The Muffin Mistake

Posted on April 5, 2020 by TJ

Yesterday was a cozy rainy day. We relaxed and I finished reading Isaac Asimov’s novel, Prelude to Foundation. I have read it several times over the years. I thought EJ would enjoy the story so I found an audiobook of it on Youtube and we began listening to it. It will take us several days to listen to. EJ is enjoying it, as I knew he would.

We woke today to a powdered sugar dusting of snow on the ground. I thought at first it was frost, but EJ went out to check and declared it to be snow. It remained chilly today, but the day was still beautiful.

This morning I decided to make pumpkin raisin muffins. I think every kind of muffin is my favorite, but pumpkin raisin muffins are probably my most favorite favorite. I had all the ingredients mixed together and was beginning to spoon the batter into the muffin tin when I paused because the batter didn’t look right. I looked through the recipe again and realized I had put 2 tablespoons of baking powder in it instead of two teaspoons. Oops. Oh, well. I just put in two-times more of the other ingredients, making a triple batch of muffins instead of a single batch. As far as I’m concerned, this was a very delicious mistake, which I wouldn’t mind making again in the future.

I did laundry throughout the day. For lunch, I made General Tso’s Chicken in the Instant Pot with a side of broccoli–one of our favorite meals. I used the last of my ginger. We have ordered more ginger root, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I will dry and ground up some and EJ will plant others. EJ noticed that my little spice jars of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves were empty–I had used the last of the spices in the muffins–so he went to the pantry for more and refilled them. He ground up the cloves for me.

I did dishes and cleaned the house. Meanwhile, EJ did a few other tasks, including clearing off the front porch. He brought out the park benches to look over with the intention of repainting them when the weather gets warmer.

After lunch, we went out to look at the garden in order to plan how we are going to reconfigure it to make better use of our garden space. I’m not sure how we are going to get new dirt for the boxes if we can’t leave our homes. Buying seeds/plants will also be a challenge because the nurseries are overwhelmed with orders right now because more people are, apparently, planning to put in gardens this year. At some websites, there is a waiting list, and other sites simply list the seeds as “out of stock.” I was able to find seeds of the herbs I use most on Amazon. EJ has some seeds left from last year. Hopefully, we will have enough.

EJ enjoys almonds. He often takes them to work for a healthy snack. The almonds come in square containers which are the perfect size to hold sugar, baking powder, baking soda, bread crumbs–anything dry. So when EJ empties a container, I take it to repurpose it. Even with the wonderful almond containers, the cupboard is crowded and we have to keep moving things out of the way to get to the item we want. There is a lot of wasted space because most of the containers are not tall. I mentioned to EJ this morning that I could organize the cupboard better if I had an additional shelf inside the cupboard. He went out to the garage and built one, making a 2-shelf cupboard into a 3-shelf one. Then together we happily organized everything.

Fancy coop on the left. Photo from 2018.

EJ went out with me this evening to shut the cats and chickens safely in the coop. As I was counting all the animals to make sure I had the correct number, we noticed a pile of eggs in the bottom of the fancy coop, way in the back corner where I couldn’t reach. I got on my hands and knees and reached in with my rubber footed cane to drag the eggs toward me. I keep the cane in the coop to use whenever the eggs are a little too far away to reach. But these eggs were WAY too far back and there was too much straw in the way. EJ finally went into the garage and brought back some wire cutters. We cut one of the wire panels out and I was able to easily retrieve the eggs with my cane. The hens had hidden 21 eggs back there!

After we got in the house, EJ “candled” the eggs, meaning he shown a flashlight through them to make sure that embryos weren’t developing in them. There were all ok, but we won’t sell these eggs to customers. Meanwhile, I took a shower…because I had been crawling through the dirty straw.

As we left the coop, we heard coyotes howling. Since we were safely in our fenced-in garden, we paused to listen to them.

EJ makes bread every weekend. As I write this post, he is out in the kitchen making four loaves. 🙂