Mini Applesauce muffins

Yesterday afternoon I made mini applesauce muffins. I have been meaning to do this for a little while and thought it was the perfect day to make them. They turned out fantastic, the only problem was that I ended up with over 48 muffins. I guess I didn't realize how many the recipe would make. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com. Check out that site if you haven't already! It has tons of great tasting recipes, it also has a search feature where you can look for certain ingredients! Awesome!

Here is the recipe and I will show my alterations:

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon ground allspice ( I just used cinnamon for both)
  
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened (I only used 1 stick since there was the applesauce)
  
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups applesauce
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup raisins (I left these out because I don't like them.)
  

DIRECTIONS

1. In a bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, allspice and baking soda; set aside. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, applesauce and vanilla; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in raisins. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until muffins test done. Cool in pan 10 minutes; remove to a wire rack.

They were super yummy, everyone liked them and they were a hit at the play date this morning. If you make this and get a large batch like I did you can always freeze half the batch for another morning.

Ham and Lentil soup

I kinda made this up as I went along, but here are the approximate measurements that I used.

1 1/2 cups cooked ham, chopped
1/4 lb. dried brown lentils
1/2 onion diced
3 ribs of celery, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp. olive oil
6 cups of water
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. beef bouillon granules

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan, over med. heat. Put the carrot, celery, and onion in and cook until softened and translucent. Add ham, and cook until warm and ham has browned a little.

2. Add salt and pepper to taste, 6 cups of water, thyme, lentils, and the beef bouillon. Stir to combine, and simmer over med. heat for 2 hours. It should cook down quite a bit, just make sure to stir occasionally.

It feed the 4 of us, but then again Adam and I both had multiple bowls of soup. I served it with a whole grain toast. Both kids even ate some, which is major when you have 2 toddlers! Let me know if you make it, and what you think!! Thanks.