I'll Trade a Recipe for Some Sympathy!

Yesterday was quite the day.

I know the one who really deserves sympathy is the Consort, who spent from 6 a.m. to 3 a.m. awake and in airports waiting for flights that were delayed, and delayed, then delayed some more; boarding planes when the weather cleared; deboarding those same planes when the word came in that their destination airport (Chicago) was closed due to weather; reboarding planes and waiting in line to get de-iced; knowing you won't make your 6:40 p.m. connection because the flight that was supposed to arrive at 2:30 p.m. was now landing at 7 p.m.; being pleasantly surprised that the 6:40 p.m. flight was also delayed, so you actually could make your flight; but with the downside that having that last flight delayed meant that instead of arriving in Manchester at 9:51 p.m., you actually arrived at 12:20 a.m.; and having a 1.5-hour ride back from the airport (which ended up taking over 2 hours because of the blinding snow that was falling).

So, yeah -- big hugs and sympathy to the Consort. Blah, blah, blah.

But, people, I was the one who stayed up until 3 a.m. alongside him. I drove both directions on snowy highways through the mountains of New England, in the middle of the night when typically quiet highways are completely abandoned, deciding to keep my cell phone in my pants pocket rather than on the empty passenger seat beside me because, if I crashed, I wanted to be able to reach the phone to call for help rather than have it tossed somewhere inaccessible as I was pinned in the upside-down crashed car (didn't happen, but you have to be prepared!), with the snow making visibility pretty bad (yes, the Consort had told me he could sleep in the airport and I could pick him up in the morning, but the snow and the roads didn't seem bad until I was about 30 minutes into a 90-minute drive, and by then I figured it was better to soldier on). (And really, the Consort said the conditions were fine. Until maybe the last 20 miles. And I sure wished he hadn't told me that while I was driving those last 20 miles).

So: poor, stressed, tired Imperatrix.

Oh, and the 1-2 inches of sleet they predicted for accumulation over night? We didn't get it. Instead we got 5 inches of snow. And the girls got the 45th snow day of the season. Sheesh! I told they they won't be dancing around in such joy when it is July 29th and they are still in school. (They ignored me. They prefer to live in the moment, those bohemians.)

One perk of snow days is that Impera then offers to make something for breakfast (she's not a big cereal fan). It probably would have been eggs ... except that I made eggs for supper last night (seeing as I first had to run them to fencing practice, then drive down to pick up the Consort, and we often take advantage of the Consort's absence to have breakfast for supper [since he isn't a big fan]).

She found a recipe for Maple-Sour Cream muffins. We had no sour cream, but I had just made up a batch of yogurt, so we made Maple-Yogurt muffins with pecans. These things are delicious! They taste like portable pancakes -YUM! They don't rise very high, but that's OK. Really. Go make up a batch. Eat them all.



Maple-Yogurt Muffins

1+3/4 cups flour (I don't know how to make stacked fractions in html)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup yogurt
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped pecans

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tins.

2) Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl.

3) Beat the butter until smooth, then slowly add maple syrup, beating constantly. Beat in the yogurt and the egg.

4) Stir in the pecans.

5) Add the dry ingredients and stir until just blended.

6) Fill muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake until toothpick in center comes out clean, 15-18 minutes. Cool in tins 5 minutes, then remove.

Makes 16 standard muffins.