Breakfast Muffin Tops

One of the most difficult parts of my day is feeding my two year old breakfast.  He just doesn't like anything.  Sometimes he'll eat toast, sometimes he'll eat some egg, sometimes he'll eat a pre-packaged cereal bar...  But a lot of the time, he settles on hotdog.  Or a bottle of milk.  Or, nothing at all.

He's on a bit of a cookie kick right now.  He cried for about two hours for a cookie the other morning, and would not touch anything else.

So, I googled 'breakfast cookie', because, hey, it seems that everything exists these days.

Guess what?  They do.  In abundance.  Most of them are not a true cookie though; they're more cake-y in texture and seem to be refereed to as 'muffin tops'.  Basically, you could just make them as muffins, but, we're feeding toddlers, so the cookie size is a little more fitting.
I found a couple recipes that seemed simple enough and had enough healthy sounding ingredients to sound passable for breakfast food.  I didn't love either recipe on their own, so I sort of mushed them together, made a couple of changes, and came up with my own.

Amy's Breakfast Muffin Tops
Dry Ingredients
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp milled flax seed
2 tbsp grated coconut
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2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
2 tbsp dried currants*
*These 3 ingredients were actually trail mix I had that I picked the larger nuts out of - I didn't want someone to be surprised by biting into a whole almond!  It was about a 1/3 of a cup in the end.  Next time, I'd aim for 1/2 a cup and probably stick more to dried fruit - craisins or cherries would be good.  But use whatever is in your cupboard.
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1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I don't really like cinnamon, so I didn't add too much)
1/2 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients
1 cup milk
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup apple sauce (or one fruit cup container of apple sauce)
1 apple, grated, with the skin left on
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Mix your dry ingredients.  Mix your wet ingredients.  Pour the wet into the dry; mix 'em all together.  It'll look like thick muffin batter.  Drop spoonfulls of it onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 350F.
Makes about 24 cookies


Now, here's the bad:  They taste AWESOME warm, (someone suggested warming them up, crumbling in a bowl, and covering in milk), but they're 160 calories each!  Remember, this is supposed to be toddler breakfast food, not your 4-cookie afternoon snack!
Here's the good: They actually contain some good stuff like fibre (1.6g), protein (3g), calcium, iron, and some vitamins like A and B6.

Granted, they're still just a cookie/muffin.  But really, we're talking about breakfast here - that meal of the day where people find anything from a half grapefruit to a plate of maple-syrup-drenched-pancakes acceptable.

So far, they pass the adult test, but they haven't had a chance to pass the toddler test yet.  IF they do though, I'll definitely be making them again.

Charity

So, Facebook is currently swimming in videos of people throwing ice water on their heads in the name of ALS research.  Good idea/Bad idea; I don't really care - people are having fun and raising a bit of money too.

But with the donations comes the age-old argument that: "I don't donate my hard-earned money to charity because 'x' charity uses most of their donations to pay their CEO instead of (finding a cure/helping the poor, etc). There should be rules so that administrators don't get all the money!"


*sigh*

There are rules.  The Canadian Government has very clear rules for charities to follow so that they can continue to keep their charities status.  This includes using at least 80% of their funds in 'Charitable Acts'.  However, 'charitable acts' includes the overhead of the charity.  It includes the utility bills for the charity's buildings; it includes the salaries of the secretaries who answer the phones; it includes all the paper mail outs that get sent out to millions of people every year fishing for more donations.

Charities are businesses.  Non-profit, but business none the less.  And it costs a significant amount of money to run a proper business.  It's great to say that 'I want MY money to go to research', but how do you think the research happens if the hydro bill isn't paid?  Yes, I know, you want YOUR donations to help the poor.  But how is that going to happen without a system of administration in place to follow through? 

It's unfortunate that some charities choose to pay their higher-ups millions of dollars in salaries each year.  It's unfortunate that someone who works for a charity would choose to accept that sort of salary.  Charities, it seems, are not immune to the greedy human condition.

But there are rules, and the rules are in place so that charities don't abuse their donors heartfelt givings.

Every year, every charity in Canada has to file a report to the government that shows how their money was spent.  These reports are available, online, for anyone to view.  They're all available here: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/chrts-gvng/lstngs/menu-eng.html.    If you don't like 'x' charity, that's fine!  Pick one you do like - there's no shortage of them, and they're all doing good things.

Sincerely,
An administrator who works for a charity

Toddler Games

We play a game in our home.  It's called: 'How many times can you put the same cheerios back in the bowl'.  It's a lot like '52 card pickup', if you've ever had the pleasure of playing that.

We have a toddler; we basically have food on the floor ALL THE TIME!!  Some of it is edible, some is not.  The half chewed piece of balogna, for example, not so much.  The dried out slice of apple (that began as fresh apple), eh, probably not.  But cheerios - cheerios are fair game.  I mean, not much can go bad about cheerios.  ...unless they get wet.  Wet cheerios are gross.

But don't worry!  Our house is clean.  I totally swept the floor yesterday.  I think.  And I know it was done last week too.  ..or was that the week before?

And it's not like we have any animals.  Well, except the kitten.  But kittens are so tiny; they're not big enough to be dirty.

The sand that got tracked in from outside?  That's nature's seasoning.  No biggie.

So next time you're visiting maybe you'd like to play with us?  If you're lucky, maybe you'll get a cheerio stuck to your sock to take home with you - then you can play our favourite game in your house too!