Over the years I have been building up enough confidence to dabble with writing my own recipes. To the dismay of some, the majority of these recipes involving making my baked goods more healthy, chocked full of veggies, and devoid of the ingredients one usually wants when eating something hot from the over: sugar, sugar, sugar!

The word "natural" is such a loaded word. Essentially everything comes from nature, even the things we don't specifically like and are terribly bad for us. But when we see the word "natural" on our food and clothing and personal care products we believe that these products are as close to their original state as they can possibly be. When I came up for the recipe for these muffins, I made an effort to use foods that were as close to their natural state as I could. With the exception of the whole wheat flour and vanilla extract, all of the ingredients are fresh (and some local). There is also no sugar in these muffins! The sweetness comes from the honey and grated apple.I used this method to substitute using applesauce in the muffins. You can also use real maple syrup instead of honey and the eggs can be replaced to make them vegan.

Even though I am going gluten free for Lent, I needed to share this recipe for my Tutorial Tuesday..I mean THURSDAY! I had wanted to make my own whole wheat bread last week to eat with the following day's dinner, but I am not a fan of having to sit and wait...and wait...and wait for my breads to rise. I also wanted to make some whole wheat bread since I had a large opened bag that I needed to start using up and we had been eating so much of the white stuff the past week. I went online and found the 5 Minute Flax Wheat Bread Recipe from momdish.com and decided to give it a try.

A few weeks ago we had some friends over to let our boys have a little "play date" fun. In my 1950's-esq fashion, I needed to have something baking! You should always have something baking when you have company! It's like some ingrained female/maternal instinct I have always had despite the fact that never remember my mother making anything from scratch. I mean, even Cher in the movie Clueless put a stick of cookie dough in the oven when Christian came over for their "date." (Maybe not the best reference since she did, after all, set fire to the oven. But still...)

This past weekend I hosted my very first cookie swap! After a random idea and a post on a whim on Facebook, I had what I expected to be a good handful of attendees, however, after a lot of illnesses and other medical emergencies of a few of my expected attendees, it ended up being a small house. No worries! That just meant more cookies and wine for us.

If you have never been to or hosted a cookie swap, it is precisely what it sounds like. A cookie swap is a way for friends to get together and exchange recipes while providing tasty samples for all to enjoy. A guest is required to bring roughly a dozen cookies per guest for tasting and for the attendees to take home along with recipe cards for each. Coffee and tea are a must and wine and other spirits optional. It's basically an excuse for adults to have "grown up time" and have adult conversations whilst consuming adult goods.

It was Thanksgiving Day and all of my homemade pumpkin soup and pumpkin puree I had so tirelessly prepped during the week and froze cracked, broke, and poured into my tiny freezer. I was preparing dinner entirely by myself for the first time since Terry was volunteering at the homeless shelter, so fter a few choice words on my list of horrible experiences involving pretty much all of my recent experiences with Ball quart jars, I was forced to resort to the quick and easy "ingredients on hand" version of a pumpkin pie (or pies actually) that I could accomplish along with all of the other holiday tasks in time for our company. So...I took to the internet to find a version that was lower in sugar than the one printed on the can and, as usual, I ended up combining bits and pieces of recipes from all over to get the perfect pie I needed.