I'm going out of town without my family

I'm going out of town on Monday to visit my sister in Baltimore for a few days, and then to Atlanta to show artwork to several progressive companies. I'm leaving my 5 children home with my perfectly capable husband who will rent a Redbox for the children every night. They'll get to their workout sessions on time and will likely practice their instruments each day. On Saturday, before coming to get me at the airport, they'll tidy up the house. They'll have had a really fun week. I'll have had a good week, too.

So, in preparation for being gone for 6 days, I've stocked the freezer with good homemade food (chicken enchiladas, lasagna, and sloppy joes) along with hot dogs, corn dogs, and frozen pizza.

I've got assorted cold cereal and roughly 6 dozen frozen muffins. My Aunt Sybil is queen of muffins, I have memories of the kitchen in her old house where the kids would eat breakfast at the sparkly topped table and she'd pull a chair up to the cutting board to eat. She's got elaborate recipes and time savers. I made 4 batches of her time savers.

I baked the muffins in cupcake liners. After they cooled, I put them in 1 gallon bread bags, labeled them, and stacked them in the freezer. Aunt Sybil puts hers in tupperware containers and shoe boxes. For this selection of recipes and amount of muffins, without any hustle or deadline, it took about an hour and 20 minutes to complete.

Cinnamon Crumb Muffins

1 box Krusteaz cinnamon crumb muffin mix.

Follow the directions on the box. Yield: 12 muffins.

I made a second batch for breakfast and stretched it to 15 muffins; I liked this a little better because the crumb tops didn't break off like in the first (freezer) batch.


Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 box chocolate cake mix
1 16 oz. can pumpkin
2 eggs
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients together. Scoop into muffin tins. Bake 350* 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Yield: 24 muffins.

This recipe works with any cake mix and any additions like nuts, raisins, white chocolate chips, etc.


Pumpkin Carrot Muffins

1 box carrot cake mix
1 16 oz. can pumpkin
2 eggs

Mix all ingredients together. Scoop into muffin tins. Bake 350* 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Yield: 24 muffins.

This recipe was an experiment. I tried a new cake mix and I didn't add anything extra. My nearly 19 month old and I shared one and it tasted like carrot cake.


Blueberry Muffins

1 box Krusteaz blueberry muffin mix. Follow the directions on the box. Yield: 15 muffins.