The Day of the Domestic Diva

Sometimes a day goes so well that a girl feels like a domestic diva. Once a year the stars align in my life to create the perfect atmosphere of enthusiasm, productivity and can-do attitude. This is something that can’t be planned for or anticipated, it comes unexpectedly and must be obeyed because you never know when it will happen again. This freak occurrence happened over the weekend and I cannot begin to tell you the satisfying list of accomplishments that piled up. However, in the midst of shrub trimming, laundry, cleaning, creating piles of bags for donation and finally organizing the linen closet, there were a few highlights worth sharing.

My first tomato harvest of the season:

Homemade bug deterrent lotion bars. I’ll let you know if they actually work before sharing the recipe, the same goes for the natural deodorant I also made. Pretty, aren’t they?

And the pom-pom on my domestic diva cap goes to the banana muffins that I whipped up:

Inspired by the Regret of Sharing Banana Bread, I modified Lucy Moll’s Banana Walnut Muffin recipe that appears in Energy Eating: The Vegetarian Way. There are tons of great recipes in this book, this one was so good that I burned the roof of my mouth trying to eat them straight from the oven, so baker beware!

Lucy Moll’s Recipe for Banana Walnut Muffins:

1 cup whole-wheat flour
1-1/2 cups unbleached white flour
3/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbs reduced-fat margarine (I used butter)
2 tbs unsweetened applesauce
1 cup mashed bananas (I used four very ripe bananas)
2/3 cup buttermilk, sour milk or reduced-fat soymilk (I used 2 tbs of white vinegar and milk to equal 2/3 c)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped Reese’s Peanut Butter cups (this was all me, I’m not sure Lucy would approve)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, prepare muffin tin with baking cups or oil. Mix dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, mix wet ingredients. Combine all and ingredients and bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Lucy says this makes 12 muffins but I got 17.

Here’s hoping the stars align again soon, I’ve got more projects that need doing!