I did manage to finally peel myself off the couch and do something last night. I am a little sore from yesterday’s Fight Gone Bad workout but it’s not nearly as bad as I anticipated.

First, I headed over to our new location for a quick meeting about our wall murals. We are having some really cool custom murals painted and met to discuss design and placement so the artist can get started on them. Every time I visit the new space I am shocked by how much things have changed. The construction crew is telling us that everything will be done and the keys will be ready to hand over by Friday. I’ll post pics this week to show you the progress. It’s going to be amazing!

Then it was dinner + wine time! We used a Groupon and tried Dolce for the first time. I won’t blog the whole meal because the lighting was so terrible but I have to share my entree. I ordered the Frutti de Mare and it was amazing. Tons of fresh seafood (mussels, shrimp and scallops) with linguine and a spicy tomato sauce. I really enjoyed my entire experience at Dolce and will definitely be making a return service. Everything we ordered was delicious and the service was great.

Recipe time! I have been on a baking kick and in the last week I’ve baked vegan chocolate avocado cake, flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (another batch!), strawberry Nutella muffins and I just took a French lemon yogurt loaf out of the oven.

I baked the strawberry nutella muffins yesterday after the crazy workout while I hung around the house and cleaned. I wanted to bake something with strawberries so off I went to Pinterest for ideas.

They are very easy to prepare and I didn’t even have to break out the stand mixer. You create the Nutella center by placing half the batter in the muffin liner, adding spoonful of Nutella and then covering it with the remaining batter.

Sometimes strawberry muffins can be a bit soggy but the texture of these muffins is great and the combination of chocolate and strawberries is so good!

These muffins are perfect for anything from breakfast to brunch to an afternoon treat. I had one warm out of the oven yesterday afternoon with Chai tea and then I warmed one in the microwave for about 20 seconds this morning for breakfast (warm is key for gooey Nutella!).

Strawberry Nutella Muffins
(Recipe source Two Peas and Their Pod)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1/3 cup buttermilk (I did not have buttermilk so I used almond milk + 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and let sit for 5 minutes)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
1/3 cup Nutella

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and either grease a muffin tin or line with paper liners.

Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and sugar in a bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together canola oil, egg, buttermilk and vanilla.

Gradually add wet ingredients to the flour mixture and gently stir, mindful not to over mix. The batter will seem thick but once you add the strawberries it will thin a bit due to the moisture in the strawberries. Fold in the strawberries and mix until just combined.

Fill each muffin tin halfway with batter and then add a spoonful of Nutella. Cover with remaining batter. Bake for around 20 minutes, or until tops are golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Start checking them after 15 minutes. Cooking time will vary depending on your oven temperature.

Yield: 8 muffins