Thankfulness Day 14 - Thankful for Creativity and Talents (Bonus: Muffin Recipe!)

Today I am thankful for creativity and talents. Every Thursday I make something for my hubby to take into his workplace for the following day and share with his fellow Airmen. It's rather like a "Congratulations, you made it to Friday!" This weekly food sharing serves multiple purposes; I get to use my talents to serve others, I get to keep my skills sharp through these weekly endeavors, his coworkers serve as my guinea pigs and give me feed back on what they did and didn't like which means when big events come around, I already have a list of tried and true recipes that I can be confident will go over well in a group, and I think it also helps make my hubby look good. (Wins all over the place!) Today it gave me the added bonus of offloading an oversupply of ingredients! Our generous landlords gave us a wee crate of apples, and I've been trying to add them to everything I make in order to use them up before they go bad.

They collected many crates of apples from the trees in our yard. Here our landlord picks some off the ground where the crate tipped. The landlady makes marmalade and all sorts with them (which they share with us!)

     I wanted some form of apple bread or muffins for my hubby to take in, because the guys need a finger/snack type of food with minimal pieces that could get taken into work and not return home... (So gooey pies in my nice pie dishes is a bad idea because chances are high the pie pan won't return home...) However my google recipe searches were depressing me. Most apple recipes called for applesauce from the store or instant apple cinnamon oatmeal packets. Really people? where is the authentic scratch made apple stuff? Many other recipes had poor reviews as being too dry or bland or not tasting like apple, etc etc. I repeatedly thought "no, this isn't what I want..." "Nope, not this either..." as I would rephrase my search hoping for better results. Then the flitting thought came dancing across the forefront of my mind and said, "Then go make what you want!" Why of course, how silly of me. I was looking for a recipe that fit what I wanted, but if I knew what I wanted, why not just do it myself? (Someone's become a little too dependent on Google me thinks...) 
      I haven't really invented a recipe before, but I decided the flitting thought had a good point, so I went for it. This endeavor was made doubly difficult by the fact that NONE of the ingredients are in my diet so I couldn't taste the batter as I went along to see how I was doing! Amazingly, they turned out SCRUMPTIOUS!!! (As told to me by others) My hubby loves them and they were approved by my friends as well. Score! I decided I can put my name in the title, since it was my concoction and all. ;) Here is the recipe I made today!!!

Om nom! You can also make this into a
bread loaf to save on muffin liners. 

Shiloh's Apple Breakfast Muffins 

Ingredients: 

-       ½ Cup Softened Butter

-       2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil

-       ½ Cup White Sugar

-       ½ Cup Brown Sugar

-       2 eggs

-       1 tsp Vanilla

-       ½ Cup Sour Cream

-       2 cups Flour

-       1 tsp Baking Soda

-       ½ tsp Salt

-       1 heaping tsp ground cinnamon

-       ½ Cup Oats

-       1-2 cups worth of apples (about 2 large apples) – peeled, and grated

Optional: raisins, dried fruit, and nuts. (I added walnuts to these)
Also optional: the addition of ½ tsp each: ground cloves, ground ginger, and nutmeg. (But beware, these strong spices will detract from the apple flavor)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (or 175 degrees C) and prepare a baking pan or muffin tin through greasing or lining. 
2. In a large bowl, combine all wet ingredients, save for the apples. 
3. Add all dry ingredients into the wet and stir.
4. Grate the apple directly into the bowl and fold into batter.
5. Pour into prepared muffin tins. 
6. Optional: I mixed a 1/4 cup of oats with some cinnamon and brown sugar to sprinkle on top, for appearance sake. Now they look healthy even though we both know how much sugar we put in them... 
7. Bake for 20 minutes (or until toothpick comes out clean)
8. Eat, share, and enjoy ^_^ 

As you can see, I have many more apples to figure out what to do with...  anyone have recipe suggestions?

This recipe makes 19 muffins. (At least, it did for me. I didn't account for those who get to sample the batter along the way, resulting in fewer or smaller muffins from the batch... ) I also added some Walnuts to the batter when I added the apples. I sent them through the food processor until they were very small, because that way they are hardly noticeable and add an overall walnutty flavor to the muffins versus a large nut people can easily pick out and then not notice it's missing flavor. Let me know if you made them and any adjustments/improvements you might have made! 

I am super excited for when my crazy vegetable/cancer diet ends and I can eat baked goods again... These may be the first things I make myself. This or fudge... 

This is what happens after hours when my little one has fallen asleep, leaving me model-less. 
I start posing my food. It's a problem... 

I had good fun simply diving in and adding ingredients at my whimsy. It was also a huge confidence booster to realize that I've finally done enough baking to be able to improvise and substitute things and have everything turn out edible! Further kitchen experimentation in certainly in my future. That is why I am thankful for the ability to be creative, and for the talents God has given me that allow me to have fun and give me the opportunity to use them to serve others. 

Thankfulness Day 12 - Hooray for Coupons!

Today I am going to express my gratitude for coupons. I wasn’t a “couponer” before coming to Italy, however after I was informed of a program that sent military members coupons, I decided it really couldn’t be easier, so I might as well give it a go. I signed up for the program and was matched with 5 people from the states who volunteered to find, clip, and mail coupons to me overseas. Wow! How cool are those people? Well now I carry my coupons with me to every shopping trip and I usually save around $10 a trip with them. (And we make our trip once a week). Being overseas, we are limited by the food they ship over here, but we still manage to save a lot of money with the coupons.

The coffee store on base also has a huge file system where people can go and put the coupons they don’t use and pick up one’s other people have discarded. Sometimes I will sit in the coffee shop and dig for specific coupons I am looking for. Our savings with coupons definitely dropped with my new diet. Coupons for fresh produce doesn’t seem to exist… however we still save on frozen veggies, dairy and meats that my hubby eats, as well as cleaning supplies and soaps, etc. I find that most of the coupons seem to be for the unhealthy foods. Sugar cereals, ice cream, cookie packs, sodas, etc all seem to have an abundance of coupons available. Healthier food options have fewer coupons. Regardless, we still save enough money to make it worth it, and I’m very thankful to have coupons, and to have people stateside who spend their spare time clipping and mailing off their coupons!

If you happen to be a couponer and would like to donate your spare coupons to military members, go here: http://www.couponstotroops.com/ to sign up!

Thankfulness Day 11 - Dehumidifiers!

Mold was a non-existent problem at our last place, here in Italy however, the mold is rampant everywhere. Nearly every spouse I know battles with it in their houses. Italy is a humid place, and someone told me the paint here isn’t permitted to have the chemicals it does in the states and as such it is less hostile for mold growth (but I don’t know if that’s a fact as I haven’t researched this thoroughly). When I spoke with the landlord, his solution was to paint over it. OVER it?? I shudder at the thought of how many layers of mold are underneath these layers of paint…

The mold is terrible for one’s health and we’ve tried all manner of things. We used to spray and scrub it, however many people told us not to bother with the scrubbing, as it will only make it worse the next time it comes back. We’ve sprayed vinegar on it, and that definitely worked, but it always came back within weeks. The interior of the house is not so bad, but anything with an exterior wall flares up with mold. Our son’s room is terrible with it and we felt badly putting him in there so we moved him into our room with us and hardly utilize his room. I read on the military spouse facebook page of other spouses who found stuffed animals molded through, and while it has stuck to the ceilings in our place, we wanted it taken care of.

            Today a painter came and scraped off layers and layers of old paint, and repainted the problem walls. We also purchased dehumidifiers to place in our problem rooms, as we’ve been told they are a huge help. The landlords also said we had to open the entire house for 15 minutes a day (yes, even in the freezing of winter! Every time I open the windows and feel the cold rushing in and the warmth out, I have flashbacks to my childhood and can hear my dad’s voice in the back of my head, scolding me and telling me he’s not paying to heat the whole neighborhood! haha). We must also open the windows during showers and when running the laundry.

            We also got a humidity reader that sits on the wall above the thermometer and lets us know what our humidity is at. I’m bummed we didn’t get this running/installed the day we started the dehumidifiers! We don’t know how bad it was when we first started the dehumidifiers, but when we did get it up a few days later, it said our household humidity was 78%. Eep! The recommended household humidity is between 40-50%. Our house is now consistently in the 50’s, and on occasion we’ve been able to get it as low as 38%. The mold is still present in the locations the painter didn’t get, but it hasn’t increased/spread. So I am thankful that these dehumidifiers seem to be working, and that the house is a healthier place for us to live in!

Thankfulness Day 10 - Automatic Cars

Today I am thankful for Automatic Cars. Do we have one? Yes. Do we drive it? Currently, no. The insurance is through the roof over here, so in order to save some dough, we parked it and got an Italian beater. And while it is more compact (which is good for squeezing down Italian roads!) it is a manual, and I really dislike driving manual. Perhaps it’s because this is my first manual car and it’s the car itself I don’t like… Something new breaks on it every week. From the window to the lights to the stereo to the air or heat… And the struggles to run in higher gears if you have other things, (like the heat) running at the same time. The windshield wipers seem to make the rain on the glass worse, and yes they are brand new… But no, I think it is the manual driving that gets me most. I messed up my knee playing Ultimate Frisbee while in college and pushing the clutch over longer drives becomes a quick pain. And although I’ve been driving it for months, I am ever stalling out, and in all the wrong places! Sometimes it is definitely my fault, other times, I am quite certain I did nothing to cause its untimely lapse in life. This sounds more like a complaining post, and that’s truly not my intention. I am merely attempting to depict why it is that automatic cars are worthy of a post, and for my daily stress levels and myself, I realize automatic cars are a blessing for me. I was appreciative of our little automatic car, prior to owning this manual car, however I am now very thankful someone bothered to invent automatic cars! They are much more suited for people like me. 

Thankfulness Day 9 - Thankful for Gardens

Today my hubby went out and planted our winter garden (yes, a bit late in the season, but better late than never!). We had moderate success with our summer garden which was encouraging, and since we have been on a recent health kick we have had even greater motivation to grow our own food. I am so thankful our landlords not only let us tear up their yard, but are fully supportive and allow us to use their left over tools and supplies. I am also thankful we have the ability to grow our own food! With some of the scary articles I have read concerning genetically modified foods, pesticide use, and the attempts to patent seeds (can you imagine?? The ridiculousness…) brings me to be thankful one can still grow a private garden!

Here are a couple pictures of a bit of our harvest from the past few months:

Garden Zucchini! I mix this with bellpepper into my scrambled eggs every morning.  Sometimes we steam and mash it so our LO can enjoy our harvest with us.

I enjoy cabbage from time to time, but it’s not usually my vegetable of choice. However, our homegrown cabbages were far different than the ones we procure in stores. I was skeptical after my hubby plucked them and they were all manner of sizes and misshapen appearing; compared to the perfect, round, matching globes of cabbage one finds in stores. And when my husband sliced the first cabbage head open, unlike the dry cabbage from stores, watery cabbage juice flowed from the slice and left a puddle on our cutting board.

We fried it up in some coconut oil and let me tell you, it was scrumptious! Most flavorful and delicious cabbage I have ever had! A small amount of salt added and I gobbled an entire head of it for my dinner. When my hubby asked what I would like him to plant for the winter garden, cabbages were my first request. LOTS of cabbages!

Most flavorful cabbage I have ever had! Quite delicious

Thankfulness Day 8 - Just a really great day :)

I am thankful for so many things today, that I'm really not sure which one to pick. I could be thankful for friends, because a sweet friend of mine offered to watch Adam for the evening (I didn't even ask! She jumped at the suggestion of a date night. What a blessing!) I could be thankful for breaks and date nights, because it's been months since we had one and it was great to get some one on one fun with the hubby. We did the standard dinner and a movie date night. I could also be thankful for the fact that the restaurant we chose had a great selection of vegetable side dishes! I was bracing myself for possibly going hungry as my hubby chowed down delicious Italian pasta and meats next to me, however I had a delicious assortment of roasted vegetables, as well as a small veggie soup. It was encouraging to know I can still go out to eat with my hubby and be able to stay within my diet. I am also thankful for gift certificates! We won gift certificates to the movies for our community service acts, so the movie we attended (Ender's Game) didn't cost us a thing. Hooray for inexpensive dates! Today was just one of those really good days, and I'm so thankful it came along. ^_^

Thankfulness Day 7 - Thankful for our Landlords

Today I am thankful for our landlords! They have been exceedingly kind, gracious, and hospitable from the moment we met them. Some people would have reservations about living in a duplex with their landlords above them, but really I love it! They are right there if we have any questions or needs, house related or otherwise, and when Troy can't be around (and let's be honest, in the military that often means, not much) I have no fear for my safety in a strange house in a foreign land when I can hear the bustle of feet and the clang of pans above me. I am never alone for one of them is always home. (likewise we don’t worry about our house when we leave because, they are always here!)

Last night the woman brought me an all vegetable soup (in accordance with my diet of course), all of the veggies of which they grew themselves.

They let us garden on their land and asked our son to call them nono and nona (grandma and grandpa) and they dote on him as if he were their own, knitting him socks and blankets, kidnapping him to show off to the neighbors, and watching after him when I need a break.

They involve us in their Italian lifestyle in every way they can, from teaching us their words to their way of life. The woman has offered to teach me how to cook Italian food. (How many people do you know who get personal one-on-one Italian cooking lessons, for free at one's own home!?) Upon our last lesson she taught me how she makes Minestrone, and shared with me the Italian cooking mishaps of her former American tenants. (Some didn’t sound like mishaps to me, but they laughed and shook their heads, so I made mental notes not to repeat such actions)

When it was time to harvest the wine from their vineyard they showed us how to make wine. They kill their own chickens and turkeys for meat and the woman cans their fruit and veggies as well. They are kind souls and a wealth of knowledge on subjects Italian and beyond.

We have had a few trying moments, like the time after putting the baby to bed, I decided to take a shower. While lathering my hair, I heard a strange voice. I come out of the shower and in my hall I find the landlady. She had let herself in and even though I stood there, dripping in my towel, how could I be mad with someone who had just brought down a hot Italian meal? They can be rather bold, they often stop me to converse when I'm running late for some occasion, and sometimes they forget to wear all their clothes... But I love them and it is such a pleasure to have them here and a part of our lives. I am very thankful for our landlords!

Below are pictures of the day in mid September when we harvested the grapes from the vineyard to make wine. 

They had a large truck load of grapes

 

Some hunk helped them bucket the grapes out of the truck... and you can bet I invited him to dinner that night ;)

 

and into this machine

The machine separated the grapes from the vine

 

The grapes were then pumped into a large vat

 

Sooo many grapes!

Our Little One observed the entire process with us. I hope he's taking notes!

 

Care to help squish the grapes son?

 

Successfully removed all the grapes!

And here are the Landlord's themselves! He's 82 and she is 76 and they still garden and farm daily. Lovely people!