With a Side of Hope

Hi there!  Happy Thursday!  Thank you so much for all of your kind comments about our honeymoon!  I was so excited to share once we booked it but I wanted to save it for an edition of Wedding Talk Wednesday.  We are both really excited and cannot wait to experience visiting Antigua as a married couple.  I’ve never been to an all-inclusive resort before so I am really looking forward to all of the food and drinks and other types of experiences that we can have.  I will be updating more about our honeymoon ideas as we get closer.  We are planning on booking some excursions, massage treatments and candlelight dinner on the beach.  So I will be sure to fill you in with all of those details as well as details on potential honeymoon clothes/outfits.  I totally need help with that.  So if you have any suggestions please me know!

Yesterday seemed like such a long day to me.  I don’t know if it’s because the weather was dreary and cold.  It just felt like a million days thrown into one.  I had some things that I was planning on doing when I got home from work but I was so tired and wasn’t feeling good.  I was glad that I didn’t need to cook dinner. I just reheated my Boston Market from the night before.  I probably shouldn’t have eaten it for a second night because my stomach wasn’t feeling so hot but I did anyway.  I know, bad, Hope.  Oh well.  You live and you learn.  Sometimes you just want to eat what you want and you don’t care.  Can I tell you, that I tried the stuffing at there for the first time and it was delicious!!!  I highly recommended the stuffing.  I miss their macaroni and cheese but I am not going to have that for a while. That will most likely destroy my stomach right now.  I need a break from macaroni and cheese unless I make it myself.  Have any good dairy-free macaroni and cheese recipes?  Send it my way!

So after dinner, Mike and I were talking and all I kept thinking about was baking.  Nothing was really on television last night and Mike was watching the Flyers game on our main tv in the living room. So I decided it was the perfect time to bake.  I browsed our pantry for ideas and decided to make a simple boxed muffin mix that I picked up from Duncan Hines.  They came out with a new muffin mix called Simple Mornings Triple Chocolate Chunk Muffins.

Simple Mornings Muffin Mix

The good thing about this new mix and what drew me to it was the fact that it says right on the box it contains Real Ingredients and Nothing Artificial.  It has Whole Grains, No Preservatives and No High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Simple Mornings also has a Blueberry Muffin Mix which I also have at home.  I should have made both last night but I completely forgot about the other box.

Normally when I bake, I substitute the oil for applesauce to make it a little healthier.  Last night, I decided to use the oil because Mike is always complaining about how he thinks applesauce changes the consistency of the cake.  So after baking these last night and trying them, I think that is he 100% right.  I didn’t think so before but I definitely noticed a difference baking with the oil as opposed to applesauce.  I think it would be nice to change it up every once in a while. Sometimes use oil and sometimes use applesauce.

I used our cooling rack that we got as an engagement gift for the first time last night!  It worked great!  No longer will we have burnt cookies!  We also got new cookie sheets.  I cannot wait to test them out.

Triple Chocolate Muffins

Look how chocolately

Perfect for breakfast or dessert or even a snack

These muffins were so good!  I loved that they had chocolate chips in the middle.  Yum!  It was like an explosion of chocolate in your mouth.  The best part was that they were still a little warm.  I love muffins!  I have always been a fan of muffins.  My favorite by far is blueberry!  I would eat a blueberry muffin any day.  I am particular about muffins though.  They must be soft!  My favorite part is the tops and the middle.  I like chocolate and chocolate chip muffins too.  Do you like muffins?  What is your favorite kind?

Now that I know my muffin pan doesn’t burn or anything like that, I would definitely like to try making some muffins from scratch.  I need to research some good muffin recipes.  It felt so good to be back in the kitchen baking.  Since I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, I haven’t really done all that much cooking because my life is a science experiment.  Trying to figure out which foods your body can and can’t handle is like a full-time job.  Most of the time I don’t feel like cooking and I just throw things together that I think will be gentle on my stomach.  I’m hoping and praying to get back in the kitchen and try out recipes again soon.  Last night really made me realize how much of a stress reliever it is to be cooking/baking.  I absolutely love it.  It’s definitely one of my passions.

When I was done in the kitchen, I watched a little bit of the Flyers game with Mike before going into our room and putting on a movie.  I decided to start watching Midnight in Paris.  It was kind of weird and I started falling asleep during it so I called it a night and turned it off.  I don’t think I will go back and watch it.  I am usually not a Woody Allen movie fan.  I think that is part of the reason why I didn’t like it.  It was boring and slow-moving and parts of it were just weird.  I really want to see the Descendants and I also haven’t seen the Hunger Games yet!  I need to get on that!  I think Melissa and I are going to see The Lucky Ones this weekend. I have converted her into a Nicholas Sparks fan!  Yay!  He is my favorite author in the whole world.  I just love his writing.

Alright well I think I’ve rambled on about enough random things for one day.  Have a lovely Thursday!

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