Vanilla Pear Dessert Muffins

Last weekend, I had marvelous visions of using up a few pears to make a delicious looking pear upside down cake that I saw on Guilt Free Sparrow.  That idea was derailed by the large quantities of fresh rhubarb in my garden that were just begging to be made into a pie; and so I found myself with two firm but very ripe pears looking to be used up.

I found a yummy looking pear muffin recipe at allrecipes.com and made my usual tweaks to suit my tastes.  I kept this version sweet, so it's less for the kids and more for grown ups with a hankering for a little treat.  I hope you'll enjoy them; I certainly did... apparently I was so busy enjoying them that I forgot to take a picture...

Vanilla Pear Dessert Muffins

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1 tsp gluten flour *

2/3c white sugar **

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

1/2 c plain 2% Greek yogurt

1/2 c oil of choice (I used vegetable)

1 egg

3 tsp vanilla extract

2 pears, peeled and diced

1.  Preheat oven to 375F and prepare muffin tin (line with muffin cups or grease pan).

2.  In a large bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking powder and salt.

3.  In a smaller bowl, combine yogurt, oil, lightly beaten egg and vanilla.

4.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mixing until just combined.

5.  Fold in diced pears.

6.  Divide batter among muffin cups and bake 22-25 minutes, until golden brown.

Makes 12 muffins

* Alternatively, substitute 1/2c all purpose flour for whole wheat (so 1 c whole wheat flour and 1/2 c all purpose flour).

** You could probably cut this down to 1/2 c and these muffins would still be a sweet and tasty dessert!

My muffins are not generally sweet, so these dessert muffins have been a nice change from the ordinary!  I packed about half of them into the freezer so that I'll be able to enjoy them at their prime in the future when I'm looking for a quick and easy something sweet. 

I think I'll leave it there for today - we're leaving in the wee hours tonight/tomorrow to drive to Ottawa for my sister's wedding, and there's a bit more to be done between now and then.  It'll be a fantastic and busy weekend with Little Smiling Man as Ring Bearer, Mini Muffin as Flower Girl, and myself as Matron of Honour.  I'm really looking forward to it, as well as a bit of downtime afterwards! 

Freezer Meals!

I've always been a planner.  My mom recently commented that I'm the same today as I was as a child - I have a plan, a backup plan, and a plan for every eventuality I can imagine. As such, it's really no surprise that I've been thinking about and planning how my household would run with two busy kids and two busy working parents.

One of my big concerns is providing healthy suppers with lots of variety, and being able to get those suppers on the table within minutes. We are, after all, a hungry tribe when we walk in the door at 5pm, and at that point it's definitely too late for a snack to get us through to dinner. And so, prior to my return to work last week, I went all Once A Month Mom and filled my freezer full of wholesome dinners that could be on the table in moments. My goal was to have two meals a week for the first two months ready to go in my freezer, so a total of 16 meals. And my window to make it happen was nap time. It was a busy week of cooking!

First, I spent some time planning. For recipes, I pulled from our favourites, got ideas from the internet, and scoured my cookbooks. I chose to freeze fully cooked meals to minimise my on the day prep time. Next up was making a list and shopping. Given more time I would have waited for meats to come on sale and worked my recipes for what was available, but in a pinch Costco is certainly a good source of high quality, competitively priced meats. Then with my fridge full of veggies and about 10 lb of meat, it was time to get cooking!

By the end of the week, my freezer happily contained:
4 meals of Meat Sauce
3 meals of Thai Coconut Chicken
2 meals of Rosemary Chicken
2 meals of Lemon Ginger Chicken
3 meals of Swiss Steak
1 meal of Meatloaf
1 meal of Sloppy Joes

Each one needs a side on the day, which will ideally be set up the night before (e.g. rice measured into the rice cooker waiting for water and power, veggies chopped and waiting in the fridge to be steamed).  Each meal, with the exception of the meatloaf, is also frozen into a large, labelled freezer bag.  So, the night before the meal can be transferred from freezer to fridge, and later poured into a pot for a quick heat before we can all dig in.

Now, here are my tips for a freezer meal cooking frenzy:

• Plan ahead - recipes, groceries, order of cooking and storage.  Bonus points if you can sequence your prep to minimize the dishes afterwards!
• Wear running shoes - unless you have a cork floor or an ergonomic mat, it's definitely worthwhile to wear supportive shoes - your back will thank you!
• Freezer bags save a tonne of space!  Lay flat to freeze and they'll stack nicely in your freezer.  Plus, removing excessive air is easy with the help of a straw.
• Label everything - it's amazing how similar things look when they're frozen.  Imagine the disappointment of defrosting what you think is chili and discovering that it's actually meat sauce.  As someone that experienced this (but didn't realise until I was at work with no other lunch options but a container of meat sauce), I can tell you it's not fun.
• Keep a tally of what's in your freezer - I put my list on my meal planning white board in my kitchen.  This way you can keep track of your meal options, and theoretically none of them will get lost in the far reaches of your deep freezer, never to be seen again.

So, how is it going so far?  We didn't use any freezer meals for my first week back.  Little Smiling Man had a fever after only one day at daycare, so I was home with him for two days, making meal prep relatively easy.  This week, we've had leftovers or cooked quick meals like stir fry each night so far.  However, tomorrow meat sauce, pasta and mozzarella are on the menu!

Tomorrow Night's Dinner (thawing in progress!)