For a very important date!
Thanks to my lovely mother in law, our clocks are now set to the right time this morning!
Eric and I had a leisurely breakfast this morning and then we received her time-change reminder email around 11:30am. Who knows how long we would have gone had she not emailed us! lol.
Now, despite our lazy morning, I feel like I am running behind and I need to catch up! I sure love Springing Forward, but I do not like missing an hour out of the day…
Our weather continues to be very Spring like…
However, the weather is supposed to be warm and sunny all week, and just as it gets cool again we will be on a plane for FL! :)
Some of you asked if we are taking Sketchie on our trip with us…LOL…sadly, no! My in laws are coming to stay at our house while we are away to cat sit for us. He loves the in laws (I think more than us!) so he will have a grand old time I’m sure!
Let’s rewind to yesterday’s shopping trip at the outlet mall…
Do you ever have high hopes for a shopping trip and you don’t find ONE thing!? That was me yesterday!
Fun things about shopping:
- Spending time with girlfriends
- Summer clothes
- Starbucks or Mall juices when you are dying of thirst
- Sales
Not so fun things about shopping:
- Trying on a million things and not finding anything
- Huge crowds, people running into you
- Not finding a parking spot
- Too loud music in the stores
Krissy and I went into Guess and we said to ourselves…I think we are getting OLD because this music is just way too loud! It was really bad music too.
It was still pouring rain when we left and made for another 1 hour + drive home.
This morning’s breakfast however, was very tropical! I needed something to brighten the morning…
Close your eyes and picture a tropical beach. Picture the smell of coconut and lemon and the richness of coconut butter all melting together…
I recently met a wonderful lady named Ricki Heller from Diet, Dessert, n Dogs. Ricki is the former owner of a Toronto Bakery called Bake It Healthy and she is also the author of this wonderful cookbook:
It is called Sweet Freedom and it is fabulous. It features breakfast recipes, baking tips and tricks, cookies, bar, squares, cakes, cupcakes, frostings, cheesecakes, and raw and no baked treats! All baked with healthy ingredients of course.
The recipes in this book are very unique and you can tell that she put so much time and effort into every page. I was blown away by the creativity of Ricki’s recipes.
For example: ‘Sweet Potato and Chocolate Chip Muffins’, ‘Cinnamon Coffee Toffee Bars’, ‘Plum Topped Cornmeal Cake’, ‘Twice Spiced Ginger Biscuits’, and ‘Chai Cheesecake’. You will not find these recipes anywhere else. The recipes take more time than I am used to, but the results are definitely worth it.
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15 min
25 min
40 min
6 large muffins
Ingredients
- DRY:
- 3/4 cup ground oats (I just put oats in the blender for a minute)
- 2/3 cup whole spelt flour
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 3/4 tsp. baking soda
- 1/4 tsp. sea salt
- 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- WET:
- 1/3 cup softened coconut butter (OR 1/3 cup pureed avocado)
- 1/2 cup agave nectar (or maple syrup, but you might need 2/3 cup)
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (1 lemon)
- 2 tsp. lemon zest
- 1/4 cup almond milk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Grease 6 muffin tins.
- Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.
- Mix the wet ingredients into a small bowl and pour into dry.
- Stir well and spoon into muffin tins.
- Bake for 20 – 25 minutes.
- Cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
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These were really tropical tasting. Lemon and coconut muffins…who knew?!
With some vegan margarine…
So good! I had two for breakfast and didn’t think I would be full, but I am actually not hungry at all. Must be those filling coconut oils!
Plans for today include:
- Workout (I am going to try HITT running today!)
- Helping Eric with renos in the scary basement
- Meeting a girlfriend for tea
- Cleaning bathrooms
- Packing for trip/digging out summer clothes
A huge congrats to Caitlin for rocking the triathlon this morning!
Enjoy your Sunday :)
when i woke up..i totally forgot about the time change too! Definitly feel like I am lagging behind today :)
Those muffins sound and look delicious! I love anything coconut!
those muffins look amazing!! :) Also does she sell that cookbook online – that link doesn’t work for me!! :)
Have a great trip to Florida… :)
Jess
yes! http://www.dietdessertndogs.com/cookbook/ :)
I love food that transports you to a tropicsl place!
Hope my Twitter advice about st. Pete restaurants helped ya!
Those muffins look and sound delish!!!!!!!
we also have rain rain rain… it’s very blah. i haven’t liked shopping at the mall for years now, although i must admit i used to be a mall rat with my friends in high school! it was the place to be! those muffins look so fluffy and soft and yummy! i LOVE HIIT running. i do it 3 times a week on an incline and i’ve seen a huge improvement in my hill running outside. works wonders. i’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on it after you try it!
When I was reading about Sketchie, It sounds at first like you were saying that Sketchie likes your in laws more than you do -too funny!!
I love Vaughan Mills but is always so freakin busy!!
Agh I forgot about the time change too! My day has been totally off because of it – missed Pilates and am just generally frazzled right now! Haha.
I can’t stand going shopping and finding nothing! It’s okay if I’m going shopping with no expectations to find anything, but when I’m looking for something specific and I can’t find it, its sooo frustrating!
The muffins look tropically divine. What a cool sounding cookbook, too.
I never have luck with outlet malls! I also don’t like buying something and then not having the option of returning it because the outlet mall is too far away. Sorry you didn’t find anything either but I’m sure you’ll have better luck in Florida!
Oh. My. Goodness. Those muffins look so good. I am going to have to make them (luckly I have all the ingredients in my pantry). I think I may have to wait until I get over the cold I woke up with this morning so I can taste all the awesomeness!
I’ve never thought about pairing lemon and coconut, but it sounds delicious! What a great idea.
I totally forgot about the time change today as well – I was so confused when my computer automatically had changed the time!
It’s so true about the shopping. When you’re out on a mission you can never find anything…but when you are shopping without anything in mind you can always find stuff.
The muffins looks great!
Thanks for posting the link to the cookbook, I just called the Cookbook store on Yonge street to find out about getting myself a copy! :))
from the title, I thought for sure you were pregnant!!
Those muffins look pretty tasty. Happy sunday!
bahaha
Man! Everywhere I turn I’m running into coconut muffins or cupcakes. :p And I need the time to bake!!!! :( Soon I will, soon I will. It’ll just have to be some of my procrastination time…
I was the exact opposite. I was up at 8am and thought the clocks had changed but they hadn’t (I live in Scotland). Your list of shopping pros has made me want to go shopping. The nearest clothes shops are 3hours away from me but I can see a trip in my near future! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Those muffins looks so delicious – especially warm with the melty spread! YUM! I love HIIT – it is one of my main workouts of choice!
Those look fantastic– very moist and substantial! I want to go bake those right now :)
I totally need to check out that book!
Losing this hour put me behind this AM too. Those muffins look wonderful – perfect for that tropical feel. Thanks for sharing!
Love the look of those muffins! Tropical flavours remind me of summer!!
xo
K