I always knew I would enjoy motherhood. I felt it would give me the opportunity to do more of some of the things I love, cooking and baking in particular. While it’s taken 18+ months to get to this point — I didn’t necessarily expect to get there sooner — I’m totally loving it: cooking a fresh, interesting and tasty dinner on most nights; trying out new recipes; transforming ideas onto the plate; eating good food! I’m in a real sweet spot, and Bee is playing along.
A good part of our afternoons are spent cooking, and some mornings we bake together. She may spend some time with me at the counter, helping me or playing with food scraps or, her favourite, water. Or she may cook in her own mini kitchen, where I see her imitate what she sees me doing. Or she may simply occupy herself otherwise, checking in with me every so often. The process takes longer, with frequent pauses for various reasons, but the food gets on the table.
Although I sometimes feel guilty that I’m not spending the time playing with Bee, I figure she is seeing a good example of home cooking and learning some valuable skills. Over time, I should be able to involve her more and more.

Bee stirring (and tasting, of course) the wet ingredients for muffins.
Just the other day we tried a new muffin recipe together. It’s been a long time since I got excited about a muffin recipe (probably not since I came up with the date and cranberry muffins with oatmeal streusel topping), but these banana carrot muffins are stellar!
I’m always searching for recipes with low/no sugar or tweaking them to reduce the amount of sugar. Too often recipes have too much sugar, which is not only bad for us but also, in my opinion, masks the other flavours. This recipe gets just the right amount of sweetness from bananas, dates and a touch of maple syrup, and includes a lot of healthy ingredients. I can’t get enough of them, and Bee is a fan too. Another sweet spot!
Recipe: Banana Carrot Muffins
This recipe is adapted from Dr. Weil’s Carrot-Banana Muffin recipe. I made a combination of mini and regular size muffins; the recipe made 24 mini muffins and 9 regular-size muffins.
Dry:
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup old fashioned oats
2/3 cup ground almonds/almond meal
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tsp each cinnamon, cardamom, ginger
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chopped pitted dates
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
Wet:
3 eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla
2 medium carrots, finely grated
Preheat oven to 350° F. Line/grease 12 regular size muffin cups (or combination of mini and regular-size muffin cups).
In a bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Combine all wet ingredients in a second bowl. The chopped dates will tend to stick together. With your fingers separate them once they are in the flour mixture; coating each piece with the flour mixture will prevent them from sticking together.
Pour wet ingredients into dry, and blend until flour mixture is just moistened.
Fill muffin cups. Bake 30-35 minutes or until golden brown and tester comes out clean. (Mini muffins will be done sooner, in approx. 25 minutes.)