Strawberry Jam

Colin and I made some homemade freezer jam. It tastes great but we made a huge mess. From the thawed strawberries oozing their juices out of the fridge onto the kitchen floor to my son and his eagerness with the spoon :)

Of course I do not have any after photos of the strawberry goodness all over Colin, the counter, his precious stool, and myself. I was quickly trying to clean up the sticky mess.

I used this freezer jam pectin. I did heat it a little on the stove because my berries were still a tad frozen. I love that it only calls for 1 1/2 cups of sugar instead of the 4.

Warming up

Fall has definitely set in and you can feel the chilled air even in the house. I have been trying to stay away from the thermostat. Colin and I wearing extra layers of clothes but sometimes it is just not enough. On days like this I bake. The house has to be warm enough for the dough to rise, not once but twice. And then the oven has to pre heat and bake the delicious doughy goods. Before I know it the house is toasty warm and filled with the delicious aroma of baked bread....or cinnamon rolls as it turned out.  And I am guilt free of turning up the heat. The guilt of consuming all of the delicious calories is another story :)

Happy Friday and stay warm.

Deceptively Delicious Muffins

I got this book a while ago from Marshalls. So far it's a hit in our home. I have only used two of the recipes but they are delicious. And I can't help being inspired by the very cool retro look of the book.

The Applesauce Muffins are fantastic.

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of butternut squash. Which is great because I can not get Colin to eat anything that is orange. He loved sweet potato puree before but will have nothing to do with them now. I changed/substituted a few ingredients. I used Mayonnaise instead of an egg, I was out. Vanilla soy milk instead of nonfat milk and I added some vanilla extract. The muffins are super moist and really messy with the crumb topping. If you have a little one who is not that fond of veggies I highly recommend this book. We look forward to trying many more of the recipes.