Favorite Muffins

For all you muffin lovers, here is my favorite recipe--

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Either spray with PAM or insert muffin papers into a 12-muffin regular sized baking tin.

In a smaller bowl, mash 2 ripe bananas, add 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon hot water, mix together and set aside.

In a large bowl, wire whip together 1/2 cup canola oil and 3/4 cup granulated sugar. Add one egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla, and whip those in well.

Add 3/4 cup regular flour (I use unbleached white) and 3/4 cup whole wheat flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir with a spoon until just blended. Add the banana mixture now. Next add in 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips and 1/2 cup craisins, and blend just until moistened. (You can vary the chocolate chips, to milk or white, and substitute raisins if that is your favorite)

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin (at this point you can sprinkle the tops with a sugar/cinnamon mix) and bake at 425 degrees for about 22 minutes. Check for doneness before you remove from oven.

Leave the muffins in the pan for about a minute more when you remove the pan from the oven, then remove the muffins onto a wire rack to cool. These are good keepers--I store them in plastic containers or ziploc bags in the freezer, then thaw individually for 10-20 seconds in the microwave. Hope you enjoy as much as I do!

My own Pella

Springtime means tulips, daffodils, lilacs, birds nesting, bees buzzing, you get the idea. We planted some tulips last fall, and much to my surprise (I know, I shouldn't be surprised about this) they are up and flowering, and looking quite pretty and fresh this spring. So every day when we go in and out our front door we see them, standing proudly, with their pretty pink blooms. We visited Pella's annual Tulip Festival a few years ago, and were wowed by a huge display of tulips ALL over the city, masses of bright colors, like a petal tapestry woven through the streets and parks. So to have just a little taste of it back home is a thrill to me.

Spring gardening

Some people call them noxious weeds and pull them up. Me, I call them beautiful purple woods violets--haha, bet you thought I was going to refer to those yellow dandelions, didn't you? Well, I have learned to like them too, even though I pull them out of the flowerbeds. We have goldfinches all over the woods here, and when we drive up our driveway, flocks of golden dandelions rise in flight from the patches on the ground--apparently dandelions are a goldfinch favorite. So a little springtime gift-a picture of our violets blooming their little heads off in our rose garden--please enjoy!

Spring jewelry

Been making some jewelry for fund raiser silent auctions--got to try my hand with magnetic clasps for the bracelets, and have decided that those are extremely nifty to work with and so easy to fasten. People with arthritic hands or anyone having difficulties fastening any kind of bracelet really should use the magnetic clasps. I am not sure about how they would work on necklaces, but they certainly do work well on bracelets. I apologize for the blurry earrings picture, but you can sort of get the idea.

Book pages

Haven't had much time lately to read, BUT I just discovered the cutest, most huggable--can books really be that?--book in the library--"Fleece Dog", by SINCO (Nobuko Nagakubo). If you feel driven to start collecting your dog's fur to do something constructive with it, this is THE book to start with. It gives you the finer points, such as how to wash and comb it to prep it to card it to spin it to dye it etc. Now, we have our Molly dog, who basically spawns Molly-puppies ALL the time, even in the winter, and lucky for me, we have a Hoover Wind Tunnel sweeper, which sucks those puppies up really well. But every time I empty the holding container, it is absolutely FULL of fur! And I keep thinking, I have GOT to do something with it all. Well, this book is the answer, actually teaching how to make little darling huggable (can't say that enough for those pictures) stuffed puppies. If you don't have a pup, you can always resort to fleece, and the directions for that adaption are also included. Please, go out and find this book at your local library and HUG HUG HUG!!!

Elderberry travels

We did it again--took another Elderberry bus trip, this time to Branson! In three days time we saw 4 shows, took in the sights of the lake country, including School of the Ozarks, skipped over to Joplin, then on home! Whew! It's been a real hoot again as usual. Every one of us seniors travels well together, laughs a lot, helps each other through the rough spots, and learns from our travel experiences.

We started off by a lunch stop at Lambert's, and if you have never been there, it is quite the experience--it is the "home of throwed rolls" and they do--throw those rolls at you! A rustic atmosphere and great food made for a great start. Then on to Branson we "rolled". We took in Pierce Arrow Show, then checked into the Grand Country Inn, where we visited their buffet, and all were suitably impressed. Seniors love buffets, and that has got to be one of the best in the area. Then on to the Grand Country evening show, for lots of laughs, great music and good entertainment. Morning took us back to the buffet, where once more we were stuffed and happy, then out and about, exploring Engler Block, where I have to tell you, is the neatest bead shop. Of course as a beader, I am always on the lookout for beads, and this time was great, because even the none-beaders enjoyed it. Lots of good bargains had by all, then on to probably the healthiest lunch we had in 3 days, at the Divas Show, great music and laughs again by three of the most awesome women entertainers! If you have a chance, take it in, it is worth every minute--it's tucked into the Magic Show building, if you can't find it. We bussed on over to the hotel for a whole 15 minutes of down time (some of us were lucky to take in a power nap), and then bussed over to the Dixie Stampede, where our Pastor, Randy, impressed the whole audience in the arena with his horseshoe throwing skills, only this time he had to throw potty seats--but he got a ringer, AND a medal, and our side, the Blue, won!!! Yippee!

Found an ice cream shop open so of course had to celebrate with dairy! We left Branson next day, for School of the Ozarks, and toured the campus, including the chapel, Point Lookout, where you can see for miles and miles, the fruitcake factory, and yes, we got samples, and bought goodies to take home, and the Museum, where we found Jed Clampett's famous truck, parked and ready for a ride, and the best looking hotel room for a typical pioneer family. We left there and headed on to Joplin, a little side trip, where we took in Richardson's Candy Factory (ohmygosh, have you ever had a chocolate covered potato chip? And did you even know they existed?) and the Mineral Museum. I fell in love with a giant crystal rock, but it was too big to fit into the bus, so sadly had to leave it there for everyone else to enjoy. Home late in the evening, but it was a great trip!

One other thing, Branson, MO, for those of you who don't know much about geography, sits in the middle of lake country, and Tablerock Lake is the first lake in the White River reservoir, then comes Lake Taneycomo, then Bull Shoals, way down in Arkansas. There has been a lot of rain down south for a few weeks, so all the lakes are pretty well filled up to the rims, and above flood stage in some areas. We had the opportunity to drive over to the spillway area of Tablerock and see for ourselves an historic sight--all the floodgates, all 10 of them, were open and water was pouring out! It was an awesome spectacle, and the first time since the dam was built that such a thing happened. You can well feel sorry for all the people below this dam, because a lot of flooding has been happening.

Book pages

If you read mysteries for escape, like I do, you probably watch CSI or Law and Order, or SVU. A newer series written by two authors is one I highly recommend for this kind of action, and it centers around "The Body Farm", a part of the University of Tennessee. Jefferson Bass is the authors' combined name, and the latest, "Devil's Bones" as usual takes you through the backroads and byways of rural Appalachia, while you learn more than you sometimes want to know about body decomposition and its importance in criminal pathology.

Then take a trip up north, to Alaska, to Sue Henry's newest, "Degrees of Separation", and experience vicariously an Alaskan earthquake, feel the snows coming on the wind, and hear the sled dogs barking excitedly as they get ready for another Iditarad race. A biker gang murder, the closeness of a community which feels almost pioneer, and the taste of dog racing all combine to give excitement to quiet backwoods Alaska. This rates up there as "one I couldn't put down and had to read to the finish line".