Healthy Muffins

I saw a post at http://thecrafterscottage.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/oatmeal-yogurt-pancakes-with-blackberry-crush/#wpl-likebox about Oatmeal-Yogurt pancakes with Blackberry Crush. Yum. It made me think of my special zucchini muffin recipe. The muffins are moist, delicious, and can be very healthy.

Zucchini Muffins

If you live in my neck of the woods, you experienced a bumper crop of zucchini this past summer.  Small ones started appearing on the vines, growing at the bottom of the large yellow flowers, in June.  The big ones popped up under huge green leaves  in late July and August, and little ones are on the vines even now, in October, begging to be picked before the frost kills them.  If you don’t have a garden or don’t have a neighbor with a garden, you saw zucchini by the truckload at the market.  It was the rain that made it happen.  The August drought and 100 degree heat went somewhere else this year; there were no brown yards and no sizzled zucchini in the gardens.  The record setting rainfall made the zucchini grow long and fat and bright green.

Zucchini can be sliced and eaten raw in salads.  It can be julienne cut, steamed, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, and eaten  as a side dish.  Soups and Italian dishes profit from the addition of tender, nutritious bites of this delectable vegetable.  However, this year’s abundance means that, even after using as many zucchini as possible in your daily cooking, some of the zucchini will be left over and need to be preserved  for future enjoyment.

You  can slice or julienne and freeze some of the zucchini.  You can make zucchini bread, slice and freeze it.  Or, you can make zucchini muffins.  These you can freeze, take out of the freezer one or two at a time, and take with you as a portable snack or even a lunch.  Zucchini muffins can be as nutritious as you want to make them, or can be sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon to be the sweet addition to a meal.  Let them thaw wrapped in foil and eat the moist, nutty, cinnamony-sweet treats from your hand.  Zap them in the microwave for 30-45 seconds and enjoy them warm for breakfast. I hope the zucchini is abundant again this summer.

Here is my favorite Zucchini Muffins recipe:

INGREDIENTS

3 cups grated fresh zucchini ( or 2 c. zucchini and 1 c. grated carrots)

2/3 cup melted unsalted butter (or 1 c. veg. oil, or 1 mashed banana + ¼ c. oil)

1 1/3 cup sugar (or 1 c. brown or raw sugar + 1/3 c. fruit)

2 eggs, beaten

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 teaspoons baking soda

Pinch salt

3 cups all-purpose flour (or whole wheat flour or 2 ½ c. any flour + ½ c. wheat germ, powdered milk, oatmeal flour, etc. combo)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup walnuts (optional) (or any nuts you like)

1 cup raisins (or other dried fruit of your choice)

METHOD

1.  Preheat the oven to 350° F (175° C).  In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, eggs, and vanilla.  Mix in the grated zucchini (or combo) and then the melted butter or oil.  Sprinkle baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.  In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Add these dry ingredients to the zucchini mixture.  Fold in the walnuts and dried fruit.

2.  Coat each muffin cup in your muffin pan with vegetable oil spray.  Fill the cups up completely with the dough.  Bake on the middle rack until muffins are golden brown and the top of the muffins bounce back when you press on them, about 25-30 minutes.  Set on wire rack to cool.

Note:  This makes about 14 muffins with the muffin cups filled above the surface of the muffin cups.  The muffins may take longer to bake if you use more fruit.  I sometimes add blueberries, chopped pineapple, diced apple, or another fruit in place of the oil to make the muffins very moist.  Enjoy these treats during the fall and winter and remember your summer bounty!

Vacationing With Cats

Chloe Cat exploring our RV garage...

Dogs wag tails, shake paws, and roll over. They don’t necessarily let go of the object, but they fetch. Puppies eventually become house broken and won’t let rain, snow, sleet, or hail keep them from daily walks with their masters. Doggies give slobbery dog licks to one’s friends and bark like crazy when a stranger enters the house. Not every attribute of a dog is desirable, true enough. However, dog owners are especially lucky in one regard. Dogs, in general, love to travel. Canines stick their heads out of car windows and let their ears and tongues flap in the wind, ride like happy hobos in the beds of pick-up trucks, and smile at passersby while standing guard inside empty vehicles in parking lots.

Now, cats aren’t such good travelers. Just a trip to the vet can be a colossal undertaking. The little critter will meow piteously all the way and will shed so much fur in its anxiety that its owners end up with itchy eyes and noses. “Let’s go,” and “Hop in,” don’t work with a cat. It’s more likely a person will have to capture a kitty and imprison it in a cat carrier.

Try taking two pet cats across country on a fifth wheel RV trip. If the temperature in the RV will be below freezing or above 85⁰ F. one must let the cats ride in the truck. If the truck’s previous owners let their huge Doberman ride in the vehicle, the cats will hiss, claw, and fight each other half way to Florida. Even if the dedicated cat guardians shampoo and wash every surface with heavy-duty dog scent eliminator, there is still the movement of the truck. Spoiled cats are philosophically opposed to movement they haven’t themselves created. (Try pulling a kitty along in a little red wagon, or try picking up your darling when she is busy doing her own cat thing.)

Then there is potty time. Dog owners can count on their pets to go at rest stops. Two comfort breaks for the price of one. Cat owners have to deal with THE DREADFUL LITTER BOX. How can this be stated politely? The thing stinks! Especially inside a closed-up diesel truck. The cats won’t actually use the box while the truck is moving. Master wants it there “just in case.” Kitties do feel at home in their own litter box, however, and tend to climb in and out to comfort their tiny cat psyches.  Litter litters the truck’s carpet. Mistress develops a headache thinking about how much vacuuming and shampooing and cat scent eliminator will now be in order.

Moose Cat taking a Cat nap in the RV...

Cats do finally get used to the movement. Naturally curious cats then start to explore—into the back window, up on the dashboard, around the sides of the bucket seats, under the driver’s feet. They may even perch prettily on top of the cooler to watch the traffic. Dogs may be better travelers, but vacationing with your cats becomes worthwhile when one of them is purring on your lap, or when you look into the back seat and see two kitties curled up together, sleeping. And they enjoy living in the RV with their people, too!

Guarding the cooler--very important.

Explorer cat--well, just a short excursion.

Charity Begins at Home

Last week I visited my mother’s retirement apartment and told her that I would take her used glass jars and bottles to be recycled. She cleans them and puts them in the back of her cabinet for me.  ”Oh, I have to go through them first,” she told me. “I save certain ones for when I make soup to take to people.”

People who have worked all of their lives at jobs, with responsibilities, co-workers, and schedules, sometimes look toward retirement as a scary prospect. “What will I do all day?” “I just can’t imagine how I’ll get going without deadlines and time demands.” They are told that volunteering is a good option. Volunteer jobs are everywhere. Volunteer work makes us feel good. Volunteer work gives one a place to be, people to see, a sense of accomplishment.

I hear that advice, and I agree. I try to do some of my share of charitable giving and volunteering. However, it is my mother who has taken it to the next level. She is 89 years old and lives, independently, in a small one bedroom apartment in a retirement community.

Until three years ago, she lived in a house that she and my father called home for 45 years. For many of those years, Mom loved to baby-sit for her grandchildren, for children at her church, at Mothers’ Day Out, and for children in her neighborhood. In her eighties, she is no longer able to care for the little ones, and that makes her sad.

My mother always gave money, a little she could barely afford, to almost every charity that asked, until she found herself living on less per month than most of the people she was trying to help. Even now, she feels it her duty to give to charity; so she has pared it down to a chosen couple of organizations.  This makes her happy; so I try to help her with grocery or laundry money to help make up for her deficit in spending power; this makes me feel good.

Loath to give up her home, nervous about making new friends, and scared about living in an apartment building where she might lose some of her independence, my mother moved reluctantly. It is within her new community of retirees, though, where my mom has been able to optimize her love of giving and caring for others.

Several times a week, realizing that people eat better and enjoy it more in groups, Mom invites “the girls” to her apartment for a meal. She participates in, takes food to, and sometimes helps organize,  events which take place in the building.       When someone is ill, has had a stroke, or is just a shut-in, my mother makes it her daily responsibility to “check” on the person. Many times, one of the residents falls or has a health problem and must recuperate in a near-by nursing facility. Unable to drive herself, my mom hitches rides over to visit the invalid and takes a small gift and card. Speaking of cards–every so often, I take my mom to a Dollar Store, where she buys birthday cards and get-well cards for so many people that I envy her number of friendships.

There was a 100-year-old lady and her kitty who lived  down the hall from my mother’s apartment. The neighbor lady was sweet, but somewhat of a recluse. That didn’t stop my mom from becoming her friend and adding the lady to her “check-on” list. When her friend, at age 102, had a heart attack and had to go to the hospital, my mother took on the task of caring for her old, shedding, kitty cat with its elimination-control problem. My animal loving parent wanted to make sure that the cat was there when the lady returned, because the kitty was “her family.” So she fed and watered the cat, kept the litter box clean, got down on her arthritic knees to clean the feces-soiled carpet, and stayed to pet and talk to the kitty every day for several weeks, even after the centenarian passed away and no one came to claim the cat. Instead of caring for the feline, the nephew who managed his elderly aunt’s meager estate complained that my mother had gained access to a key for his aunt’s apartment. Finally, the understanding retirement community manager told my mother she would take the cat to her own home rather than having it sent to a pound.

Today is Sunday, and my mother  attends a community church service in her building. She has been collecting money from the small congregation to purchase a Christmas gift for her pastor and his wife. I took my mother out this past week to look for something appropriate.

No one will nominate my mother for a community service award. She won’t be written up in the newspaper for her high profile volunteer work or for significant fund-raising. There won’t be tons of people who even know how much she does and the number of lives she has touched. Her legacy will be the warm feeling in the hearts of those who know her. It will live in the actions of others who have been inspired by her to be giving of themselves.

There are so many people who give to others every day. They take care of their children, grandchildren, and parents. They rescue animals and give them loving homes for the rest of the innocent creatures’ lives. They organize activities for people in their communities, become team captains, work on charitable boards, help at their local libraries, pick up trash along roads, reduce, reuse, recycle, knit baby sweaters and booties for indigent newborns, give to food drives, help rehab houses for the poor, or make time in their lives to be a good friend. For these, and for so many other ways of giving, each person is rarely publicly recognized.

This is a heart- felt warm fuzzy, a huge thank you, for each and every one of you.

Visiting Relatives in the Recreational Vehicle

Children do not stay put any more, as you know. Most of the retired people of my acquaintance have children scattered all over the country. This year we’re finding that visiting our children with the RV in tow has the advantages of giving us the chance to leave them in peace at the end of the day when we ”retire” to our own little nest and feeling as if we can stay longer without putting our welcome at risk. We enjoyed a visit with relatives in Wisconsin while camping in our RV in October. And this winter we plan to be “at home” in our RV while we visit relatives in Texas and Arizona.

Emerald Ireland: You’re No Longer in Kansas!

Retirement. Mine was going along really well—lots of RV and air travel, working on writing projects, piddling around the house until noon before working on our rental property, tennis, walking, reading good books, caring for my mom, a little charity work. I felt virtuous and satisfied. But now—well—Ireland made me do it. I’ve committed a deadly sin!

Fields and fences of the Emerald Isle

Envy. I spent two weeks feeling envious of the lovely, large, aromatic blooms I saw in the yards, fields, cities, and countryside of Ireland.  I tried to be good, but every time I thought of my baked flower beds and deck plants at home the hoary hand of envy grabbed at my heart.

Flowers. They add beauty to the ubiquitous stone walls and fences, grow between the stones on the hillsides, and are planted in informal and formal gardens and flower boxes all over the country. Huge blossoms of every color sparkle with moisture.

Doolin, Ireland

Formal gardens at Kylemore Abby, Connemara, Ireland

  

Adare,  a small village with a huge past–a castle, three abbies, and thatch roofed houses have been preserved.

Moisture. Ah, precipitation was omnipresent on this trip, also. Flowers love water and cool weather, normal in Ireland. But this summer was rainier and cooler than normal according to the friendly, talkative Irish residents we met. No tornadoes (it wasn’t Kansas, you know) but we did experience the ends of Hurricanes Irene and Katia as they rounded the Atlantic. Winds and rains made our trip very Irish, I suspect.

 

 

 

 

Stone. Stone fences, stone walls, stone houses, stone castles—it was everywhere and beautiful. We saw the striking Cliffs of Moher in the rain.

 The Burren in County Clare was an amazing moonscape of cracked rocks on the coast of the peninsula, rather misty while we were there.

 

 

 

 

The Connemara in CountyMayo, most of which is a National Park, has mysterious mountains, appealing peat bogs, and a fairytale castle, beautiful even in the rain.

Kylemore Castle

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kilkenny, County Cork, the Ring of Kerry, and the Dingle Peninsula had so many ancient ruins, reminders of more recent history such as the Potato Famine, and unbelievable views that a little rain and cold couldn’t keep us down.

Kilkenny Castle

 Pubs. However, I don’t want anyone to think that we spent all of our time in the cold and rain. There are plenty of pubs in Ireland, and we took advantage. My travel companions took to the Guinness like butterflies to nectar, and I tapped my feet and clapped my hands to traditional Irish music as if my limbs had an automatic reflex of their own.

This pub in Kilkenny was founded in 1650.

Food. Every pub or restaurant seemed to have its own version of seafood chowder and also of vegetable soup. They were both served with homemade brown bread. I had one of those for lunch or dinner almost every day. Yum! I guess gluttony is also a sin?!  I recommend Ireland for indulging oneself in beauty, photography, history, music, food and drink, story telling, and a wickedly good time.

Sheep are sent to the islands during the summer to graze and then transported back to the mainland and herded up this coastal road in the fall.

 

10,000 Mile Journey–From Sea to Shining Sea

Back just over two weeks from our first BIG RV trip in June, we began our second trip the middle of July. Now with this vast experience (5,125 miles the second time, after the first trip of over 4,500 miles) and the shake-down of our 38 ft. RV pretty much complete, we feel qualified to give ADVICE. (Doesn’t everyone?) Seriously, people hinted or outright warned us, about some of what we learned before we left. But it seems to be the nature of people (meaning US) that experience is the best teacher.

In July it was in the high 90’s and even over 100°  east of the Rockies while we wore jeans and jackets in the mountain country and on the West Coast.         Ahhhh, the weather made the whole trip even more special.

The vast impressive majestic magnificent West:

A jacket in July!

Yellowstone National Park—too remarkable to remark upon:

Steam rising from the Caldera under the park and releasing sulfur

Bubbling Hot PotBison Grazing along the flooded Yellowstone River

Seattle and Puget Sound with friends:

Sunset view of Puget Sound from Anthony's Restaurant

The Washington, Oregon border—fun on the beach, wine tasting, the Columbia River:

Bonfire on the Beach at SunsetSand, wind, mountains, jacket & jeans--on a Pacific Northwest beach

The Oregon and California Coast on Highway 101—many, many stops to just take in the beauty of the beaches and the rocky coast:

The Redwood Forest National Park and northern California and, of course, more wine tasting.:

That's me at the bottom of the Redwood!

Across Nevada and Utah and a wonderful afternoon at Arches National Park:

2,000 arches in Arches National Park, Utah

On top of Monarch Pass in Colorado, at the Continental Divide, one can see for 150 miles.

Across the Continental Divide over Monarch Pass:

 

 

Then home to the heat—yet nice to be home. I listed a sampling and a few highlights of the magnificent scenery and great experiences we encountered on the second part of our Sea to Shining Sea RV Retirement Journey this summer. We enjoyed staying in our cozy RV, and even our two cats came to accept it as a second home during this trip. More trips  will be forthcoming. There are so many places we went where we wished that we had more time to unhook the truck from the RV and explore, but we had deadlines to make and had to journey on. That was the biggest lesson. From now on we’ll try to plan trips where we will select a destination to park for a week or so and really have time to get to know the area and  meet people. It’s amazing to me how many people  spend entire seasons or even entire years living and traveling in their RV’s.

It’s fun to make the RV experience part of our retirement journey.

RV Journey: Fortunately A Success

Two weeks have passed since our first long retirement journey in our Fifth Wheel RV (I’m talking 4,213 miles long.) That passage of time allows me to put the trek into a little perspective. Every journey has its ups and downs, ins and outs, pleasures and responsibilities. I could probably write a whole book about the experiences we had during this trip, but the following will attempt to put it into a nutshell. Perspective lets me dwell on the positive; so I’m calling it…

FORTUNATELY

Our first trip in our used 2005 Fifth Wheel was a “shake-down” overnight trip to our friends’ farm just an hour north of here. Unfortunately, when we drove over a steep hill to cruise down into their driveway, the back corner of the extended bed on the Ford F350 diesel truck that pulls the RV struck the underside of the Fifth Wheel overhang, put a hole in it, and broke the lens cover on an RV light. Also, the water heater wouldn’t work that weekend. Fortunately, we found out what was wrong with the heater, were able to buy a new lens cover, and filled the hole with Plexiglas patch the following week. Added benefits were that we realized that we can’t pull the camper over steep hills and had time to stock and clean the unit while it was in our driveway.

 Our second trip was to the Missouri wine country. We took our cats and stayed at a KOA campground near Columbia. Unfortunately, it rained much of the weekend, and the cats did not enjoy the bouncy ride. In fact, Moose, the big cat, got caught between the day and night shades and broke the string. Fortunately, we were able to cozily sit in our RV and watch a DVD on TV during the rainstorm with our kitties curled up beside us. Our “Ultimate RVer” friends told us later that those shade strings break often, and we got a kit that fixed the Moose-broken shade and will fix more in the future. Also, we learned that a two-hour trip turns into a four-hour trip when we stop every half hour to check the cats and the inside of the camper. Good to know when planning a 4,213 mile trip!

Well, now we were ready and proud to show off our new vacation home-on-wheels to friends and neighbors. Unfortunately, when our RVer friends Mark and Neida, came by for a visit on their way east, we displayed our RV Pride and Joy. Since we had a little wine before our big show-off session, we weren’t entirely careful to check everything before we pulled the slides back in. Oops! One slide caught a shelf that we forgot to retract and pulled the kitchen cabinets away from the side wall. Fortunately, my handyman husband was able to put it all back together the next day. He also got rid of the offending shelf so that we wouldn’t make that mistake again!

Then it became time for the BIG trip. Unfortunately, our Moose cat caused an hour delay in the timeline the first day when he snuck under the sink while I was cleaning up some dish soap that had spilled. We searched, afraid that he had somehow managed to escape out the door. Fortunately, we finally found him inside a door under the stove and learned that the whole underneath part of the kitchen cabinets are connected?! The second day, unfortunately, the door latch lost a screw and a drawer in the bedroom kept coming open and even flew out across the room while we were traveling. Fortunately, my husband brought his tool chest and was able to fix both fasteners, albeit temporarily, while we traveled.

Our visit in Wisconsin was very enjoyable, especially when we were there for the announcement that my son’s first child is on the way. We parked in my son’s in-laws’ driveway and used their electric and water hook-ups. We stayed in the RV each night with the cats. Unfortunately, the kitchen stove lighter stopped working, and the gas detector alarm woke us up several times and had to be repeatedly reset even though there was no evidence of a gas leak. Fortunately, I could light the stove manually, and we found the fuse and disabled the annoying and obviously malfunctioning gas alarm until we can get it fixed.

While in Green Bay we participated in a 10 K walk for charity with my son and daughter-in-law, and unfortunately my husband’s bad knee started to swell. Fortunately, the rest of the trip provided plenty of time riding in the truck so the knee could heal.

Unfortunately, construction work on the roads on which we traveled through Canada caused the RV to rattle around so much that chairs and tables, drawers and doors, dishes and books, and especially our cats became disoriented. More latches and knobs failed. Finally, our cold water tank fell upon the axle of the RV. Fortunately, the weather was gorgeous, the RV Parks were nice, the cats recovered quickly when we stayed two days near Montreal, and there was an RV service center next to our camp when we discovered the broken tank brackets. They were able to get the RV in and shore up the tank the next morning.

Unfortunately, when we got to Waterford, Maine we pulled into a campground that was full of trees and hills. We tried to get into position to back into our spot by driving over a steep hill! Again the truck broke the RV light, and the scissor stabilizer jacks on the back of the RV bent as they were dragged through the dirt. So much for the previous steep hill avoidance lesson. Fortunately, we found an RV parts store on our way out of that hill country and bought a new set of stabilizers and a new light lens.  

Also, the kitties got a respite from all that shaking as we settled at a camp nearby for three nights while we visited with friends at their summer cottage in the beautiful lake region of southwestern Maine.

Our next stop was Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor on Mt.Desert Island, Maine. It is a beautiful area, and the weather was fantastically warm, sunny, and perfect for sightseeing and hiking. Even the commercial areas that surround the park are old and quaint, and we had delicious fresh fish and seafood that my taste palate will remember forever. Unfortunately, the RV Park there was terribly expensive (East Coast, near a National Park—duh!) And it was there that my husband discovered the reason one of our slides wouldn’t slide all the way in and was clunky sliding out—the awning that covered it was, for some reason, positioned on the inside of the slide rather than on the outside. Fortunately, the RV Park was so close to everything on the island that we really had time to explore it thoroughly the next day without incurring much added gas expense. Then, at the campground, three nice fellow campers helped us try to fix the awning. Unfortunately, we ended up cutting the awning off and throwing it away. But, fortunately, we found out that we don’t really have to have the awning; it’s just there to keep leaves and acorns from collecting on the slide top. A new awning will be costly. We may just get used to sweeping the leaves off before pulling the slide in.

Unfortunately, it was on the five-day trip home across the Midwest that we found out about more of the %*blinking#& bad boo boos on the underside of the RV. After pulling the camper for a full day through pouring rain, guess what, we found a wet spot on the carpet inside when we stopped for the night.

“Hmmm,” we said, “Did water from the cats’ bowl run over to the carpet?”

Let’s see, I think that was the night that the handle on the bathroom door fell apart, too, from so much battering around. We dabbed the water with a towel and bungee corded the door closed for the trip. The next night, after another full day of rain, the carpet that was under the dining room slide was soaked. Well, not only that, but there was insulation hanging from the bottom of the RV…a loose panel below was letting rain water in and insulation out!

All of our towels were wet from trying to dry the carpet—both the carpet and the towels started stinking from sour mildew. When we finally had an evening dry enough for my husband to get under the RV to investigate, he found panels with screws missing, a bent axle that had caused the tires to wear on one side, and two broken shocks. At one RV Park, after a day of rain when we were just sure we wouldn’t find any more breakage, I found a window that had been broken out from the inside! Apparently, one of the easy chairs had been thrown against the window as the RV bounced around on the terrible I-70 corridor in Indiana (that state certainly hasn’t used its highway funds for the Interstate.)

Fortunately, I found a laundry where I washed the offending odor out of the towels, I used baking soda to alleviate some of the smell in the carpet, the broken window took on an abstract stained glass look when we taped it back together using blue plastic in place of the missing pieces, and it didn’t rain much during our last two days on the road. Very fortunately, I have a husband who doesn’t mind (much) laying on his back under an RV to replace screws in under panels so our RV could make it home and to the shop to be fixed.

One might well wonder whether we’ll be taking another long trip with the RV soon. The answer is yes. We take off in a few days (after our RV gets out of the shop) for a three-week trip to the West Coast. Fortunately, we considered the East Coast trip a warm-up and learning experience and enjoyed our trip enough to try again. Stay tuned…