Our travel schedule is heating up!

In the next few weekends we have Joe’s college graduation, a mother-daughters Chicago (and American Girl Place!… Yes, I will be bringing Felicity.) get-away, and “The Trip”!

The weeks are blowing by, but we only have fun, sweet things to look forward to. We can’t wait! In the meantime, we’re doing lots of packing and planning, and I’m even taking a photography class:

{A basic lesson on shutter speed. I took these at a local park- Cool, huh?!}

In the midst of actually learning what all those buttons on my nifty camera mean, (and picking out every outfit I plan to wear in Rome so I can feel just like Audrey Hepburn), I started a new home project!

This past weekend, my lovely Mama came up dive with me into the world of furniture refinishing. We are overhauling an antique bed for our spare room (so our friends don’t have to put up with an air mattress when they visit anymore :), and she’s a pro. We are both pretty dedicated workers when it comes to a project like this, and I knew we’d be “in the zone”. So, I decided to whip up some soup for lunch and muffins for breakfast ahead of time…

Good decision. Especially on the breakfast front.

Don’t worry – pictures of the finished bed to come! It’s gonna be sweet…

I adapted this vegan muffin recipe from Mama Pea’s cookbook, and they turned out fabulous! Dense, chocolatey, just the right amount of sweetness, and with an amazing texture (and nutrition profile) from the millet and other awesome, healthy ingredients!

We enjoyed them warm, crumbled over Fage plain Greek yogurt with berries… Add a cup of coffee with frothed Almond Breeze coconut almond milk while booking our hotel on the Magnificent Mile, and it was the PERFECT pre-project breakfast!

Banana {Chocolate} Almond Millet Muffins

Based on Mama Pea’s Banana Chocolate Chip Millet Muffins from her amazing cookbook, “Peas & Thank You”. Makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients:

• 2/3 Cup of Uncooked millet
• 3/4 Cup of Whole wheat flower
• 3/4 Cup of Almond flour (also called ‘almond meal’ – you can substitute regular flour as well, but you’ll loose some of the texture and flavor!).
• 1 1/2 t Baking powder
• 1/2 t Baking soda
• 1/4 t Salt
• 1/2 t Cinnamon
• 2 Ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 Cup Dark brown sugar
• 2 T Coconut oil, melted
• 1/2 Cup Almond milk
• 1 t Vanilla extract
• 1/2 Cup Dark chocolate chips (I like to use Ghirardelli chips and chop them up a bit!)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375. Line or spray muffin tin. Set aside.
• Place millet in food processor, and pulse into a fine texture (won’t be flour-fine… a little bit of crunch is good!).
• Pour into a large bowl and add flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
• In a smaller bowl, combine mashed bananas, brown sugar, oil, milk and vanilla.
• Add wet ingredients to the dry, and stir until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
• Spoon the batter into muffin tin, and bake for about 17 minutes.

{Just chilin’ with the lentils…}

Enjoy these muffins warm out of the oven, or freeze to keep them on hand whenever hunger strikes! These little treats are excellent on their own, crumbled, smeared with jam, with a cup of tea, for breakfast, for a snack, for dessert, before a workout…

…just make ’em, ok? Enjoy!