With all the craziness going on in our house last couple of weeks, I definitely fell behind in my blogging.  That always makes me feel bad.  But baking always makes me feel good – and now that the work in the living and dining room is complete, the stuff is no longer all over my kitchen (and instead back where it belongs!!) I can bake again!!!  YAY!!!!!!!  And one of the very first things I baked was a recipe I’ve been holding onto for quite some time.  It’s for lemon bread but I didn’t have the patience to wait while a loaf bakes up.  Nope, too impatient for this instant-gratification kinda gal ;-)  Instead, I modified the recipe and made them into muffins… mini muffins (even quicker, dontcha know! LOL) and they tasted great.  While they may not be the big old granddaddy-sized muffins I’d hoped for they were plenty tasty and made my coworkers happy.  One even commented “hey, think about layin off the MINI part” hahahah :) 

I’ve always loved hardwood floors.  Not sure why since I certainly didn’t have them growing up.  But starting with the very first home I purchased, I’ve always had hardwoods. When I moved back to California 5 years ago the home I bought had carpeting.  Pretty much wall-to-wall carpeting… it was practically everywhere but the kitchen, laundry room and bathroom.  I didn’t hate it, but I never liked it.  It was fine, it was okay and it was beige.  Not a bad color but all of the wall colors are some shade of brown so the beige carpeting always seemed, boring, safe, and just “ok”.

Try as I might, I never could “relax” when we ate in the dining room.  What can I say… people are human and spills happen but when it did happen it just got my nerves all jangly.  DH being the wonderful guy he is never worried about it, he’d just grab a can of SpotShot and clean it up.  But after 5 years I decided it was time to get rid of the carpeting and let my jangled nerves have a rest :)  The carpeting was being removed from the dining room and we were having hardwood floors installed – yay!  But then I got to thinking… since they’re a single large space, why not do the living room as well since that’s where we dance and a wood floor is soooooo much better than carpeting when it comes to dancing.  The hubs and I are ballroom dancers – Swing, Foxtrot, Cha-Cha, Tango, Rumba, Waltz… and a little bit of Samba. Nothing fancy like on Dancing With The Stars but we can hold our own quite well when we’re out on the floor and believe it or not I think Hubs likes it more than I do :) We take both group lessons (twice a week) and private instruction (once a week) so having hardwood floors is great for practicing at home.  

Getting the actual floors done wasn’t that bad… three days of actual work (by a contractor-friend)… but it was the moving of all the furniture into the family room… and taking all the stuff out of the china cabinet… and then cleaning up all the dust (have I ever mentioned that I have a serious aversion to dust?  OMG serious aversion!)… and then moving the furniture back… and putting all the stuff back into the cabinets.   Holy Cow – It felt never ending.  But it did end… finally… at long last everything is back in its proper order.  Instead of beige carpet we now have Malaysian Cherry hardwood floors.  Rather than worry about people spilling on the beige carpet I can obsess over how much dust the wood floors show.  Ack!  It’s always something :)

While I was enduring the trials -&- tribulations of my flooring adventures, my little blog won another award :) This one is the Kreativ Blogger award and comes from Matt of Matt’s Kitchen.  It’s always such a nice feeling to know that not only do other people take the time to read your blog but they enjoy it enough to feel it “award” worthy.  If you’ve never visited Matt’s blog, please do.  I love his writing style which makes me feel like I know him even though we’ve never met or talked.  This award comes with a few rules about posting some information about yourself (things you did before, things you do now, things you want to do… etc) and I’m gonna work on those and get it posted very very soon.  I just didn’t want to delay my public acknowledgment of Matt’s gracious award any longer.  I’m truly flattered and will take care of my end of the award just as soon as I can!!

Lemon Muffins

Adapted from Williams Sonoma

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• Juice and zest of one medium lemon 

For the lemon glaze: 

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 5 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tsp. milk

Directions:

Preheat an oven to 350ºF. Spray muffin tins w/baking spray.

In a bowl, stir and toss together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. 

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until blended, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture along with the milk, lemon juice and lemon zest. Beat until blended and smooth, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.  

Spoon the batter into the muffin tins and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 18 minutes. 

Meanwhile, make the lemon glaze: In a small bowl, combine the powdered sugar, milk and lemon juice. Set aside, stirring occasionally.

Remove the muffins from the oven and transfer the pan to a wire rack. Cool for 5 minutes then remove the muffins to the rack and cool for another 5 minutes. Place a sheet of aluminum foil or waxed paper under the rack :)  Drizzle the lemon glaze over the muffins and cool completely (if you can wait that long – didn’t happen for me! LOL).

Enjoy!!