Gluten-Free Fruit and Nut Breakfast Muffins

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Holy Moly!

Where has the time gone? Have I really been in hibernation for the last month? Is that real life?

Since I last posted, we have gone from having snow to having beautiful green leaves on trees. I have transitioned from the worst semester of my nursing career to my last three classes. And… I have discovered Shauna Niequist and her beautiful book Bread & Wine. So much has happened yet things are scarily the same.

Sit down with a cup of coffee and let’s catch up!

Despite our crazy busy both-in-school-barely-scraping-by lives, J and I have managed to squeeze in some quality time in the kitchen. See… it’s been awhile but I’m still me.

I still believe in butter and heavy cream. I’m still the person who talks WAY too much about her love for bacon and drinks large amounts of strong coffee. I’m still that person who tells everyone she knows about the new book that she is LOVING until they roll their eyes and agree to go buy it just to placate me. I’m still that girl who complains of stomach aches but refuses to completely give up gluten. See despite my hiatus from the blog world, I haven’t changed.

However, these days, whether it’s the fresh new weather or all the green popping up, I’m working on balance. Think more greens and less bacon.

I know.. crazy talk…

That’s where these muffins come in.

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These suckers were created for balance… they have a subtle sweetness to them and are deliciously tart and warm… and perfect.

I made them gluten-free but I don’t think there would be a problem with substituting whole-wheat flour or all-purpose flour if that’s your thing.

Gluten Free Fruit and Nut Breakfast Muffins:

  • 1-1/4 cups gluten-free baking mix (I use Pam’s)
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped is probably better but I did mine whole
  • 1 cup fruit of your choice (I used frozen berry mix but peaches, blueberries, bananas, mangos could totally be wonderful. Just remember to add a little bit more water if you use dried fruit0
  • 1/2 cup sweetened coconut
  • 1 tsp vanilla

 

Preheat the oven to 350 (F) degrees.Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Spoon into greased muffin pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool and serve. Makes 6 muffins. Note: Because it’s breakfast, I didn’t use sugar but feel free to add some or honey if if that’s how you roll. This is your breakfast after all. I dipped mine in black coffee… to each her/his own.

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Don’t worry, I ate bacon on my turkey burger last night so I’m still keeping my priorities :)

I’m throwing a Cinco de Mayo party tonight so I’ll have a rockin’ enchilada recipe to share on Monday.

Hope you enjoy these muffins as much as I did.

Happy Friday friends! TGIF!

 

 

Whole-y Blueberry Bran muffins

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It’s finally spring here. The sun is out and the birds are chirping.

The days feel so charming despite their rather chilly temperatures for April.

I’m in love with Spring. Have we talked about this?

Growing up in Texas it’s pedal to the metal from winter to summer. Texas doesn’t stop for spring.

Indiana? Indiana stops, steps out of the car, and stretches in spring, before driving into summer.

I love it.

This year though, I have to admit that I’m WAY behind on garden preparations… as in I haven’t done any at all. I guess that’s the perk of having a late spring…. I can be lazy and it doesn’t hurt me.

It’s lovely and I adore it. The end.

This past weekend we were at my in-laws in Michigan and my Mother-in-law, Deb, made delicious bran muffins for Sunday breakfast. When we got home, J was begging me to make some so I obliged but changed a few things.

Here are the main characters in the whole wheat blueberry bran muffin play….

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Whole wheat flour, salt, sugar, baking powder whisked together in a large bowl…

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All-bran cereal soaked in skim milk and canola oil with an egg…

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And frozen blueberries… just doing what frozen blueberries do…. chillin’. (ba-da-bump)

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Mix everything together and throw them in a muffin pan like so…

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Then give them  a good bake and voila!

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These are seriously the perfect snack for a semi-warm spring day. They’ll make you feel all healthy inside and out.

Here’s the actual recipe breakdown taken from Kellogg’s website with my adaptions added in.

  • 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour (all purpose optional)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups Ready-To-Eat Cereal All-Bran® Original
  • 1 1/4 cups fat-free milk (might need a splash more if using whole wheat flour)
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2-1 cup frozen blueberries

 

1. Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and set aside for later use.

2. In large mixing bowl, combine ALL-BRAN cereal and milk. Let stand about 2 minutes or until cereal softens. Add egg and oil. Beat well. Add flour mixture, stirring only until combined. Portion evenly into twelve 2 1/2-inch muffin pan cups coated with cooking spray.

3. Bake at 400° F about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 10 minutes. Serve warm.

Beware, if you make them with whole wheat flour, it’s a lot of fiber. Don’t say I didn’t warn you :)

Have a wonderful week friends.

Happy Spring!

“We’re Havin’ a Party…”

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Today is a grey, rainy morning. I’m home from baking at the bakery this morning and am sitting at my kitchen table watching the fog roll through the park and listening to country music…. oh and baking scones…

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This shot just about sums up my feelings about this morning.

I’m co-hosting a bridal shower for my sis-in-law today.

On the menu:

  1. Blueberry Scones with Lemon Curd
  2. Beautiful Fresh Veggies
  3. Savory Crab Dip
  4. Chocolate Covered Strawberries
  5. Tea/Lemonade/Water

I searched high and low, unsuccessfully I might add, in this town for lavender. Don’t lavender scones with lemon curd sound delightful?

I’ll save that for a later date I guess.

What are your plans today? Is it warm and sunny where you are? Or are you more on par with our dreary, cold day?

Wherever you are, I hope the morning is treating you as well as it is me.

Have a wonderful weekend friends.

PS… Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Drink some green beer (or not) for me! We’ll be enjoying the day with traditional corned beef and cabbage!

xoxo, Kirby

There’s Just Something About a Snow Day

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My eyes popped open this morning and I almost literally sprinted to the back window.

I reminded myself as a kid because I was running to see how much snow we ended up with last night. This is what I found…

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Now when I say that I reminded myself of a kid, I am not meaning me as a child because, well…. let’s face it. This type of thing NEVER happened to me growing up in Texas.

I think that’s why snow days help me channel my inner child. I end up sitting on the couch, drinking milky tea for hours on end watching all the activity outside. Everyone gets a late start and begins to dig themselves out of the 8+ inches we got over night.

J even loves it because I volunteer to go out and shovel snow. I still think it’s fun since I’ve done it approximately twice in my life.

There’s just something about looking out my kitchen window and seeing this…

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The air just holds a new excitement as kids who’s classes were cancelled start making their way to the hills around town to begin their sledding adventures, or as stay at home parents make a full breakfast and thank God for a day at home with their children.

There’s something totally romantic about snow days. I know I’m head over heels for them.

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All that snow…. waiting to be made into forts, snowmen, snowballs, and sledded in.

I hope that your day today is wonderful and romantic just like our snow day.

I know how I’m spending my snow day. How are you spending yours?

–Kirby

 

Easy Peasy Spicy Honey Glazed Chicken

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Well hello there friends!

It’s been awhile.

Spring break has arrived, for me at least, and I am living it up. I tell you, things are crazy here at the W household.

So far this week I have scrubbed and cleaned out my refrigerator, done copious amounts of laundry, washed the walls behind my stove and sink, made multiple lists for spring cleaning musts, and edited photos for future blog posts.

 

I’m narrowly avoiding Girls Gone Wild with all my crazy festivities.

Obviously, I’m being sarcastic. I know this probably does not sound like your typical or dream spring break, but believe it or not, I’m loving it (insert McDonald’s jingle here). I don’t take the time to do these things when school’s in session so it’s nice to have the time to get them done.

Don’t worry, I’m also cooking, baking, and working on future blog posts too. Gotta mix in a little bit of fun with business, ya know?

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I was taking some time to work on some recipes and actually cook. I know there are so many of you out there who, like me, love to hang out in the kitchen but run short on time. I refreshed my love of cooking a couple of weekends ago when I made three large meals in three days.

Those meals seriously carried us through the following week. I am such a proponent of left-overs, it’s not even funny.

One meal that I made came on the spur of the moment. I had plans for something else, but after reading a few recipes, decided to try a new one. Four words: Spicy. Honey. Glazed. Chicken.

Seriously amazing and super quick. This is a perfect recipe for those of us who love good food but don’t have many hours in the kitchen.

I adapted the recipe from here.

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What you’ll need:

  • 2 heaping tbsp. garlic powder
  • 2 heaping tbsp. chili powder
  • Dash of salt
  • 1 tsp. cumin
  • 1 tsp. paprika
  • 1/2-3/4 tsp. red pepper (I tend to lean towards more for more spice)
  • 6 chicken thighs, thawed
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 3 tsp. red wine vinegar
  • Cooking spray

 

Preheat broiler. Mix all of your spices together with the vinegar and honey. One by one, dredge the chicken thighs in the mixture until fully coated. Spray cooking spray on broiling pan (I used a cooling rack placed inside of a larger pan). Broil for 5 minutes. Take out of oven, turn and broil 5 more minutes. Remove chicken and flip, broil for 1 more minute each side (or until fully cooked). Serves: 6.

Total this took about 20 minutes from start to finish and was delicious. It kept well too which was a major perk.

On a side note, we’re supposed to get up to 10 inches of snow over the next 24 hours… you would think that with this being March that I would be upset by this but ya know… I’m way excited. I hope we get every bit of that 10 inches. Let’s pray for our last snow hoorah!

I’ll be posting a lasagna recipe later this week so  be on the lookout.

Happy Tuesday friends.

Kirby

 

It’s Thursday!

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Hello friends!

hoosier mamaThis morning at the bakery was such a great morning. Cookie dough was made, the smell of perfect sourdough was in the air, and I was buzzing on sugar and caffeine. They don’t come much better than that.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m almost finished with this wretched semester or that I have the entire day off today or maybe that I was taught a new way of brewing coffee that rocked my world this morning… but today is a great day!

I’m at home procrastinating studying all day today so naturally I’m perusing YouTube. Obviously.

After wasting way too much time on the internet today, I’ve decided that you have to watch this video or else you’re missing out. So click below and enjoy.

I’ve got some new recipes on tap for this weekend so look for the food posts to resume next week.

Until then… have a wonderful rest of your week!

Not a Valentine’s Day Post

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If you pay attention or are on social media even a tiny bit, you know what today is. Need I say it?

Please don’t misinterpret me, I am not a V-day hater. I am just not posting about it this year. However… you want a heart-warming Valentine’s day post… Lena’s got it covered here. She posted pics of her adorable child who will steal your heart. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

So what’s happening with me these days?

For starters one of my best friends and room mate from college is coming in tomorrow… and I seriously feel like I’m anticipating Christmas. I. Can’t. Wait.

I also got to watch a photographer who I seriously admire do a photo-shoot for the bakery the other day. It was so great… I secretly wanted to pump him for information on every little thing he did but I obviously realized he wasn’t there to teach me so I kept my mouth shut… Here’s a little sneak peak of the behind the scenes action…

Photo by Jer Nelsen

After the photo shoot we had a family style dinner… I live for family style meals. It may or may not have been the highlight of my week.

Oh my week last week. Wretched would be an understatement. But you know the glorious thing about it? It’s over and I have been majorly blessed by a great week so far. I hope you have too.

Another highlight of my week had to be this little thing…

001I made what I called a “nacho salad”… you’ve heard of taco salad? Well I was craving nachos but knowing my need for greens in my life created this…

Black beans, guacamole, tortilla chips, salsa, spinach and a touch of ranch dressing=nacho salad. And you’re welcome :)

In other news, it’s Valentine’s Day so I guess I should tell y’all something.

I appreciate all of you! Y’all rock!

Alright… enough of the mushy stuff.

XOXO.

Small Steps for a Big Impact

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Happy cold, snowy morning to you! It started snowing here about an hour ago and it is gorgeous. I’ve been reveling in these beautiful mornings this week, despite the almost below zero temperatures. Here’s a pic I snapped yesterday morning… I love that you can see the frozen lake in the distance…

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Currently there is way more snow on the ground and now sun to be seen but it is still equally beautiful.

I was thinking about how I wrote earlier this month on the topic of wanting to be more intentional about taking care of our planet. I have gotten a few questions about what we already do to be more environmentally friendly. I think a lot of people I talk with really have the desire to make changes in their habits but don’t really know where to begin.

In light of this, I thought I would share some little changes that we have made that feels like they are making a big difference.

003The biggest and easiest thing I think we can do is recycle. We have free curb-side recycling here in our town and my guesses are, where you live might too. More and more towns and cities are moving towards free curb-side pick up of recycling, all you have to do is put it out. We take our large recycling bin to the curb twice as much as we do our trash bin which makes us feel great about all of this waste going to be recycled.

004There are so many times when I go to the grocery store in a given week and bring these babies along. When we first got married, we bought 4 reusable grocery bags for about $4. It feels like everywhere we go now, people are giving these away for free. It’s amazing how many plastic bags we save just by bringing our own. Also, if I forget one week, I either use the plastic sacks for trash bags in our bathroom trashcans, or I take them back to the grocery store the next time I go and they’ll recycle them for me.

005One thing that I really struggle with is my love for sandwich bags. They are so convenient and so easy that it’s hard not to use them. When I found these reusable sandwich and snack bags from Lunchskins, I fell instantly in love. They are dishwasher safe and really last! I sometimes use plastic sandwich bags (read more below) but am really trying to cut down on how much I use them.

006It is a rare day when you see me without my Nalgene water bottle. I take this thing everywhere. We NEVER buy plastic water bottles unless it’s an emergency, so we take these water bottles with us just about everywhere. This one is BPA free (very important for plastic) and is dishwasher safe. I will forever love Nalgene.

007I think I’ve posted before on how we don’t use very many household cleaners. We mainly use vinegar, water and a little bit of certified biodegradable dish-washing soap. For the tough stuff, I have been known to buy a bag of Cascade and use it sparingly, but we really try and stick to Seventh-Generation or companies like it that have a longer vision for the protection of our environment.

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Another easy-peasy thing you can do that small but so important is plant a new tree. I think this is so often overlooked but so important. J and Aaron (his bro) planted many trees this summer… they even started a tree nursery. I love that about his family, they’re really into trees. Here is just a small glimpse of some of the trees they planted.

Okay, I feel like I need to address a couple of things:

1) We are totally and completely imperfect. What I mean by that is just because J and I do these small things, does NOT mean that we have achieved “perfection” when it comes to being environmentally conscious. We have our flaws. Big ones. Believe me.

2) If you do not hold the same viewpoint as we do on this, know that we are not judging you. I repeat, “WE ARE NOT JUDGING YOU.” A lot of times when I share about things that I get passionate about i.e. stewardship of our planet, I can come off as “holier than thou”. I repeat #1… I am flawed and completely imperfect at this. If you don’t recycle, you’re not a bad person.

Now that I’ve gotten those things off of my chest, I want to share some ways that I’m hoping to improve this year.

1) Compost more. We have a compost bin but we seem to always forget to empty it, so then it starts to break down into gross-ness and goes untouched for way too long… needless to say, it doesn’t get composted. I want to be more intentional about composting so that we can use it for nourishment in our garden, and also so that it cuts down on the waste that we throw away.

2) Shorter showers. This is such a hard one for me, Queen of long showers, especially in the winter. I realize how much water and gas I waste when I take 20*ahem* minute showers and I’m working on it. One minute at a time. It’s a slow progression.

3) Plastic bags.  I mentioned above my love for plastic sandwich bags. I’m really trying to cut down on how many I use and reusing them if possible. I know that there are toxins that are released when you heat them up, so when I do reuse them, I just rinse them in cool water with soap. Just fyi. 

4) Drive less. Currently this is a little bit tricky as J and I both have over an hour commutes one way. However, I have been walking to the post office, bank, and bakery as much as possible. My goal is to get a basket for my bike so that instead of one big trip to the grocery store each week, that when it warms up, I can take a few small trips on my bike and save gas. I CANNOT wait until I’m out of school and no longer have to drive everyday.

5) Use less paper. I love writing things down and crossing them off. It’s one of my things in life. I know that in this high-tech age that I should have an app for those sorts of things, but I don’t. I still use paper and pencil WAY too much. Even though I do recycle most of the paper that I use, I would really like to make an effort to leaving paper for things that really need it: mainly writing letters.

So there are a few ideas of how we in the W household do things and what we’re hoping to improve on in this coming year. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to throw them my way. If not, then have a great Friday!

TGIF!

Kirby

 

Life on the Run

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I know I’m not the only one who experiences life on the run daily.

Let’s be clear: I don’t mean running from the law. Although I’m sure someone out there is currently experiencing that, that is not what I am implying.

I mean running from meetings to class to the hospital to the store to soccer and all over again.

You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?

Well this morning I was thinking about all the things that make “on-the-go” so much easier for us in the W clan and I thought I would share some of my favorite things as of late that are helping to keep us going during these busy times.

Designer Whey protein powder.

J and I are in our fourth week of the Insanity workout system and part of the nutrition guide calls for A LOT of protein. We both have experience with multiple different protein powders from our college sports days, but this is my favorite. I like it in vanilla, chocolate or just regular plain. It’s perfect to mix up and take on the go for a mid-afternoon snack… J even made peppermint mocha protein shake the other day with it… perfection.

Perdue Oven Ready Roasters

Have you seen these yet? This my friends, is seriously the best time-saving, efficient meal on the go that I have found yet. I grabbed one of these a few weeks back because I had a coupon and have gone back for more ever since. They come prepared with the seasonings and chicken already in an oven-safe bag. You literally take off the outer bag, cut a slit in the roasting bag, and put it in the oven. The even better thing? You get a large whole chicken for only $7. In this house, a large chicken can last us the week. I also have tried their cornish hens. It fed 4 1/2 (one toddler) of us and we still had left overs. I’m in love with Perdue over this.

Luna Chocolate Dipped Coconut Bars

Let’s be real. I love most flavors of Luna bars, but when my friend Meghan shared this with me, my protein bar mind was blown. With just over 10 grams of sugar and about 10 grams of protein this bar makes 12 1/2 hour shifts at the hospital so bearable.

Radio Lingua-Coffee Break French

For those of you who know me or have been reading up here for awhile, you know that I seriously want to be able to speak French. You might not know, however, that I have a daily 2 1/2 hour round trip commute. I decided this year I would make better use of my time in the car (since NPR goes out of range, unfortunately) and I would try and work on my language skills. If you have iTunes you can download FREE Coffee Break language podcasts and in 15 minutes a day, start using that language. These are great podcasts and seriously help me pass the time in a productive way.

So these are just a few of the things that I have been using to help life on the run to go more smoothly. If you have any suggestions feel free to leave them :)

XOXO,

Kirby