Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I was contemplating dinner the other night, and since it was the night before Christmas Eve, and there was going to be a lot of cooking then, I decided to go with my easy standby, breakfast for dinner.  (I know.  You’re shocked.  But the kids had also had Frosties with Grandma at 3-ish, so I didn’t want to make a huge meal; I didn’t know how hungry they’d be.)  I scanned Pinterest for something I had all of the ingredients for, and these PB&J Lunchbox Muffins caught my eye.  Why not?  After all, I had all of the ingredients on hand, and it would certainly be something different than our normal fare.  The decision made, I went to town.  I halved them, because really, that’s a lot of muffins for a first try, but my other changes were minor. I didn’t have coconut oil, so I subbed in canola and threw in a few drops of coconut extract; luckily, I was chatting with my friend Andrea while I was mixing them, because I was unaware that coconut oil will fluff more like butter when creaming in the mixer. (The lack of fluffiness didn’t seem to hurt anything, mind you–I’m just glad I was warned so I didn’t get frustrated.)  I also subbed about 1/3 cup of the flour for whole wheat flour (I was being more conservative than usual; I’d probably do more next time.)  Other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe, except for the whole “Cool for at least 1 hour before serving” thing.  (I didn’t see that until we were pretty much at the table and the oven had less than a minute left.  It so wasn’t happening.)

Anyway, the kids’ reactions were funny.  I wish I could give you a soundbite of the eye-rolling kind of voice in which my oldest said, “Are we having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner?”  (She’s got my sense of smell.  She could tell what ingredients were involved by sniffing the kitchen.)   Nobody seemed any too sure about them, but they all ended up enjoying them quite a bit.  I did do some with grape and some with strawberry jam, but I don’t know that the difference was as pronounced as I thought it would be.  (Although I will say that the strawberry freezer jam’s still slightly frozen quality seemed to prevent it from sinking to the bottom of the muffins quite as badly.)  I may just try serving these up for lunch one of these days.  After all, they got a thumbs up from everyone!