{Michigan} Chocolate CHERRY Muffins

photos by Naomi

Mom recently went to the library and checked out half a shelf of cookbooks. 

Ooooolala! 

One of my favorite pastimes is thumbing through photo-filled cookbooks dreaming of new recipe ideas.

So, it was a great pleasure to lounge around at Dad and Mom's for several hours last week looking through recipe after recipe in Mom's library books.

My favorite cookbook of the week was called Cherry Home Companion (ha- cleaver pun), and was full of recipes that highlight Michigan's abundant cherry crop (over 70% of the nation's tart cherry crop is grown in our very own Mitten!).

I think it's honest to say that our family really enjoys cherries, especially tart ones. We even have our own family cherry pie game... boys against girls for who can find the most pits when we have cherry pie (and, yes, we do try to pit the cherries before we make the pies! Some years the game is more numeric than others).

Anyway- I jotted down a couple of recipes from the cherry cookbook, and tried the Oatmeal Cherry Muffin recipe Saturday afternoon. The chocolate and almonds were my addition, but this is pretty much the original recipe. Oooolalayum.

I hope you enjoy these muffins as much as I enjoyed mine! (I ate my jumbo muffin on the drive to the airport in the rental car Sunday morning.)

Michigan Cherry Chocolate Oatmeal Muffins

1 cup oats

1 cup flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 egg

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup frozen tart cherries, coarsely chopped

optional and yummy:

almonds (I used slivered)

chocolate (I used dark)

Put oats, flour, brown sugar, and baking powder in a large mixing bowl; mix well.

Combine buttermilk, egg, oil and almond extract in a small bowl. 

Pour buttermilk mixture into oat mixture; stir just to moisten ingredients. 

Quickly stir in cherries. (It is not necessary to thaw cherries before chopping and adding to batter), and optional ingredients if desired.

Spray muffin pan with non-stick spray. Fill muffin cups. Bake at 400F for 15 to 20 minutes or until done. 

Makes twelve regular muffins. (I doubled the recipe for 9 jumbo muffins.)

from Cherry Home Companion cookbook by Patty LaNoue Stearns

Birthday Trip

Our visit to Gettysburg was like a birthday trip from our childhood... 

except we were missing the rest of the family! 

It just so happened that we visited Gettysburg the day after Naomi's birthday, 

making our day feel even more legit as far as birthday trips are concerned.

picnic in the car :)
another birthday trip classic

note the cannon ball hole in the barn wall!

Thanks to Naomi for this collection of pictures from our Gettysburg visit.

10 reasons I love being home

1. eating dinner at Dad and Mom's
2. driving on flat roads
3. sleeping in my own house
4. waking up in the same room as Amy
5. shopping at Kroger and Jack's
6. soaking in Amy's decorating style
7. drinking tea with Amy
8. sitting in my purple chair
9. making kitchen creations with Libby and Naomi
10. feeling loved.

ps- I can't wait to be home for some family time over Easter holiday for the first time four years!

Finally

the top of the stone building on Little Round Top

Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.
1 Peter 3:8-9

together

photo by Naomi

The boys changed the oil in Joel's vehicles on Saturday...

er... at least they all went to the auto parts store together to purchase the oil!

Visit to Gettysburg

General Lee and his horse Traveller

Since Gettysburg is less than an hour drive from where I live in Pennsylvania, it has been on my "list of places to visit" out here in the East.

It was such a treat to spend last Wednesday visiting Gettsyburg with my four youngest siblings. We had PERFECT weather (over 70F!) for our car-picnic and the driving portion of our visit. We all also enjoyed the museum, film, and cyclorama.

Last time I visited the battlefields at Gettsyburg was over 20 years ago, so it was good (albeit very sad!) to have a history refresher on the events at Gettysburg :)

Joel and Judith lent us their van for the day

looking out from Little Round Top

it wasn't too difficult to imagine soldiers hiding in rocky areas

view of Devil's Den (left) from Little Round Top
I didn't realize how far guns and cannons could shoot during the time of the Civil War until reading information at Gettysburg.

what a bunch of active tourists... ha.
(looking down at Brian, Libby, and Logan when Naomi and I climbed up the memorial on Little Round Top)

looking toward tree-covered Big Round Top

we climbed up a TALL lookout tower

...and I decided we should try a selfie.
Well, it's a nice shot of almost all of us ;)

Naomi's self-timer shot is much better.

The sun was setting as we left the battlefields.

tea

I drank a little pot of tea yesterday while Amy and I chatted on the phone.

tickled pink-er

Imagine my delight to learn that my three college sibs would be stopping by for a visit Monday while enjoying their spring breaks (all three schools share the same spring break week!). Sunday night, Naomi decided to catch a ride with them too.

Weeeeeee! 

[year-to-date highlight. I'm not kidding.]

As a bonus, we got to celebrate Naomi's 18th birthday together. I haven't been home for any birthdays for a long time.

This morning I pulled a cake out of the oven before I rushed out the door for the office, and tonight after work we stopped at Giant to pick up some Turkey Hill ice cream (Turkey Hill is a Pennsylvania "thing").

we have a very limited supply of candles... so this is 17+1   :)

EIGHTEEN!!!

The only thing that would have made the evening better would have been to all be together.

Faraway Places

pictures in my bedroom

Amelia Bedilia Bread

I borrowed the recipe's photo-- my bread looked just like the picture

One of my most recent kitchen experiments was this Maple Date Bread. I highly recommend the recipe, and wished I could have shared with mom, because I know she enjoys a date-filled treat every once in a while.