Monthly Archives: July 2017

Travel Food: Pumpkin Muffins

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized by

No matter where we are going, I always bake up a big batch of pumpkin muffins before we travel. My boys love them, and they are relatively healthy and easy to pack. Well, they may get a little squished, but they still taste good! Sometimes I make mini muffins, and sometimes the regular size. The recipe makes a lot, too – about 3 dozen regular or 6 dozen minis! If there are leftovers, I freeze them.

My mom used to make these muffins with her first-graders ages and ages ago. Since I started making them, I’ve been updating the recipe. I now use wheat flour instead of all-purpose. And I’ve swapped out coconut oil for vegetable oil. I don’t care for the taste of coconut, but I never notice it interfering in the recipe!

Not only do I make these for travel and just any old time to have in the house, I also bake about three batches at the holidays to give as gifts to all my kids’ teachers and people who work at their school. I bake them in paper loaf pans, wrap them up, and tie off with a pretty ribbon. It makes a great gift!

2014-11-22 21.15.08

 

Ingredients

3  cups wheat flour (or 3 1/2 c all-purpose flour)
1 3/4  cups sugar
2  tsp baking soda
1  tsp Kosher salt
1  tsp cinnamon
1  tsp nutmeg (about 1/3 fresh clove freshly grated)
1  15-oz can pumpkin
1/2  cup water
4  eggs
3/4  cup coconut oil (or 1c vegetable oil)
1  tsp vanilla

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour pans.
2.  In a medium bowl, sift together the dry ingredients (flour through nutmeg).

3. In the bowl of your standing mixer (or in a large bowl), mix pumpkin and water on a low speed. Add in eggs one at a time. Slowly drizzle in melted coconut oil. Add vanilla.
4. Slowly blend the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. (I like to do it in three batches.)
5.  Bake in the preheated oven.

  • Loaf pan: 50-60 minutes
  • Mini loaves: 30 minutes
  • Muffins: 20-25 minutes
  • Mini muffins: 17-23 minutes

Notes

–  I like to melt the coconut oil, but then you need to be careful adding it in to the wet ingredients, so you don’t scramble your eggs!
–  You can make it in a standing mixer. I used to do it all by hand, but it’s a lot of batter and gets pretty tiring!
–  You can freeze the muffins for 3 months.
–  If making a half batch, use these measurements:
1 1/3 c wheat flour (1 1/2 c all-purpose flour), 1 c sugar, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/3 c oil, 1/4 c water, 2 eggs, 1 c pumpkin, 1/2 tsp vanilla
You can download the recipe as a PDF here: Pumpkin Muffins Recipe

Guten Appetit!

Reisetagebuch – Travel Journal

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized by

We’re gearing up for our next summer trip. This is the big one! We’re going to the Netherlands and Germany for a whole month!!

I never even completely unpacked from our trip to Oregon! Well, of course, we pulled out the packing cubes and did all the laundry! But the suitcases are still in the family room. (That’s another good things about the packing cubes: we don’t have to pack the suitcases upstairs and then lug them all the way downstairs!)

Now, when I get ready for a trip, I don’t just make packing lists of clothes and toiletries. Part of having great travelers is great preparation and having a diversity of activities to keep the boys occupied (more on that later). I also like to plan a little for while we are away.

For this trip, I wanted to create a travel journal. There are a number of components to it that I’m working on (thank you, Pinterest, for the inspiration!). But I wanted to share the most important part right away: the daily journal! I love the way it came out! I kept it black-and-white, since we’ll need about 30 copies of it (one for each day we’re away). It’s really meant for Froggy (age 7), but I think I’ll try it with Hippo (age 4), too. There is a place to record the weather (including high and low temperatures), how he felt, what we did, what we saw, the best part of the day, what he ate, and something extra.

Tagebuch 2017 GitA

I left a margin on the left, so you can punch holes and put it in a folder or binder. I can’t wait to see how it works out! I hope Froggy is as excited about it as I am 🙂 I’m curious to see how much he can do in German. And how much writing he’ll be able to do. Well, really, I’m hoping we really do it every day!! Daumen drücken!

Here is where you can download the PDF: Tagebuch 2017 GitA

Let me know how it goes for you!

Gute Reise!