a recipe and some other stuff

First off, I made banana muffins tonight and I think they are rather good for you. Of course they could be better, but then they'd taste like something from the bottom of a hamster cage so...you know.

This has been a gradual tweaking of my banana muffin recipe until I got here, and I think I'm satisfied. Done in this quantity it makes 20-24 muffins, depending on how full you fill the cups.

2/3 c. oil (or 50/50 oil/applesauce which is what I do)
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 c. milk
2-3 large bananas
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4-1 c. sugar (I use the golden cane sugar, Fair Trade, yadda yadda, but I bet 1/2 white, 1/2 brown would be good.
1 c. unbleached unenriched flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c wheat germ

Preheat oven to 350* and grease or put muffin cups in a muffin tin. Combine first 5 ingredients (the wet ones) and mix them up well. In a separate bowl combine last 5 ingredients (the dry ones) and mix those really well so the baking soda doesn't stick together and taste really terrible. Then pour the wet into the dry and mix until combined. Fill muffin cups until they are 2/3-3/4 of the way full then bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown on top.

You could add chocolate chips like Cor likes, but I don't usually unless he begs :-P

Before:

After:

Molly really likes them so they must be pretty good.

We did some more math today. Molly found it really simple but I think it's a good exercise. She counted the number of each animal and then colored in a graph with the corresponding number of boxes.

We also did a reading lesson from The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. So far she's picking up really quickly, but all of the lessons we've done have been straight, sound it out type of words. Right now we are going through different consonant blends at the end the words. After we finish the lesson I have her practice spelling some of the words. Since her fine motor skills are right where they should be for a child her age, writing spelling words is out. She can write, but it's very arduous for her so this makes it a bit easier. I have her spell them to me and I write them out as she spells them. We've done this on the MagnaDoodle and on the sidewalk with chalk so far.

These were some of her words from today.

I also recorded a video of her reading from the book. She's really coming along nicely.



I'm hoping to do some garage sale-ing tomorrow. Molly will be in tow, so hopefully we won't come home with a car-full of toys that she won't play with.