What a CRAZY week!

This week has been nothing but exciting and new adventures. As a teacher candidate, you are required to complete placement in various schools for a certain duration of the year. I started my first placement on Wednesday and all I can say is WOW! I was nervous going into a school I've never been before, let alone meeting all the children and staff. As soon as I met my associate teacher and the students walked in to start their day, my nerves disappeared. I cannot wait for the upcoming weeks to start mini lessons and begin my official teacher journey!!!

In all schools, being a nut free environment is common. Many students have all sorts of peanut and nut allergies that require students to bring food without those ingredients. But it doesn't stop there. A student in my class has a dairy allergy. For most people without allergies, we often take for granted being able to indulge in foods with milk and eggs. In my next blog post I will challenge myself to find a recipe that does not include nuts or dairy.

But for this week I was really excited to try a double chocolate zucchini muffin recipe I found on ambitiouskitchen.com! Click HERE if you would like to try the recipe! Chocolate is kind of my weakness and I LOVE zucchini's so why not put them together?! The recipe calls for almond milk, one egg and a WHOLE cup of zucchini. Yup, you heard right, ONE FULL CUP! Maybe I am biased because I love zucchini, but once I saw the recipe I was hooked.

Since cocoa powder is on the bitter side, honey or maple syrup were two options to help sweeten up the muffins. After doing some research, I found out that honey and maple syrup have a higher calorie count than white sugar but do not spike sugar levels as much (Leonard, 2017). This was interesting for me as I never thought about the calories or fat content in sweeteners until it was broken down. Everyone you talk to will have a different perspective on what is deemed "healthy" or not, but eating sweets in moderation is what I believe is important.

So....all was going well until I took the muffins out of the oven. They did not rise AT ALL, instead collapsed and almost made a hole in the centre! Low and behold I forgot the one ingredient that helps these muffins rise....baking soda! I think I got carried away with taking a picture of all the ingredients and forgot to take it out of the fridge. But they tasted good...does that count?

Let's hope next weeks recipe is a little more successful than the last two! Until next time...

:)

References

Leonard, J. (2017, June 1). Honey vs. sugar: Differences, benefits, and disadvantages. Retrieved September 26, 2019 from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317728.php.