Muffins and bread

Baking muffins makes for a two-day process this time of year. One thinks of ways to stretch out indoor activities for as long as possible when it's cold and snowy outside. Thus, we don't just whip out some ingredients and bake a batch of muffins. Our time yesterday consisted of:

1) Discussing the possibilities of certain ingredients over others (honey versus sugar, for instance) and nutritional ramifications;

2) Zoya writing out an ingredient list in painstaking detail, complete with me spelling each and every word aloud:

(Click to enlarge. It's quite cute. :)

3) Psalm adding his two cents to the process:


4) And first thing this morning, gathering and mixing of ingredients, twins setting five minute timers to keep track of who gets to stand on the stool when, and at the end of it all, deciding on one-half a batch with peanuts on top, and the other half without. Yum!



Another recent development comes from Jen, my fabulous sis-in-law, who left her bread machine in our safe keeping. It has been living in our closet since she moved back to California, but now that puppy is hanging out with us in the living room and we are embracing the dear thing.

For all you purists out there who are gasping at the idea of bread machine, I totally get it. We have made our own bread in the past and it is quite earthy, exciting, time-consuming, grounding, tasty, and all the other qualities attributed to the process. But this bread machine fits right in for now. Pour ingredients, flip a switch, and three hours later, a delightful loaf of bread. Fresh, warm, tasty. So great. And I kid you not, yesterday I got a minute-by-minute countdown by Psalm who literally bounced up to me and let me know exactly how much time was left at every single moment of the whole three hours. I wish I had his attention span.