Bacon Chocolate Chip Muffins

You might be thinking, "Bacon Chocolate Chip Muffins?!?!" Yes, it sounds strange, but this combination is DELICIOUS! We first had this combo at the Blue Grass Grill in Charlottesville, VA
(https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bluegrass-Grill-and-Bakery/50979888261).
We had both a bacon chocolate chip muffin and chocolate covered bacon. C'est magnifique! I've been wanting to try to make one of the two and I finally attempted the muffins this morning. I couldn't find a recipe online so I used the Best Ever Muffin with Bacon recipe from this site (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-ever-muffins/) and added chocolate chips. In addition, when I woke up I realized that we used all the eggs for dinner two night before so I substituted a flax seed and water blended mix for the eggs (http://www.thecookinginn.com/eggsub.html). The result? Delicious! Micah (my four-year-old) kept saying, "Yum, yum, yum!" He also said that the muffins could have used more bacon and more chocolate chips, so you can experiment. I thought they were great as is. Here's the recipe!

Bacon Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour (250 grams)
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup white sugar (187.5 grams)
1 egg (or 1 heaping Tbsp flax seeds blended to a fine powder then blended with 1/4 cup water until consistency of an egg)
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup crisp cooked bacon, crumbled
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Make a well in the center. In a small bowl or 2 cup measuring cup, beat egg with a fork. Stir in milk and oil. Pour all at once into the well in the flour mixture along with the bacon and chocolate chips. Mix quickly and lightly with a fork until moistened, but do not beat. The batter will be lumpy. Pour the batter into paper lined muffin pan cups.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden.

Micah's Celebration Dessert

Tonight Micah wanted to eat more after dinner, but he had already had dessert. So, we made this special Celebration Dessert!

1) Crush 6 oz of fresh raspberries into a shallow bowl. We used the back of a Gerber Scoopin' Spoon and a regular fork for this.
2) Add organic strawberry yogurt: 1/2 of 113g.
3) Mix.
4) Add honey until desired sweetness is reached. We had to add it twice.
5) Add 1 pinch of salt.
6) Mix.
7) Add the rest of your yogurt (the other 1/2 of 113g) and mix well.
8) Eat it all the way up!

YUM!

Micah would like to add something:
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That's his big, big, big fire code. Actually, it's his fire instructions. ;-)

Eating for 4 weeks in a Residence Inn

I'm back! Since my last post I have given birth to a healthy baby girl who is now 12 weeks old. I have also moved from Charlottesville, VA to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. We don't move into our house until July 9th so we are living in a Residence Inn until then. We have a tiny kitchen with no oven that is equipped with a small amount of cooking pots and utensils. One nice perk of this apartment-hotel is that the staff will go grocery shopping for you without charging an extra fee. With a 3.5-year-old, a 2-month-old baby and the adjustments to a French-speaking city (we do not speak French) this is very nice. What to buy? What to cook? It must be simple and easy to clean up as we are staying in a one bedroom. Our 3.5-year-old sleeps in the second double bed in the bedroom while the baby sleeps on the floor in the living room. There is not a door between the living room and the kitchen so all dishes must be cleaned up before the baby goes to bed. The food must also be tasty, healthy, and as ecologically responsible as possible. Here are the bare essentials to buy:
- extra virgin italian olive oil
- balsamic vinegar
- sea salt
- ground black pepper
- fresh basil
- garlic
- Vidalia onions (or any type of onion that you like)

With these essentials you have transformed your bare kitchen into a place with cuisine potential. Here are a few things we have done with these items.

Portobello Mushroom and Sweet Pepper OR Asparagus Stir Fry
4 Portobello mushroom caps (stems removed), chopped
1 Sweet pepper OR 1 pound of Asparagus, chopped
1 onion chopped
1-3 cloves of garlic chopped
some olive oil
some balsamic vinegar
some basil, chopped
sea salt
pepper

Pour olive oil into fry pan and fry onions until translucent. Add mushrooms and cook until juices release. Add peppers or asparagus and balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. Cook until tender. Serve over pasta, rice, or bread. (We ate this over bread because the hotel forgot to buy pasta for us! It was pretty good.)

Simple Spinach Salad
Rinse organic baby spinach
Put in bowl
Pour equal amounts of olive oil and balsamic vinegar over
Add salt to taste

This is a great easy salad to add to take out that has a paucity of vegetables.

Sausage, Potatoes, and Onions
Put 1.5 inches of water in the bottom of a large soup pot
Add new potatoes to cover the bottom, one chopped onion, and two large sausages on top
Boil/steam until potatoes are tender
Chop sausages, add salt and pepper to taste and serve!

Simple Spinach Salad is a good addition to this. Also, you can add the spinach at the end and mash everything together. Just be sure to remove the water first.

Other things we have been eating are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Try to find peanut butter that is just peanuts and jelly without high fructose corn syrup or glucose/fructose. Bonne Maman is a good brand that we can find in Montreal. We also have been eating scrambled eggs and toast, lots of fruits for snacks and carrots as well. I have to admit that I have been buying baby carrots, a food I normally avoid. Once I have my peeler I will go back to buying whole carrots!

I hope you never find yourself in temporary housing for 4 weeks, but if you do, I hope these ideas are helpful! Bon apetite!