Monkling’s Blog

I know my thousands of readers must be so disappointed that there was no blog entry yesterday. I decided to take this Sunday as a day of rest. Okay, I’m lying. That’s not really why there’s no entry. I was just busy doing fun stuff all day. Darn! I lied again. Good thing I didn’t give up lying for Lent. Well most of it was fun, except for the shopping part. I don’t like shopping but Theresa put it like this, “Mom, if we don’t go out to buy some new jeans, you will have to deal with the fact that my new hobby will be mooning people since every pair I own is too big and falls off.” I’m not sure if that’s exactly how she worded it but obviously we needed to do some serious shopping.

Once Theresa was all set and ready to go back to the dorm, we went over to Church to pretend it was St. Patrick’s Day. Our parish was having a little Irish concert. We have 2 really good choirs - an adult one & a children’s one. We also have a lot of musical talent in our parish, not just on the singing end but with instruments as well so I’m pretty sure the music we heard is not typical of most parishes. One part I found especially fun was when our Polish priest sang an Irish lullaby. Our parish organist said to him, “You’re the only one I am not giving the microphone to.” Fr. Luke has a great voice and is a very enthusiastic singer.

After all that activity, I was too tired to cook so we went over to Outback Steakhouse. I was informed last year by an Australian friend that the menu is not a reflection of what actual Australian restaurants serve but we’ll still pretend it is authentic.

And now, to make up for not having posted anything yesterday, I give you muffins:

Not only that, but I will post the recipe.

• 1 1/3 cup oatmeal (I used the quick cooking kind)
• 1 1/3 cup yogurt (the original recipe uses buttermilk but I had plain low fat yogurt in the house, used that, & loved how they came out.)
• 1 1/3 cup flour (I’ve been using King Arthur’s white whole wheat flour because it just sounds so healthy. It’s very close to regular flour & the girls have no clue I’m using whole wheat.)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 egg (I’ve used egg substitutes to cut down on the calories & there’s no noticeable difference in taste.)
• 1/2 cup oil (I cut the oil down from the original 2/3 cup)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (I added the vanilla & cinnamon)
• 2/3 cup brown sugar (that’s from the original recipe but I use 1/3 cup of turbinado sugar & 1/3 cup of Spenda to lower the calories)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans (The original recipe didn’t call for that but pecans just make everything taste good. I don’t use them all the time but I do like throwing them in once in a while.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. And of course you want to use the paper muffin liners because it’s so much easier. The original directions tell you to soak the oats in the buttermilk for 30 minutes. What I do is throw in all the liquid ingredients for the 30 minute soak and I also toss in the turbinado sugar so that it will have some time to dissolve. Otherwise I’m imagining it might not dissolve completely and someone will bit into it and crack a tooth. In another bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. After the oats have finished soaking, add the dry ingredients to the wet ones, mix until just moistened & spoon into the muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes.

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