Strawberries and Cream Mini Muffins

Good Tuesday morning!

The Gallery Pic is OLD, but hopefully, I'll be able to add some new and exciting photos before the end of the week. Or maybe not!

RANDOMNESS #1 - As many of you may or may not know, my family has odd reactions to the most common medications. Benadryl doesn't make my kids sleepy. It has the opposite effect.

Non-Drowsy Sudafed puts me out for a week.

Morphine may stop the pain after a C-Section, but when I woke up I looked like I had been in a fight with a tiger... and the tiger had won. (Code for I ITCH A LOT WHEN I'M ON MORPHINE... WHICH MEANS I ALSO SCRATCH A LOT.)

But I can take Loritab. And Austin can take Loritab. And after Josh has his wisdom teeth pulled this summer, we'll see if he can take Loritab.

However, Roxie and Loritab are not good together. It will eventually put her to sleep, but until sleep comes, Loritab makes her EXTREMELY grumpy. (Some might say "impossible to stay in the same room with" grumpy.)

On a normal "grumpy" day, Roxie wants to be alone. But Loritab makes her grumpy AND needy... as in she NEEDS someone in the room with her to receive the brunt of her grumpiness. As the mother-unit, that someone turned out to be me. Austin WAS watching TV with her, but as the Loritab started working, he couldn't bear it over ten minutes.

What can I say? He's a man.

I'm not proud of it, but I sent her to school today with half of a Loritab in her. Her finger was throbbing and hurting, and we have physical therapy in just a little bit, so I wanted the pain to be under control. She wanted to go to school, so I let her as she promised to call me if she needed to come home.

Fun fact for you... Half a Loritab does not make Roxie go to sleep, but it still makes her EXTREMELY grumpy.

There are some teachers who are going to earn their paychecks today! (Or I may be in teacher conferences all next week for a bad judgment call as a parent.) Stay tuned!

RANDOMNESS #2 - I was watching The Today Show this morning, and they interviewed a blogger who has turned a simple idea into a fantastic blog and TWO books. He talks about a simple "thing" every day that some people may take for granted, and tells why it is awesome. Brilliant!

It is light, funny, interesting and it makes you look at your day-to-day stuff differently.

Here are just a few of the things under his "1,000 Awesome Things" list:

That last, crumby triangle in a bag of potato chips.

Getting grass stains. (Awesome for boys... not so much for the moms.)

Locking people out of the car and pretending to drive away.

Opening and sniffing a pack of tennis balls. (To each his own!)

Finding money you didn’t even know you lost. (YES! This is definitely AWESOME!)

Waiters and waitresses who bring free refills without asking.

Fat baseball players.

Being the first table to get called up for the dinner buffet at a wedding.

Really, really old Tupperware.

Picking up a "q" and "u" at the same time in Scrabble. (This man is a genius! A genius, I tell you!)

Blowing your nose in the shower. (I don't get this one. Must be another "guy" thing.)

Picking the perfect nacho off someone else’s plate.

When you pull to a red light and the guy in front of you nudges up a bit so you can make a right turn. (This is totally AWESOME!)

Eating things past the expiry date.

Eating the last piece of dessert somebody left at your house.

Wearing underwear just out of the dryer. (Not just awesome... heavenly!)

Old, dangerous playground equipment. (Again, a "guy" thing and not a "mom" thing.)

I LOVE this guy! And you can love him, too. I'll be sharing his website information on Thursday under Blog Linkage.

Strawberries and Cream Mini Muffins

I'm a "muffin" girl. I love them. And even though I can now only have a bite of a muffin, I still like trying new recipes. (I also like trying ANY muffin Starbucks offers. They have a Cream Cheese Pumpkin Muffin every fall that is "to die for.")

But I digress (again). This is a Nigella Lawson recipe, so it's not a super-easy- four-ingredient type of recipe. It's a homemade-melt-in-your-mouth muffin recipe.

You will need the following:

1 cup strawberries (slightly under-ripe)
1 squeeze of lemon juice
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 teaspoon powdered sugar

1. Dice your strawberries into quarter-inch pieces.

2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a 24-cup mini-muffin tin with paper baking cups.

3. Put diced strawberries into a bowl and spritz lemon juice on them. Stir gently to combine.

4. In a medium-size bowl, stir together flour, sugar and baking powder.

5. In a small bowl, beat together oil, sour cream, vanilla and egg. Pour mixture over dry ingredients, stirring to combine with a wooden spoon.

6. Fold in strawberries. (I love this kind of folding... much better than clothes folding.)

7. Divide batter evenly among the paper cups in the mini-muffin tin.

8. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

9. Cool for five minutes. When muffins are completely cool, dust the muffins with the powdered sugar.

Nine steps to delicious muffins. I'll have a step-by-step tutorial tomorrow... and you can see me eating one! (I CAN have a whole mini muffin.)

Wednesday is the busiest day of all on A Simple Life. I have a ton of stuff to talk about, so if you get a chance, visit again.

Take care, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Sincerely,

The Enchanting Belinda