Muffins

I dutifully volunteered to make the snack for our gathering on Wednesday this week. Easy enough, told to keep it simple. Problem was, I forgot. I only remembered on Tuesday night when I went to the calendar to write in a play date for Thursday. (I LOVE playdates.) Shoot, the grocery stores were closed, would have to make due with whatever we had in the house. Decided to make banana muffins, easy enough. Made them hundreds of times, can practically do it in my sleep. Add a nice bowl of fresh grapes and it's a great little, simple snack. Darn it, no grapes, need to go shopping. Will have to do that in the morning.....with the kids! I'm a glutton for punishment!

Got through the shopping trip with few problems. Granted, there were stern warnings before heading into the store. I'm sure the tongue lashing from the other day was still fresh on their young minds. Some lovely red grapes that happened to be on sale too!

Got home, fed the kids and put them down for an early nap. Stellan slept, Jameson didn't. Both were confined to their beds regardless. I needed to make the muffins afterall.

I made 2 batches of banana muffins, one with chocolate chips, one without. Also decided to make a batch of regular chocolate chip muffins. Put both pans of banana muffins in, heated the oven and set the timer for 15 minutes. I know they typically take 22 minutes in my regular stove but I'm getting used to this one so I figured to set it for 15 minutes in order to check on them, just in case. Well, good thing I did, otherwise the muffins might have spontaneously combusted. The burning smell wasn't something that had boiled over from a previous dinner (should have figured that out sooner, I hadn't used the oven yet) it was the muffins burning to a crisp. Every single muffin was severely singed on the bottom. Sheesh. Now what? I needed those muffins!!! Well, I still have the plain chocolate chip ones. I turned the oven down almost 100 degrees and watched them carefully. Much better. Time to buy an oven thermometer. 12 muffins won't cut it though. Still needed to make something else.
I frantically searched the pantry and fridge and decided on making a pasta salad. Easy enough and still a simple "snack" (OK, light meal but still....). A slight bump in the road when I went to make the dressing and realized that the vinegar was still in Windsor. Improvised, everything was fine and actually tasted quite good.
Stressful day but I got through it. Whew!