Ginger Muffins

So, this morning, I decided to riff on one of my favorite recipes from my Cooking Light cookbook: Fresh Ginger Lemon Muffins. I decided to skip the ginger, add some toasted walnuts and gingerbread-y spices instead. I also sub'd some dark corn syrup for the tablespoon of oil and used brown sugar instead of white. Here is a picture of the dry ingredients before I added the chopped walnuts and the wet ingredients.



Here's the approximate size of the ginger piece I used (the measuring spoon on the left is a tablespoon for reference).



I think toasting the walnuts is a must since toasting brings out those tasty-smelling oils. I hand-chopped them, too, even though I could've thrown them in the food processor, but I didn't want them to be obliterated into walnut dust (I can't seem to NOT over-chop something with the food processor). Here are a few pictures of the finished product:





After a couple of those and some Costa Rican coffee (Mmm....), Gropius and I got started on our respective projects. He was replacing the shocks and bushings in the Jetta today (still at it as I type as a matter of fact). Meanwhile, I decided to get started with one of our next house renovation projects--re-doing the kitchen cabinets. Yay.

Before he got started on his stuff, Gropius set up a workstation for me on the back porch with a couple of his saw horses and the painting tarp. He was also concerned about the concrete, so he spread out several cardboard boxes on the ground underneath.



I got some absolutely heinous acid-type stuff from Home Depot that I sprayed over the cabinet doors. And I mean, heinous stuff--I had one jeans and a long-sleeved shirt on a day when the temps were in the upper 80s (which is a nice break from the triple digits earlier this week).




If I didn't know what I was looking at, that cabinet door almost looks like a topo of the Alps or Sierras or something!

Anyway, after much elbow grease and scrubbing/scraping with two different tools AND steel wool, this is what the finished product looks like:



I did one drawer, just to see how hard they'll be and then I did cabinet doors until I ran out of paint stripper (I got the small container, so the number of the counting shall be 4--for those Monty Python fans out there). I think this particular project is one that will take place in *several* stages, starting with cabinet doors and drawers before attempting the stuff that can't be easily carried outside (not looking forward to that step btw).





Still, I think the kitchen cabinets will clean up pretty nicely once we've got some stain on them. Gropius and I were thinking initially of a walnut stain, but now that I see the raw wood, we're wondering if perhaps cherry wouldn't be a better choice?