muffins!

Lately, I have been a master muffin maker. First I made a HUGE amount of bran muffin mix, the kind that sits in the fridge and you easily bake as many as you want for hot muffins in the morning. I add a few chocolate chips to each muffin before I bake them so my kids will scarf them. And Elliott usually eats 3-4 of these a day when we have them on the counter! He is my picky breakfast eater, desiring only muffins, pancakes, smoothies, or cinnamon sugar toast. I have also tried Mel's Kitchen Cafe pancake mix. The kids eat it but it's a little too healthy tasting for me.

This week we have been living off of Martha Stewart's zucchini, banana, and flax muffins....with a few chocolate chips added as well. They are SO GOOD! They are so soft and tasty! It's like eating banana bread but way better for you because there is no butter and no oil involved. They are more effort but I suppose you could mix the dry ingredients and grate the zuchinni the night before and it would be easier. It took me 3 grocery stores to find ground flax seed but it was totally worth it. I think it was only $4 and now I can slip it into all sorts of unsuspecting dishes. (If you can't find any, just leave it out and add a little more flour instead) We are not big fish eaters around here, sadly, so a little omega-3s will do us some good! Did you know you can substitute ground flax mixed with water for an egg in baking?

This weekend we traveled to the outlet malls in Park City and the leaves are already changing in the mountains! It was gorgeous. It looked like cauliflower on fire on the side of a mountain. Down here in the valley it has been unseasonably warm with highs around 80 but we've been able to leave our a/c off for a couple of weeks now!