Not On A School Night!

I can still hear my Mom’s voice responding to whatever the current request was at the moment…

“Can we watch a TV show that comes on at ten o’clock?”

Not on a school night.

“Can we make brownies?”

Not on a school night.

“Can Susie Bestfriend sleep over?”

Not on a school night.

“Then can I sleep at Bestfriend Kimmy’s house?”

Not on a school night.

“A guy from work asked me to go on a date…”

No dates on a school night. Or with boys who drive cars. Or alone with a boy until you are sixteen.

“I’m twenty-one.”

No. Not on a school night.

School nights were serious business in my family. When my siblings, cousins, and the youngest of our aunts and uncles were growing up, school nights demanded a certain routine and sense of decorum. You finished your homework, ate your dinner, got yourself clean, and – if you were old enough – maybe you watched a little TV.  You went to bed at a reasonable hour on a school night.

Even now, I find myself adhering to the School Night Code during the week. I don’t go on dates or plan sleepovers on school nights. I finish my homework and I attempt to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I certainly do not bake brownies.

But every now and then, a girl’s gotta violate the School Night Code and go a little wild. My homework is done for the week and Thanksgiving break looms on the horizon. Tonight called for something fun. So tonight, Kidzilla and I did us some baking.

On a school night.

Here’s the proof:

What you see here, friends, are Butternut Squash, Apple, and Hazelnut Muffins from Whole Living magazine’s October issue.  I know – we thought that sounded amazing, too. They are, well, exactly what they sound like – butternut squash, apple, and hazelnut goodness baked in a muffin tin. It’s fall in a cupcake wrapper. Really.

While I am a champ at modifying recipes, I generally do not mess with baking instructions. Baking tolerates much less faking it – at least in my world. I never really liked baking and so I never baked. But Zilla loves it and as a result I have been thrust into the cake pan and muffin tin end of the kitchen, willing or not.

You can find the recipe here on the WholeLiving.com website. We followed the instructions to the letter, doubling the recipe so we could freeze some of these for quick breakfasts. Zilla loves blueberries and so we tossed the blueberries in, as recommended, for an antioxidant boost.  (Who’s kidding whom here – we did it because we like blueberries. Period.)  Our one concession to variation was to use fresh blueberries, not frozen. (OK, well there may be a bit of rum extract in there because we ran out of vanilla.)

Let’s get a closer look at these babies…

The awesome part of these is that they are ridiculously healthy – made with brown rice flour, millet flour, hazelnut flour, and lots of other great things. According to the recipe, they are vegetarian and gluten-free, if that excites you. I am happy once again to have my Kidzilla get excited over something wholesome and healthy rather than something overloaded with chemicals and sugar. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised – this is the Girl who prefers unsweetened pomegranate juice mixed with water and a splash of lime to any popular kid drink out there.

The muffins cooled temptingly on the counter while we ate dinner.  As an extra bonus, we ended up with some roasted squash seeds for another day’s snack and a side vegetable for tonight’s dinner: pureed butternut squash (leftover from the muffins) seasoned with a little butter, salt and pepper, and pumpkin pie spice.

Of course, we sampled the muffins for dessert.  Zilla’s review? They were “so awesome and amazing.” She asked for seconds, but since it was a school night and all, I insisted Zilla head up the stairs for her bath and a book instead, leaving Fab Hub/Dad to cheerfully clean up the aftermath of our school night rebellion.

We had a full evening here tonight: muffins, bonus snacks and side dishes, a natural disaster in the kitchen…and everybody still made it to bed at a respectable hour for a school night.