubby sponge and cleanser. And then I sponge mop. It’s nuts, it’s overkill, no one notices OR cares, except for me.

It makes me feel good.

What’s the one thing that will make you feel really good, really accomplished? Get it over and done with now, so next weekend you can begin prepping food and setting out platters.

This weekend:

deep clean the one thing that bugs you the most

daily 7

make a timeline for Thanksgiving. Do you have to do a butcher run? a bakery run? delegate side dishes? borrow crockpots? Write it all down, so then you can outsource the tasks.

Monday 312

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Good morning! How was your weekend? I’m happy to report that the bees have moved on. We seemed to have been a stop for a migrating colony, and they have evidently relocated thanks to Duraflame.

I’m looking forward to an uneventful week—the kids have gotten lots of sleep thanks to daylight savings time, and the big girls and I made 9(!) stops in the morning before 10am. It’s quite difficult to find rain boots in November while it’s raining…

Today:

meal plan for the week, and make a plan for Thanksgiving

weekend recovery

PROM the china cabinet and wherever you keep your fancy table linen

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