A Better Breakfast: Strawberry Muffins

When you've got over 17 1/2 lbs of strawberries, you tend to come up wth multiple ways on how to use them. Aside from making homemade jam, slicing them on top of cereal, having them on the side at dinner, and snacking on them during the day, I also made a double batch of Strawberry Muffins. These are so yummy! I've made them several times over the past year and they're always a hit with the whole fam. Plus, they're fun to make with the kids. :)

Strawberry Muffins

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups chopped strawberries
3 tsp sugar mixed with 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Rinse, hull and chop strawberries, then place in a medium-size bowl.


Line muffin pan with paper cups.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer.

Mix in egg.

Measure the flour (note, we used the knife to level off the measuring scoop and scraped away from us, not toward us as it may look like in the picture below!).

Place flour, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl; mix well. Add some of the flour mixture into the butter mixture; beat together gently.

Beat in some of the milk, then alternately add the remainder of the flour and milk, beating on low speed until incorporated.

Don't forget to lick the beaters! :)

Using a spatula, gently fold in strawberries.

Using an ice cream scoop, measure and spoon batter evenly into muffin cups, about 2/3 full.

Gently sprinkle cinnamon/sugar mixture over top of muffins.

Place muffins in oven and bake for 16-18 minutes.

Wok's For Dinner: Mediterranean (or Cobb) Wrap Sandwich

These turned out WAY better than I could have imagined, and even my husband was impressed. I also had been concerned that hubs and I would be hungry 30 minutes after supper was over, but that wasn't the case at all. So success on my first attempt at wraps! The only drawback is that they were less "Mediterranean" and more "Cobb" style. I didn't really follow my recipe too well and instead threw stuff together. Still, they turned out great, and I'm happy with that!

Mediterranean (or Cobb) Wrap Sandwich

Ingredients:
6 wraps (I used "low carb" version but you could use flour tortillas)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
1 carrot, shredded
1 tomato, diced
1 avocado, chopped
3-4 Romaine lettuce leaves, torn in pieces
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup shredded Sharp Cheddar cheese
Salad dressing such as Italian, Ranch or Honey Mustard (your choice! :)

Directions:
Evenly divide up all ingredients into each wrap. Roll-up wrap tightly, enchilada-style. Serve and enjoy!

To make these more "Mediterranean" style, use cucumber and red pepper, slicing both into strips, and omit the carrot, tomato and avocado.

To-Do Tuesday

I've missed out on my weekly To-Do List for a couple weeks now. It's silly to admit that I have to remind myself to do my To-Do List so I can remind myself of the things that I need to do, and even then I have trouble doing that. Oh well! :)

I'm keeping this week as light as possible. I'm stressed to the max between work and home activities, even though this is a light week for home activities.

• Plan May freezer meal list. Once A Month Cooking day is now officialy May 15. It's on the calendar and not going to change this time! :)

That's all!

Don't forget to take a quick peak at To-Do Tuesday at Crazy Adventures in Parenting! :)

Menu Plan Monday--5/3-5/9/10

Last week was crazy, I mean CRAZY, busy!! If your spouse tells you that he's thinking about coaching a baseball team, I strongly suggest you tell him "no". We had 4 games in 3 days, plus 2 days of practice, on top of everything else that was going on. I had a couple days where we were simply unable to stick to last week's menu plan. Sad, but true. And although this week is a snooze-fest as far as activities go, I'd like to say that I'm in "recovery mode" this week, but it just isn't so. I've got a huge audit at work coming up in 2 weeks, and it just so happens that I've been called to jury duty that same week.

So not only am I busy & stressing on the homefront, I've got to deal with hectic & stressful hours at work as well. Not good. It is very likely that my postings may be a little light for the next few weeks. Please bear with me as I try to keep things prioritize and balance all the tasks that need to get done while trying to maintain some level of sanity. Baseball season is over at the end of this month, and the calendar is looking MUCH better starting June 1. Hooray!

Here's the menu plan for this week. I intended on posting this last night, but my kids did not cooperate at bed time and we spent a good 2+ hours battling out the "I can't go to sleep"-"I'm thirsty"-"He's talking"-"She keeps waking me up" routine, so I didn't get a chance to get this out when I wanted to.

Monday--Hot Dogs, Cantaloupe
My husband was smart and picked up on my not-so-subtle clues that I've been dropping--no baseball practice on Monday nights! So there was no practice this evening, and we were able to have our weekly Family Home Evening activity. I prefer to have it on Monday evening. After a really hard day at work, there's nothing like spending really good, quality time with the family. For our activity, we sang karaoke-style, singing songs the kids have been learning at church. Afterwards, we made Strawberry Muffins to use some of the strawberries we picked last week (did I tell you that we picked over 17 1/2 pounds? there really is such a thing as TOO many strawberries, believe you me!). The muffins are for our breakfast in the morning.

Tuesday--Hot Pork Sandwich With Gravy
I have a meeting at church this evening, and hubs and our Little Man have a baseball game. Hubs gets to prepare supper so it's ready when I get home from work so we can all eat together before heading our separate ways for the evening.

Wednesday--Mediterranean Wrap Sandwich, Oranges

Thursday--Beef Macaroni
Another meal for hubs to prepare since we have a ball game this evening.

Friday--Chicken Pasta Stroganoff, Salad

Saturday--Meatloaf Pie, Green Beans

Sunday--
Breakfast: Caramel Rolls
Dinner: I have no idea...literally, no idea. It is, after all, Mother's Day, so do I really have to cook? My brother-in-law's birthday is Saturday, and my mother-in-law says she's planning "something" for the whole family so we can celebrate the birthday, but didn't mention if it will involve a meal for everyone. So right now, it's kind of up in the air.

Need some menu planning ideas? Visit OrgJunkie.com for over 300 ideas!