Life With The Crew

Recipe for the Weekend - Blueberry Muffins with a Ginger Poppy Seed Streusel

In the past, I haven't found a blueberry muffin recipe that I really like.  They are normally just bland muffins with blueberries thrown in.  I have found the solution - jazz up the streusel!  I found a good basic muffin recipe, tweaked it a bit to reduce the white sugar, and then made an awesome streusel topping for it.  The unlikely combination - ginger powder and poppy seeds!  The ginger gives the streusel a flavor kick and the poppy seeds give it crunch.  If you have chia seeds, you could use them instead of the poppy seeds; I just happened to see the poppy seeds on the shelf first (plus they are cheaper).

 I have made them three times in the past week and a half and they were delicious each time, though the second time the streusel kind of sunk into the muffin instead of staying on top.  I think that was because I used butter, so I then used coconut oil the third time (which is what I think I did the first time also) and the streusel clumped together better.  (Clumping doesn't sound appetizing, but that is what you want streusel to do!)  

 Blueberry Muffins with a Ginger Poppy Seed Streusel

1.  For the streusel topping, combine the following:   2 tablespoons of cold or room temperature coconut oil (not melted), 1/2 cup of brown/turbinado sugar, 2 teaspoons of poppy seeds, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger.  Use a fork to combine the ingredients until crumbly (clumpy).  Set aside and try not to eat it all while you are making the muffin batter.  Children may need to be restrained.

2.  Preheat the oven to 400 F.  Arrange liners* in a muffin tin or grease with butter or oil.

3.  Combine the following in a large bowl:  1 1/2 cups of flour, 1/4 cup of white sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

4.  Add 1/3 cup of veggie oil, 1/3 cup of milk, 1/4 cup of maple syrup, and 1 beaten egg.

5.  Mix all ingredients until just combined.

6.  Fold in 1 cup of blueberries.  I used the larger highbush blueberries, not smaller Maine blueberries.  If using those, you may want to do 1 1/2 cups.

7.  Pour into muffin tin and distribute streusel topping evenly on top of each muffin.

8.  Bake for 20-25 minutes until done.  (Top is springy to the touch.)

*I normally use olive oil to grease the pans and do not use disposable liners because of the waste involved.  However, I received these silicone muffin liners as a Christmas gift and while I am wary of using plasticky things, most studies claim that silicone is safe to use with food.  I won't be decking my whole kitchen in silicone - it just feels unnatural to me - but these work well for muffins.

On The Fringe

Oh, the gods of technology are laughing at me!  I am doing my best to raise my little babe with as little exposure to the all-the-time-connected-to-technology culture as possible.  We don't have cable and rarely have the time to watch movies, so only once in a blue moon does she see the television on in our home.  We do not have any other devices other than our laptops and she doesn't play games on them or on our cell phones.  I try to save my computer time for when she is asleep.  If I don't have enough time during her naptime to get a blog post written or process pictures, I'll occasionally try to slip into the other room while she is playing or reading with my husband.  When I use the computer in front of her, I tell her that I am doing "work".  She sees my husband on the computer every day, since he has homework for school and rental business work to do.  However, neither of us just veg out in front of the computer while she is awake. 

Since the little babe wants to do everything that her Mom and Dad do, it shouldn't be that surprising then that she has created her own "puter" - that is computer in little babe speak.  Earlier this week, I noticed that she was carrying around the small travel Scrabble gameboard.  She would sit with it on her lap and move her fingers on it and rearrange the tiles.  I asked her what she was doing and she very sheepishly said "puter".  She did this with her cheesy grin and her eyes squinted shut - that is her embarrassed look.  It took me a minute or two to figure out what she was saying.  I was in parts amazed at her creativity and disappointed at myself for screwing up this parenting gig.  It is really important to me as a parent to keep technology on the fringe of her life.  I don't want laptops, cell phones, ipads, and whatever else is out there that I am happily oblivious to, to be an extension of us, always within hand's reach.  Don't get me wrong - I realize that computers have a lot of benefits - useful, practical, time saving, money saving, even educational, and just plain fun.  But I want the laptop and cell phone to be like a food processor - we use it and then we put it away.  I don't want the laptop sitting on the kitchen table all day.  I don't want to be checking for text messages every waking minute.  

I can console myself knowing that at least she tells me she is doing "work" on the "puter", not playing video games or watching rude bratty cartoons.  But does this mean that I will be buying her a real device in the near future?  NO.  It means that I am going to try even harder to remove the laptop from her daily life.  As cute as it may be, it is even cuter to see her trudging down the trail in the snow, or chasing the dogs around the yard trying to get them to play ball with her.  (Though this Momma does have to admit that she is darn proud that her little babe creatively used her brain to craft her own computer.)  I remember seeing a picture of a child's homemade ipod on A Little Crafty Nest last year - it made me laugh, but also made me worried about this world that our children are growing up in.  What lessons are we teaching them?  The need to be plugged into something, tuning out the real world around them? Connected to everything, yet somehow not connected to the things that matter?

When she is a little older, I'll teach her what that Scrabble board is really for.  I'll tell her that her father and I spent many nights in college and during our engagement playing Scrabble on a stolen board from his dorm.  (No one else was using it - they were all drunk.)  We were using our brains, actually talking to each other, laughing and arguing about potentially made-up words, and all of it done without a single battery or power cord in sight.  

Second Life Slippers

I love slippers.  I guess I am a bit of a slipper snob, because I prefer boiled wool as my slipper material of choice.  Haflingers to be specific.  They are not cheap, but I like them because they are made of undyed wool, the soles are really durable, and most importantly - they are warm.  I had an incredibly adorable pair of sheep slippers that lasted me 4 years (I am not affiliated with that website and only included it to show you how cute the slippers were).  I literally wore them every day, except for a couple of weeks in the hottest part of Summer.  I loved those slippers and was sad when I finally wore holes through the toes and the bottom detached from the felted top.  I wasn't so crafty and frugal as I am now (meaning, I thought I had extra money to spend pre-baby), so I sadly threw them into the trash can.  I then requested another pair of Haflingers for Christmas and they were great at first, but within only a couple of months, the threading ripped open and they started splitting apart.  I was really disappointed.

I didn't know what to do with them, so when the house warmed up in July, I left them under the sofa, collecting dog hair and dust bunnies.  I always knew they were there; I just didn't feel like dealing with them yet.  About three weeks ago, I finally got tired of my feet being cold and I pulled them out, vacuumed them off, and then threw them in the washer.  They sat on the brick wall next to the woodstove to dry for another couple of days.  Then I broke out the needle and thread and tried to sew them together.  No luck - I couldn't even get the needle through the thick sole once.  So back to the brick wall they went, where they sat for another two weeks while I thought about how I could fix them. 

The idea came to me while stuck in bed with the little babe - when I have lots of time for mulling about things.  Patch wool with wool!  It was a multi-step process and at first I didn't even know if it would work.  I still had some scraps of the felted wool scarf that I have used for several projects, including my little babe's leg warmers and the snowman pillow.  I had just enough to cut out a rough crescent shaped strip of wool, following the outline of the slipper.  I then sewed the inside edge onto the top part of the slipper, which is soft enough to push a regular sewing needle through.

Then it was time for the magic ingredient - Gorilla Glue.  I dampened both the bottom of the slipper and the underside of the felt.  I applied a thin strip of glue and folded over the felt.  I then needed to press it together for a while, so I developed a high tech device for smashing two glued pieces of felt together:

Need to see it up close?

It kind of reminds me of the Wicked Witch getting crushed by the house in The Wizard of Oz.  Twenty pounds of beeswax sealed that glue on pretty tight.  (If you try this at home, don't forget the wax paper, otherwise you'll have a very stuck slipper.)

I have toasty toes again and some extra color that makes me smile!

I shared this post on The Self Sufficient HomeAcre for the HomeAcre Hop.

 

 

Thankful Tuesday - 1.13.15

Today I am thankful for...

-time spent in nature with my family - both the humans and the canines.  The temperature was 15 F when we woke up on Sunday, but the wind wasn't blowing so we decided to get some fresh air.  The dogs were only out twice last week because of the severe cold temps and wind and we all needed a break.  We loaded three of the dogs into the car, gave peanut butter filled Kongs to the two left at home, and drove ten minutes to one of our favorite places.  The main trail at Shingletown Gap parallels the creek that runs down out of the mountain.  It is a beautiful hike at any time of year.  Huge evergreen rhododendron shrubs thrive along the creek and their thick woody branches and large waxy leaves fill the space along the trail, almost creating a tunnel at points.  In early Summer, they blossom with huge magenta flowerheads and we always try to time a hike at their peak bloom, but are normally too early and then get busy and return too late.  In cold Winter times like this, they retain their leaves, but the leaves turn vertical to the ground and curl inward on themselves.  They loose their waxy sheen and become a darker color.  Turkey tail mushrooms provide some of the only color in the forest at this time of year.

We don't really hike here, but slowly walk along, allowing Birkie to run on top of the rock wall.  Each of these three dogs will get in the water, but Birkie is the water dog of the group.  Luckily even she seemed to realize how cold it was on Sunday and didn't attempt to run in.  At points the trail is wide and flat, allowing all of us to walk together, and then it becomes narrow and rocky, forcing us to slow down and pick our way over the large rocks.  Two of the Corgis are like little mountain goats, but Lola has a thicker body shape and she gamely pulls her hefty body over and through the rocks.

While processing my pictures, I realized that some people reading my blog may not have ever seen ice in person, except in its man made form coming out of the freezer.  What a strange concept!  So I am also thankful for the four unique seasons that we have here in Pennsylvania.  Each season is beautiful in its own way and has its own tiny wonders.

What are you thankful for today?

I invite other bloggers to leave a link to their Thankful Tuesday post in the comment section below and I encourage everyone to share what they are thankful for.

I shared this post on Living A Good North Coast Life for Reconnecting With Nature.

 

The Details

A coat of freshly fallen snow hides the busy-ness of the landscape - both manmade and natural.  It provides a clean crisp backdrop and makes it easier to admire the tiny details that might normally go unnoticed.

 

 

Happy Weekend!   

It's The Doing That Matters

The favorite book of the moment in our home is Jan Brett's Home for Christmas.  It is a fun read with amazing illustrations.  One of the best lines in the book is, "Oh, I wish I had some of Little Sister's sweet noseprint cookies".  It makes me laugh every time I read it.  In case you don't know what a sweet noseprint cookie looks like, imagine a jam filled linzer cookie with the hole in the top cookie being made by a long pointed troll nose instead of a cute little heart shaped cookie cutter.  I told the little babe that we could make sweet noseprint cookies (I like using the whole phrase - I think the "sweet" part is what makes it so funny) and she reminded me about it several times throughout the day.  I have always wanted to make jam filled linzer cookies, but have never gotten around to doing it.  Their multi step process is normally too time consuming for me.  I want to be able to mix up a cookie, slap it on the pan, and have it ready to eat as soon as I pull it out of the oven.  

I mixed up the dough before dinner and told the little babe we'd make them after she ate.  She barely ate anything and declared herself "done".  I rolled out the dough, we cleaned our noses, and we pressed nose to dough.  No sweet noseprint hole.  Barely a nose dent.  Our rounded Krahn noses just aren't made for noseprint making.  So I broke out the round cookie cutter that I had ready as a back-up.  We rolled, cut shapes, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar (not part of the recipe, but it is the little babe's favorite part of cookie making).  The next morning the little babe sifted powdered sugar, I spread some cookies with jam, and to be honest - it was a big disappointment.  The cookies were hard with not a lot of flavor and when you took a bite, the jam squeezed out from the sides.  Plus, they only look pretty when you first make them, because you can't stack them without smearing the powdered sugar on top.  So not a practical cookie and the taste doesn't even make it worthwhile.  I was disappointedly cleaning up the sticky sweet noseprint cookie mess when I realized that it wasn't the actual cookie that mattered.  It was the making of the cookie, the bringing of a story to life, the silliness of pressing your nose into cookie dough, the unexpected "okay" from Mom to lick the powdered sugar, and the eating of homemade jam on a spoon straight out of the jar - that is what matters.  The memories created during the process, the doing of something together, is what is important.

And who knows - those sweet noseprint cookies just might attract a troll tonight.  I don't believe in perpetuating the myth of an old fat stranger coming into our house in the middle of the night, but a naughty little troll with messy hair living outside in the woods?  I'm okay with that.  He just has to find and eat the cookie before the dogs do, otherwise we'll have an early morning dogfight to break up.

My Maine Momento

I had a little Momma crafting time recently.  I wanted to make something with the snail shells and beach stones that we collected in Maine.  I thought about an ornament or a mobile, but I couldn't figure out a way to attach wire to the beach finds.  So I went digging in the garage to see what I could find.  Sometimes it pays to have a husband who is a packrat!  I found this awesome slate shingle that my husband had saved from a house remodel several years ago.  I didn't even know that he had them (I don't spend much time in the garage - it is the only place that is "his" and it drives me nuts.)  It happened to be just the perfect size and shape.

I attached the shells and stones using very environmentally non-friendly Gorilla Glue.  The irony of taking pieces of natural art, created by Mother Nature, and then glueing them to another natural object does not escape me.  However, the end result is better than buying a generic art print from a box store, so I did it.  It is a handmade way to remember our pre-holiday trip to a place that we love.

The piece of slate just happened to have two holes perfectly situated for hanging.  I asked my husband for some copper wire from his metal recycling stash, what he refers to as the little babe's college fund, and he cut me two pieces about an inch long.  I placed one piece of copper horizontally on the front of the slate, stuck a piece of green metal twice through the hole from the back, and wrapped it around the copper.  Then I pulled the wire almost taut across the back and did the same thing with the second copper piece.  I am a bit proud of myself for figuring out a way to hang it.  I hung it on the wall at the end of the shower and I love the way that the steam from the shower "wipes the slate clean" and hides the imperfections for a bit.  

Note to self - Gorilla Glue does actually expand quite a bit - just like they say on the bottle!  The first couple of stones didn't seem to be sticking and I was getting frustrated, so I went a little heavier on the glue.  I then had to spend time slicing and chipping the expanded glue foam away with an Exacto knife.  Not the most efficient use of time.

Any crafting going on in your world?  Do you have paint covered fingers, sawdust in your hair, stitch markers in your pockets, or piles of fabric lying around?

I shared this post on the The Self Sufficient HomeAcre for the HomeAcre Hop.

Beauty All Around

We woke up yesterday morning to a light covering of snow outside.  Lying in bed, I knew that something had happened overnight because I heard the snow plow - first going up the street, then going back down several minutes later.  I told the little babe that I thought it had snowed and she tentatively pulled back the window curtain, at her young age still a bit unsure of what that means.  The sky was gray and overcast with a steady stream of snow coming down.  Tiny flakes, but a lot of them.  A cold and dark snowy morning - it was just beautiful!  

After the morning cleaning and breakfast routine, I went outside with the camera leaving the little babe in with my husband.  A couple of minutes later, I heard the back door open and saw the little babe, clad in an array of bright colors, happily crunching through the snow looking for the "bah-bah" - the blue ball she doggedly tries to get Lola to play with.  After some snow fun for all - little babe and dogs - we returned inside and proceeded to spend the rest of the morning on the sofa reading by the woodstove.  The dogs lazed in the room also, nothing to bark at outside on this quiet snowy morning, and soon it was already noon.

I then thought I saw a small sunbeam shining through the window and within a couple of minutes, the entire sunroom filled with light.  The gray clouds had parted and the snow had slowed to flurries that were lazily falling from the sky.  When they fell through the sunbeams, they sparkled and shined like glitter.  A sunny afternoon snow shower - it was just beautiful!  

Beauty is all around us in contrasting situations and forms.  Raindrops and clear blue skies.  The calm muted colors of a cloudy day and the vibrant colors of summer.  Dried seed pods in the dead of winter and the tiny tips of Spring bulbs just breaking the surface of the soil.  Notice it, enjoy it!

I am joining Chrisy at Living A Good North Coast Life for her "Reconnecting With Nature" series.  As we bloggers sit around connected to our computers, it is a great way to force us to step outside and maybe notice something new in the natural world or just appreciate something that we see every day.  Read more about the Reconnect with Nature - one photograph at a time idea here.

 

Thankful Tuesday - 1.6.14

Today I am thankful for...

-the luxury of being able to stay at home with my little babe.

-the winter sun that decided to make an appearance after several days of gray dampness.

-the simple signs that a toddler has been busy at play.  She takes very good care of everyone in her care.  (This is Hippity-Hoppity, aka Bunny Rabbit, all tucked into bed with some reading material.)

-a helpful and patient husband who guided me through my first canning attempt (it worked!) 

-the time to make good food from scratch.

-the luxury to eat a piece of homemade pie in peaceful quiet, the only noises being the sound of the woodstove fan spinning, the wind blowing through the trees outside, and the snoring of the dogs.

What are you thankful for today?

I welcome other bloggers to leave a link to their Thankful Tuesday post in the comment section below and I encourage everyone to share what they are thankful for.

 

Recharging for a New Year

On New Year's Day, my husband, little babe and I went for a hike.  My husband surprised us with a new trail, in state forest lands about 30 minutes from our home.  It was a cold clear day, about 25 F, but with plenty of sun.  And since we were heading up the south side of the mountain, I warmed up quickly, especially with the extra 25 pound load on my back.  My husband and I make a good team - I carry the little babe up and then he takes her for the walk down, when I am unsure about my footing.  At the beginning of the trail there was a spring that had been dammed to create a little pond.  It was only about 3 feet at its deepest end and was half covered with ice.  Because it was so shallow and clear, we could see the small fish darting beneath the ice.  

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The parking lot was empty and we had the forest to ourselves.  Guess everyone was still recovering from the night before.  Who else wants to hike up a mountain at 10:30 am on New Year's Day except for two married parents who were in bed at 10:30 pm the night before?  

It was a short steep climb to the top of the mountain.  We let the little babe stretch her legs a bit.  She was wowed by the big rocks that she had to walk on and even though she likes doing her "dare devils" with her Dad, she still wanted to hold onto Momma's hand.  It's tough for two thick mittened hands to grasp, but I was happy to try.  Next year she might be scrambling about all by herself.  We headed home, passing Amish farms along the way.  I loved seeing the corn shocks in the fields.  If you look closely at the first picture below, you'll see just the tops of large white plastic covered round haybales in the background.  I thought it was such an interesting example of the contrast between modern farming and the traditional smaller scale farming that the Amish continue to use.  I recently learned that those round hay bales can weigh up to 1200 pounds and so have to be created and handled by a machine, taking away the human effort required to make hay, except for one farmer sitting in his tractor.  (Reading Home Grown for the unschooling info and I learned about hay bales!)  The Amish way of farming requires the help, cooperation, and hard work of many hands of family and friends.  That is a topic for a whole other post - let's just enjoy the views for now!