Seriously, Advent?

Sunday was the first day of Advent, the beginning of the new liturgical year in the Christian church. But it doesn't really feel like a new year when we're in the midst of wrapping up a semester. That's what I just blogged about at Inside Higher Ed.

Muffins

Once upon a time, this was something of a recipe blog. It's been a while, but I still use it as a repository of my own favorite recipes, and I'm still trying new ones, too. Here's one I tried this weekend and posted about over at IHE. I tried to make healthy muffins; you can be the judge of whether I succeeded.

Preheat your oven to 350F.

In a large bowl, melt ½ stick (1/4 cup) butter in the microwave. Stir into the melted butter: ½ cup flax-seed meal, 2 eggs, 1 cup leftover cooked oatmeal, 1 tsp. vanilla, ½ cup brown sugar. (If you don’t have any flax-seed meal, you could use a whole stick — 1/2 cup — of butter.)

Once the wet ingredients are pretty well mixed together, add the dry ingredients: 1 cup flour (I used unbleached white, but you could probably use half and half white and whole wheat if you want them even healthier), 1 tsp. baking powder, and 1 tsp. baking soda. Add spices if you like—I used about 1 tsp. cinnamon and ½ tsp. ginger.

Stir in ½ cup chocolate chips and ½ cup dried cranberries. Or use a full cup of raisins, omitting the chocolate chips. Or mix and match to your own taste. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony of adding chocolate chips when I just said I wanted healthier muffins. I'm willing to give up some butter and sugar if I can have some chocolate, is all I have to say about that.)

This is a very stiff batter — it takes more stirring than most muffin batters and it can be scooped, not spooned or poured, into muffin cups. This should make 12 muffins, or 6 extra-large ones, if you have an extra-large muffin tin. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. When done, the tops of the muffins should be golden brown and should spring back when pressed. Mine may have taken a minute or two longer than 20 minutes .(I made the extra-large ones.)

Turn out of the muffin tin onto a cooling rack for a few minutes, until you can eat them without burning your mouth.

Countdown

I'm counting down to the end of the semester over at Inside Higher Ed...

Teaching, Farming, and Curricular Change

Sometimes two ideas come together and no matter how hard I try, they insist on being yoked. That's what happened to me this week when I faced a mountain of kale and the possibility of some curricular change. Weird, right? You can decide for yourself at the Mama, PhD blog at Inside Higher Ed...

Rally weekend

Did you go to the "rally to restore sanity and/or fear"? Did you watch it? What did you think?

I'm still deciding. But I loved the music and the talk, I really did.

By the way: go vote tomorrow. Don't forget.