Recipe: Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Yes, just mere days ago I talked about how we spent a full month refocusing on our conscience food choices. I talked about how when it comes to the occasional baked goods and desserts, I'm making them from scratch to control the ingredients. So here it seems fitting to quote one of my favorite authors, Michael Pollan in his book Food Rules, "Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself." And tis is the season... am I right?!? I love fall and all the flavors that come along with it. Apples, pumpkins, pears... pies, crumbles, cobblers... yum. This is the first round of pumpkin baking for the fall and I am thrilled with how this recipe turned out! It also happens to be Jason's birthday today, which means my Texas Chili is in the crockpot and Cinnamon Rolls are in the works. Wish him a happy birthday if you get the chance :)

I had tried numerous pumpkin muffin recipes in the past, but never found one I felt was just right. Some were too dry, some too dense, some too sweet, some overly laden with spices. I played around with this one afternoon and think I finally nailed it. I can't wait to hear what you all think. Happy baking!

 

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Total Time:  45 min.        Yields: 16 Muffins

1. Combine the flour, both sugars, spices, salt, baking soda and baking powder in a large mixing bowl. Whisk to combine. 

2. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the coconut oil. Whisk in the pumpkin puree until combined, then whisk in the eggs and vanilla. 

3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and use your whisk to fold the batter together. Mix until combined uniformly; overmixing will make the muffins tough. 

4. Scoop into your muffin tins that have been lined or greased & floured. Top each muffin with a sprinkle of chopped pecans. 

5. Bake at 375 degrees for 22-24 minutes. Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before removing from pan. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 5-7 days, or frozen for up to 4 months.

Print this recipe here!

New Season, New Month, New Plan

To say I have fallen off track with this blog would be the biggest understatement of 2016. I could make a million excuses about why I haven't kept up, and sure, some of them are probably legit. But that doesn't change it. What will change it is acknowledging what went wrong, learning from it, making a plan, and sticking to it.

What 2016 has been thus far:

2016 has been a whirlwind. A beautiful mess of madness; the best days and the most stressful days of my life all rolled into one. We've accomplished so much this year, yet we've failed more this year than any other. So how is it possible to have so much success and so much failure all at once? 

I listened to an audio book earlier this summer called Go for No. While its premise is about network marketing, I found that so many of the concepts related to general life as well. In summary, the author talks about how in order to get what you want (a "yes", or a success in whatever your goal may be), you most likely will have to go through a few "no" responses, or failures, along the way. For instance, if you are wanting to learn to do a front flip off the diving board, odds are you will experience your fair share of flops, splats and not so pleasant landings before you have a polished and perfected trick. Make sense? So what I'm saying here is that my failures this year have brought on many of the triumphs. Without many of these failures, I wouldn't be finally moving forward. We all have a tendency to create this picture in our heads of how our lives will look. How life looks daily, annually, or long term. And all of us have had life look like the picture a few times, and nothing like the picture more often than not. 

So what was my picture for this year? If you look back at my posts from January, I had some pretty good goals for blogging. I also had noted some things I wanted to work on to create more balance and happiness in my life personally. By February, we were announcing our big move. Some of the moving and new homeowner-ness was picture perfect. We felt like we could breathe again by having more space, my heart was so happy to see the dogs loving their new found freedom in the back yard, and there was some serious pride in knowing that this place was ours. All ours. But it also came with a lot of responsibility, expenses, to-do lists, and a few things you just can't always foresee. We spent most of the Spring working on our project list and making this house into our home. Lots of painting, organizing, unpacking, new floors in some rooms, new lighting in others. A new garden, new furniture, new tools and a new truck, and even a new business venture. All things we wanted or needed and that served a purpose in our new full blown life of adulting. Great, right? June was a full bathroom remodel done entirely by the two of us. July was lots of overtime at work for Jason and a big Hutton family trip we had been looking forward to for almost two years. We barely landed from the Bahamas before we went right into three straight weekends of visitors or being out of town again. Life was full of awesome, wonderful things that we are so blessed to be experiencing. 

And then it happened. We both hit a wall, and within about 3 days of one another to boot. We snapped. We had moments of weakness much like a toddler who missed nap time three days in a row. We realized that we couldn't take anymore. Any more projects, any more commuting, any more commitments, and any more travel or visitors. We needed to slow down. You see, it's not that we don't love each of those things. We absolutely do. We love working on the house, I love the family I was helping in the city, we love traveling and are so fortunate to be surrounded by friends and family that want to see us, stay with us, and spend time with us. I also love ice cream. Pretty much every flavor and every topping. But if I pile all the flavors known to mankind in the same dish and  cap it off with 35 toppings, the whole thing is much less enjoyable. That's what we had spent the first six months of home ownership doing. Trying to do everything, with everybody, all at once. And maybe it wasn't giving me a literal stomachache like that monstrosity of a sundae would have, but it was stressful, overwhelming, and draining us mentally, physically and emotionally. We had been bickering more than ever before, starting fights about the stupidest stuff. We were so swept up in the "things" that we weren't giving ourselves or each other the grace, compassion, and affection that we desperately needed.

So we vented. We sat on our bedroom floor surrounded by three large baskets of laundry to fold and we just ranted (and maybe cried... don't judge). Letting go of bottled up frustrations that had been weighing us down, loudly proclaiming all the selfish wants we were missing. Things like "I just want to tinker in the garage on a Saturday by myself" or "I just want to paint my toenails and watch Netflix in my pjs" or "I just want to sit out back on the patio and drink at two in afternoon because I can" and "I just want to go for a long bike ride with no distractions." I realize a lot of that seems petty, and the answer to a lot of it seems as simple as "so just do it!" Oh, how simple that sounds. The truth boiled down to one, admittedly simple, concept. We needed boundaries. 

In order to be able to enjoy all these elements and seasons of life, we had to start saying no and drawing lines. Accepting this was that "failure before the success" I referred to earlier. In order to make changes that would get us out of this rut, we had to acknowledge where we screwed up or what was going wrong before. For us, this meant that we had to know our limits. We had to decide that in order to have the balance we were looking for, we couldn't keep giving away every minute we had. This meant being a little more selective about how many times a month we were willing to have weekend guests or travel out of town. It meant saying no to certain favors asked of us by others. It meant agreeing to work late only one or two times a week instead of four. It meant taking back our time to spend it how we wanted to. 

This gave me a bit of anxiety, I won't lie. I've always been one to speak my mind but I also love to please and help others. I feared that our friends and family would think I was being selfish or rude for not being overly accommodating. I feared that I would struggle internally about saying no to something then later regretting that decision. I couldn't have been more wrong. 

This breakdown and reassessing process taught me a lot about myself and about Jason. It opened my eyes to the fact that I can't pour from an empty cup. In order for others to get the best I have to offer, I have to take care of myself first. For the next month, I poured into my own personal growth and development. I took the time to reflect on what was working, and what wasn't, looking at things from a different perspective and trying new approaches. Some areas of life will always be a work in progress, and others feel like they are finally where I hoped they would be long ago. 

All of this has led me to here. To telling you all that through this process of failures and triumphs, I've been able to better determine what I want to do next. I've decided to refocus on how I'm managing this blog. Moving forward, you'll start seeing lots of great recipes appear again, and you'll also see some new and exciting things I hope you all love as much as I do. For those of you who've stuck with me this past year, through all the inconsistency and lack of content, thank you. If it weren't for you, I probably wouldn't be driven to be better. ❤️

photo credit: Pinterest 

Laziness and Lost Sight

The past six months have been crazy, you know that. But in the midst of the crazy madness, we also lost sight of something that's very important to us. In fact, it's the foundation of this very blog. Our stance on nutrition and responsible food choices.

Amidst all the projects, commutes, traveling and house guests, we gave in to the convenience of less than stellar nutrition. Eating well and for nutritional value is not hard. For those of you familiar with Nick Boles, he did a Facebook post a while back about that *H* word. He hit the nail on the head. There are many things in life that aren't easy. There are many things that take thought, effort, planning or perseverance. There are very few things that the word hard accurately describes. Think about that. We can make an excuse for anything we care to, and we can make those things out to be as difficult or as simple as we choose. Personally, I believe our outlook is our choice, and I hope we each use that power for good. 

What I am getting at here is you're not about to hear me say, "I wanted to eat better, but it's been hard." Or "I want to get healthy, but it's hard." I don't believe that. I believe that knowledge and will power are the most vital tools to success. When you know better, you can choose to do better, or choose not to. When something is important to you, make it a priority. What I will say, is that I (Jason as well, but I take the most responsibility as I do the majority of our grocery shopping, meal planning and cooking) got lazy. I allowed my better judgement to be surpassed by what was quick and required little thought. And it didn't feel good.

So after five months of knowing we deserved better, we decided the best way to break the cycle was with re-comittment. We loved our Whole30 experience, and we know that the program is designed to only fuel our bodies with the best of the best. So are we doing another strict and to-the-T Whole30? No. We talked about this with my dad and stepmom, who completed the program themselves back in January and were planning another round soon. We considered it, but we were focusing on the long term, not a set time frame.  We took a hard look at what our motivation is, and what our desired end result would be. For us, this was about a clean slate with no end in sight. It was about tweaking what we love about Whole30 to fit what is realistic for our lives long term. For us, that looked like this. 

We agreed to focus on conscience choices and getting back to the basics. We decided that we would design our own program of sorts, that would force us to think critically and creatively. We talked about why we let ourselves be lazy the last few months, and more times than not that answer boiled down to two things: lack of inspiration/repetitive menus or losing track of time. So for last half of August and first half of September, we were focusing on addressing those two issues. Trying new recipes, pulling out some tried and true favorites we hadn't made in a while, picking things that were quick and easy, or (my personal favorite) letting the tools do the work. By this, I most definitely am referring to my beloved crockpot and instant pot.

We chose to get back to meal planning (by we, I mean I am meal planning), and using the focus of lean, quality proteins, abundance of veggies, plenty of fruit, and healthy fats in the forms of avocados (I'm slightly obsessed), nuts and seeds as our guide. If you recall from my previous breakdown of the Whole30 program guidelines, they exclude all grains, sugars, alcohol, and dairy, and they also exclude beans & legumes (including peanuts) as well as corn due to the fact that they are considered to be inflammatory triggers for many. Because we already have completed the program and reintroduction process before and found no allergen or inflammation links, these items were things we were okay with including this round. Think leafy greens with southwestern chicken, roasted corn, black beans, avocado, toasted almonds and clean, organic chipotle dressing. I don't feel those two high fiber and plant based ingredients are derailing the mission here. Apples with peanut butter, or a filling banana peanut butter protein shake - still on the right track, yes? To be completely honest here, this initiative was about getting Jason to stop eating PB&J or cereal numerous times a week, for me to stop giving in to the baked goods or desserts as often, and for both of us to stop grabbing for the box of pasta when we got caught up in a project and needed lunch ready in under 15 minutes. You feel me? 

We also had a few special occasions that we chose to loosen the reigns for if you will. A belated anniversary dinner was a night of celebration. A friend visiting from out of town meant that cocktails and sushi were on the agenda, a friend's birthday bash in the city, and our first town festival in our new community meant we wanted to go enjoy the local offerings. Now I'm not saying I was going hog wild and ordering deep fried Oreos, but what I am saying is life is too short to not enjoy dessert or a cocktail every now and then. The point here is to find a balance and to know what we are putting into our bodies. The best way to do that? Make it ourselves. If we decided to enjoy dessert or muffins, making them ourselves gave us control over the ingredients. We needed to be thinking more critically about the choices we make and the impact they have on our physical, mental and emotional well-being. We can either be empowered or self-destructed, but the choices are ours. 

 

photo credit: Pinterest

Boy, oh boy

You guys... we are just a few weeks shy of me going THREE months without a single post. Serious shame in this game.

I'm not going to lie here either. As I sit down to write this I struggle with "do I make up for lost time and cram three months worth of content into a single post?" or "don't get ahead of yourself... a few paragraphs seems like painting the Mona Lisa given the amount of writing you've done recently." The latter is going to win here.

The last three months have flown by in what seems to me like all of three days. Since my last post, there have been ten weekends go by, six of which we either had guests in town or were out of town ourselves. We also went through 4 straight weeks in this span that Jason was working voluntary overtime, including a stent of 12 days straight. Then there was our two week long complete bathroom remodel we tackled ourselves, 25-30 hours a week I spent working in or commuting to and from the city, a pup in diapers through her first heat cycle, the dogs and I took our first solo road trip, we met a best friend's new addition, Barley graced us with our first rodent in the house, we partied on the lakeside for 3 days to some amazing country artists, tying up loose ends on half finished projects... you get the gist.

Oh, and then there's those mundane things of being an adult. Where days you successfully run a full round of laundry (wash, dry, fold/hang, put away) all in the same day seems like a huge accomplishment, but then you remember the floors need cleaned, there are dishes in the sink, pups need a bath and "when was the last time I washed my hair?" runs through your mind. Even in the wake of the craziest possible weeks, I just can't help but realize how blessed we are. We are so fortunate to have an abundance of friends and family who want to visit us. Lucky to have a beautiful home that we can personalize and put sweat equity into. Grateful to have fur babies who want to be with us constantly, always lift our spirits, and make the best excuses when life catches up with us and its time for a cuddle day on the couch. We don't have much to complain about.

One of these days we will wake up and it'll be 2040. The projects will all be done, the to do list will be finished, our future children will be too cool to hang out with us. And then we will miss the hustle and bustle of our twenties and wonder how on earth we did it all. Until then I'll leave you with a few photos of our progress. And I'm going to try and slow down and soak it in a little more often. <3

   

Photo walls in the living room and office. The photos in the frames have since been replaced with appropriately orientated (and updated, including wedding... yay!) photos.

 The canvas was a gift from my sister for Christmas and is now hanging in our bedroom. Jason's personal touch with the bathroom renovation :)

  

LakeShake Festival 2016 and the pups and I on our first road trip just the three of us. 

 

Before and After Bathroom Remodel