Savory muffins- a fine way to start one's day

Unless I've got my head around the idea, I'd rather a breakfast more towards the savory end of the spectrum than the overly sweet. A bit of molasses or brown sugar over your oatmeal? Great! Jam atop a multigrain bread? Lovely. Muffins sweetened more by fresh fruit than sugar? Yep. I think this is why I love to use Mark Bittman's whole wheat muffin recipe as my foundation for so many iterations. My pumpkin-plum ones are a perfect example of mostly savory-slightly sweet but as it is decidedly not plum season right now, what to do?! This morning I looked around at the ingredients I had on hand and decided to incorporate sweet potato, zucchini, and blueberries; the result was really great. In the recipe for pumpkin-plum muffins that I've got posted, I'll add a note for the changes needed to make these if you're interested.

One long blur, dinner solid!

It's been quite some time since I was away from home more during one day than I was in it, but thus was this Monday. I'm yonkered and looking forward to bed. J took his first Tae Kwon Do class today, and it was absolutely adorable to see my little featherweight doll doing jumping jacks, ax kicks through paper and all manner of other moves. He was smitten with it which I think is terrific. I sure don't have the energy to run him around and let him punch and kick at me for 40 minutes, so this seems to fall perfectly in line with "one of those things worth paying for," like sushi. Also, they encourage respect for elders, listening, self-control and responsibility. Um, yes. I'll take two classes each week please.

When we finally got home, got fed, bathed, read to, tucked in and....I started in on dinner. Wanting to use all the radishes I'd bought yesterday at the farmers market, I decided to make an Asian-inspired slaw with shredded cabbage, scallions, cilantro, jalapeño, rice wine vinegar, mirin and cashews. It was fresh as could be and a great complement to the peanut-soy-chili marinated tofu that I grilled. Tofu gets a bad rap, but if it's seasoned and prepared well, I really like it. And now, a small hot toddy and a good book to close out this busy day. T has a work dinner tomorrow evening, so I'll be eating out but do hope to make the ricotta and some muffins to replenish my freezer supply. Good night.

All is well

A big sigh of relief. The mystery bump is benign, either a node or cyst but nothing about which to worry. I'm going to hit the sack for a bit while Ol naps as we've got a busy afternoon ahead once we pick up Jack. Briefly though, we've got a radish slaw on the dinner menu (Oliver and I found some real beauties at the farmers market yesterday), possibly a celery-based salad or soup as I seem to have amassed several bunches of it, and maybe something involving grilled tofu. It is Meatless Monday...

One last quick note. While I no longer subscribe to Cook's Illustrated, I do trust the rigor of their culinary tasting and know-how and yesterday purchased a fun little 'special edition' called Lost Recipes, "heirloom recipes too good to forget." Some sound rather dreadful (you might recall how I feel about overly saucy or sweet casseroles, gratins and desserts (see: Pork Chop Casserole and Brown Sugar Pie) but there are some really fantastic-sounding breads, pastries and savory fare in here. One, called Nonna's Breakfast and Farina cake, sounds right up my alley, containing just 8 ingredients, including fresh ricotta, eggs, farina and a dusting of cinnamon. Another is a cardamom- and cinnamon-scented Swedish coffee bread (an actual loaf, not a coffee cake type of thing). If this edition sounds interesting to you, it appears that it's on newsstands through April.