It’s a rainy Monday here today and I’m sipping my Teechino hazelnut roasted dandelion root tea by the fire this afternoon while writing this. I’m gazing out the window at the gentle rain making everything lush looking and a spy a random sighting of a lone aspen or maple leaf fall.  It’s a lovely rainy day, a day that forces me to sit, contemplate my week & write. I’ll be reading my husband’s book this afternoon by the fire. My husband wrote a book, “In the Orchard” & it’s perfect book for the Fall to sit and read. It’s so exciting to see my husband’s story finished and finally reading it all completed!! Congratulations to you, Paul!! I’m so Proud of you & excited for you!!

A Brief look at the weekend…

This weekend started a bit rough with my son breaking his foot in a skateboarding accident 😢, but luckily he’s not in any pain, didn’t need medication or a hard cast, and should be recovered soon. We all had gotten our flu shots and caught up on some rest. We also finished the painting of our home and began making the homemade new shutters.

My husband & I were able to squeeze in an early  morning hike on our trail, which we hadn’t had the time to do for awhile (oh boy, are we out of shape, but we loved the hike!). We enjoyed a lovely morning fire outside with breakfast and started transplanting plants and flowers to clean up the yard a bit.

I harvested the last of the veggies (still have the herbs to harvest), and put down some garden stones for our backyard walkway. We had a nice Sunday meal and relaxed for the evening together. It started out busy and chaotic but became a lovely weekend. 

During the weekend, I made some delicious pumpkin muffins and on Sunday evening a yummy apple crisp. Here is the pumpkin muffins recipe:

Pumpkin Muffins:

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups gluten free flour

1/4 cup maple sugar

3/4 cup  Swerve granulated sugar substitute

1/2 cup Swerve  brown sugar substitute

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsps cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2 eggs, room temperature

1 15 oz. can pumpkin puree

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled

1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease muffin pans with coconut oil spray. *I had a little bit of batter leftover after one muffin pan, so I also made a dozen mini muffins too! They looked adorable!
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, both sugar substitutes, baking soda, salt and spices. Set aside.
3. In another medium bowl, whisk together eggs, pumpkin puree, coconut oil and vanilla extract.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir together. Do not over mix, just stir until everything just blended together & incorporated. Use a ladle to scoop batter into muffin cups almost to the top to get a nice full muffin.
5. Bake muffins for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted inside center of muffin comes out clean.

These are so addicting and yummy!! They come out so moist and flavorful!!