Muffins and Mortar

Roughly 3 weeks left before we move into our duplex. Wowzas. Our nasty old 80 year old boiler is trying to figure out why it has to chill out in the back yard heap of trash while our BMW of a newbie boiler gets to crank out, on-demand, 96% efficient toasty water to our brand spankin' new radiators. The basement is now home to a Star Trek motherboard of a heating system. I'll post a pic soon.

The bathroom is playing hostess to it's new layout, tub and shower, tile and electrical; pretty much ready to drywall and paint. Yeehaw!

Joe framed out the new door frame and closet for our Little Lady's room and will do our bedroom next. After that, we're ready to put down some new flooring.

The muffin beauts pictured above are a weekly request from Joe. Pumpkin muffins with a walnut crumble topping. Although sometimes I'll rotate in a chocolate chip laden batch, so good. Here's the recipe....add 1 cup of chocolate chips into the batter if you'd like, or google any sort of crumble topping to sprinkle on top if you're more of a crumble person.

I'm getting off the couch to go grab a muffin...


Pumpkin Muffins

1 2/3 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1 T. pumpkin pie spice**
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 c. canned pumpkin puree
1/2 c. butter, softened

Mix ingredients well. Pour into greased muffin tin (or use muffin liners). Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Don't over bake or they will be dry!

**No punkin pie spice?! Use the following combination: 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/8 teaspoon cloves. Mix together and you have the equivalent of 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (and it is much cheaper than buying it premade). So for this recipe, you would need to triple the above amounts to equal one tablespoon pumpkin pie spice.