Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

Suddenly it became autumnal. It was 90 and we were going to the pool and then suddenly the weather cooled. I guess it's the hurricanes in the southeast but it has been lovely weather for the last few weeks...rainy and cool. So I felt it was time for pumpkin muffins.

I love pumpkin in baked goods. It makes the product moist and adds so much nutrition. This recipe I adapted from a popular vegan cookbook author. I'm not crazy about her essays in the book so I can't really recommend it. So I give you my adaptation.

Pumpkin Muffins

1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1 cup pumpkin puree (I used canned)

1/2 cup milk or almond milk

1/2 vegetable oil

2 Tablespoons molasses

1 cup coarsely chopped cranberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tins for 18 muffins.

Sift dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients in another bowl. Pour wet in dry and mix just until dry ingredients are incorporated.

Fill cups 2/3rds full and bake for 20 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Walgreen's Gift Card Giveaway!

I'm new to the whole Walgreen's/CVS coupon game but I'm finding it fascinating. Basically there are several blogs out there where women share how they are being good stewards of their money by strategically planning their shopping around sales, coupons and rebates. One of those blogs The Coupon Game is offering a free Walgreen's gift card. Check it out and learn more about how to play the game yourself.

If you are new to this whole thing then I strongly urge you check out Money Saving Mom for some great information on how to do it yourself. Use the "Start Here" links on the right side of her blog.

July 22, 2008 Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

Welcome to my very first time hosting the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival!!! I'm very excited to be able to present this as I think this is a fantastic carnival. I always find some wonderful pieces of information and posts. I think this edition is full of great posts as well and I hope you take some time to read through them all.

There are several posts this month on Nature Study. Leila of Freedom Academy has a great idea for displaying flowers found on nature walks. Tammy of Adventures on Beck's Bounty posts on their fascinating nature finds. Barb-Harmony Art Mom of Handbook of Nature Study updates us on her family's year long oak tree study. She has this to say about it:

Charlotte Mason suggests following a tree throughout the year to see
the changes. This is just about the end of our first year long tree study and I
hope it will inspire others to follow her direction.

Makita at Twinkling Stars Family Homeschool shares on the importance of support & comraderie, which is so important to us all.

School For Us shares two really fun handicrafts that feature origami and beading that are beautiful as well as providing opportunities for learning.

Kim at Graceful Girlhood, one of my very favorite blogs, has posted The Young Ladies Library. She describes it as "A Library of Resources for Use in Educating Young Ladies in the School and Home." You mothers of daughters won't want to miss this one.

Also in the category of homeschooling resources, Shez at Homeschooled Twins has found some fantastic resources for poetry and Growing Fruit...Part 2 has a post on living books and some recommendations for a great book to help teach grammar.

Princess Momma has a really helpful post, A Subject by Subject Approach to Charlotte Mason. She has this to say about her post:

This article is based on my notes taken at an all day CM workshop.
Having a simple outline of what was expected for each subject sure made it
easier to figure out what needed to be done without feeling
overwhelmed.

Mother Hen at Ship Full O'Pirates has posted on a topic that has been on my mind a lot recently. She has titled it Habit Reformation. There are some really practical hints in this one.

And speaking of practical, Naturegirl at Kids and Nature has a really fun way to get in some math practice. Your kids may never even know it's math : )

Whew! That's it!! I hope you all enjoy reading them as much as I have. If you'd like to be a part of the fun next time submit your blog article to the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

When Mother Lets Us Cook

Homeschoolfreebieoftheday.com is becoming the site I check every morning. They have managed to find so many wondeful freebies. I signed up for their newsletter that gives you a heads up at the beginning of the week as to what they will be offering during the week. That way you can mark your calendar for that one that you MUST have!

Today's offering is right up my alley. A cookbook for children from 1916. Here is an excerpt from the preface:

Recipes include everything from lemonade to applesauce to fudge to omelets. You'll find it here. Hurry up because it's only for today!

P.S. The wonderful Kara has informed me that this is available on googlebooks so you can still get it! Thank you Kara!

P.P.S Kara has gone one step further and recorded it as an audiobook. Have a listen at Librivox!

One Gray Mouse

From Lookybook:

The world of a little mouse is a grand and spectacular place when it is created by author Eugenie Fernandes and illustrated by her daughter Kim Fernandes. Together, this family team has brought us three fabulously vivid and charming stories—each revolving around a single mouse.

The signature of this trio of books is their three-dimensional illustrations. Each is hand-sculpted using Fimo clay—the kind often used for kid’s craft projects requiring baking to harden. Kim portrays each scene with painstaking attention to the tiniest detail and texture—like a sheep’s curly wool coat, or the golden straw piled on a barn’s wooden floor. Given the size of the mouse, many elements are grand in scale—like the bed-sized sneaker that the mouse inhabits in The Sleepy Little Mouse or her teapot house in Busy Little Mouse.

Kim has an expert fondness for plants, flowers and other garden foliage and is anything but shy about expressing nature’s rich palette—like the exploding garden in Big Week for Little Mouse. What’s so impressive is the movement that she creates with what you would think is a stiff medium. As the dog leaps into the pig’s pen, mud goes everywhere. Or the hummingbird that hovers above as the mouse navigates the turbulent sea on the back of a seahorse. And it is the adorable expressions on each of the animal’s faces that will ultimately captivate a child, (and a parent), and draw them deeper into this wonderfully believable mouseland. It will also leave you wondering a bit, “how did she make these tiny worlds with her not so tiny hands?”

Free Audio for Independence Day

One of my favorite websites, Learn Out Loud, is providing a lot of really great audio for free for the holiday tomorrow. I have previewed some of it and it's pretty good stuff. Check it out!

Free Resources & Podcasts for July 4th:
Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" Speech
The United States Declaration of Independence
The Articles of Confederation
The Constitution of the United States
United States Bill of Rights
First Inaugural Address of President George Washington
The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
History of the United States, Volume 2: Conflict and Independence by Charles Austin Beard
David McCullough's Biography of a Year: 1776
U.S. Presidents Podcast
Great Speeches in History Podcast

Red Velvet Cake

Sorry - this is the best photo I have of this cake!

Tomorrow is my birthday which means that right now I'm engaged in my normal birthday eve ritual. I'm making Red Velvet Cake. My mother made it for me every year as a child and now I make it for myself. I'm teaching my children to make it so they can make it one day for me (she thought dreamily).

Red Velvet Cake was supposedly called that because the cocoa in it made it look red. Today it comes about because of a bottle of red food coloring. I'm normally very picky about artificial colors in my food but I've tried other methods and I have yet to find something that tastes as good as my mother's. So I tell myself it's only once a year and indulge.

Now, I can't give you my mother's recipe. It's a secret. But I can tell you there is a recipe that looks really good here. You can also cheat like I do sometimes and buy a boxed Red Velvet Cake mix (Duncan Hines) and make the frosting youself. It will tastes pretty close. But you must absolutely chill it before you eat it. It isn't nearly as good at room temperature. That's why I make it on birthday eve.

I hope you'll try Red Velvet Cake yourself and let me know if you like it. A large glass of milk (another thing I don't drink often) is required. I think you'll thank me.

Summer Food

I'm doing a lot of cooking on the grill this year. We are trying to keep our thermostat set higher and I really don't like to heat up the kitchen with the stove. So I'm always looking for good ideas for grilled food.

I also happen to have a really wonderful 1968 Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. My mother thought I was going to sell it on eBay for her...but I'm having trouble parting with it. Thumbing through it today I found this:

There are some great ideas for camping food on here too. Nothing like donut holes in the great outdoors. Enjoy!

Mothers and Daughters At Home

I committed to joining Mothers and Daughters At Home hosted by Graceful Girlhood. Last month my daughter and I did something together but I didn't get my act together enough to post about it! So this month I want to fulfill that commitment.

Yesterday my husband set off with my son to his hometown. Perfect timing since this was the day of the Mothers and Daughters challenge! My daughter had a couple of projects in mind so instead of the proposed theme for this month, we did our own thing.

My daughter is 10 now and really interested in making some money. She had originally wanted to start a cupcake business but Mom and Dad deciding to change our eating habits made our home a bad environment to start mixing up cupcakes and frosting! But luckily she found another idea in this month's American Girl Magazine. Dog Treat Muffins!

The recipe was simple enough for my daughter to prepare on her own with just a little bit of help from me. She baked them in cupcake papers and then gave them to a few neighborhood dogs (we don't have any as the males in our family are allergic) for her test market. Then we went to the craft store and purchased some bags to sell them in. She's hoping in the future to expand her line to other dog treats and some cat treats too and sell them at our local farmer's market.

It wasn't a big or elaborate event, but just spending time talking to her about her dreams and helping make them a reality was priceless. Since I am her teacher as well as her mother it's nice to have an opportunity to just hang out with her doing something she likes instead of pulling her along to do what needs to be done.

So I recommend that you check Graceful Girlhood for other ideas and take some time to just be with your daughter this week.

Free Pilgrim's Progress Audio!

Christianaudio.com offers one of the books in their stock free every month. They have some interesting books. I just previewed this selection and the narration is excellent. And it is unabridged. But it's only good for ONE month. So hurry over to get it and then sign up for their mailing list so you will know firsthand what's up next month.