In His Grip

Muffins in a Orange

Our family is always on the look out for recipes that are fun to make and good to eat when we go on our camping adventures.  Several years ago we found the Grilled Peanut Butter Banana Boats.  These are a great change from your typical Smores that is a camping staple.  This time we were ready to try something that we could do for breakfast and Lindsey found this bake your muffins in an orange rind.  These are very easy and worked out way better than I anticipated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First you want to remove the oranges from the rind.  Which actually gives you plenty of oranges to eat or to make your fresh squeezed orange juice.  

We chose a muffin mix that only requires adding water to cut down on added ingredients, but if you are hard core and want to mix up some homemade batter, more power to you.  But I really like camping to be fun and try to bring things along that are easy so that I can enjoy our camping adventure with everyone else.  So adding water to a mix is what I do.  These Betty Crocker mixes are great and come in several different flavors.

Fill your orange rinds about 3/4 of the way full.

Then you want to cover the orange halves with foil wrapping them tightly and keeping the foil flat over the top, poking holes in the top of the foil.  This will help know when your muffins are done.

Then place your foil wrapped muffins on hot coals or fire.  We have a small barbecue that we use while camping for cooking and it worked great.

You will know when your muffins are done when the batter starts to come up through the holes and starts to turn golden brown.

These were very fun and everyone on our trip loved them.  Not only do you get a great muffin but they have a little orange flavor added to them making for a perfect camping breakfast muffin.

One tip that I will do next time, is to spray your foil with cooking spray to keep the top from sticking to the foil.  Other than that, they turned our super and will be added to our camping adventures recipes.

Fascination With Glamping

All my life I have loved camping.  Camping was the only vacations that we knew as kids.  We camped for weeks at a time, yes, and it was in tents.  None of that RV camping for us.  If fact, one of our favorite camping spots was in Joshua Tree National Park.  Joshua Tree National Park is located in Southern California and is in the middle of the Mojave Desert.  I have many memories of riding in the back of our dune buggy with my sisters as our family explored the desert.  But this craze of “glamping” seems to be a bit more upscale that what I remember as a young girl.  How fun would it be to hike into the woods and come upon your campsite fully set up like this one.  You are in a tent but still have the modern conveniences of electricity, bed, and beautiful decorations.  Although, there is just something about being in a tent that is the definition of camping.  I think it would be fun to camp in this little camper too.

You gotta love a vintage trailer like this one. Its my kind of camper.  Not sure how Jeff would feel about pulling this pink beauty behind his big tough SUV.  But then again this is a man that loves me and is okay with a pink front door.

Maybe I could pull my “glamping” trailer with this cute pink baby.  I have always wanted a delivery sedan and making it pink would be the perfect choice.  Okay, so enough of the dreaming. 

Our “glamping” is limited to this pop-up trailer that we own with three other families and I am not sure they would continue to allow me in their pop-up co-op if I painted our trailer pink.  I am looking forward to a “glamping” trip or two this summer.  Let the “glamping begin. 

Memorial Day

This day has always been a day that has meant the beginning of Summer, one of picnics and spending time with friends and family. This year Memorial day has taken on a whole new meaning for me. I do not need this one day to remember the sacrifice that our military has offered to be able to live in a country of freedom. Daily I remember the pain of what it takes to defend the country I am proud to call my home. The road that has been traveled since August 6, 2011, with very dear friends has helped me know the real sacrifice of not only our lost soldiers but that of their families and the men and women they served with. My heart now knows part of the pain of the loss of an American hero and I will never forget. Hearing the “Star Spangled Banner” and seeing the American flag flying with pride will never cease to bring a tear to my eye. My thanks goes out to all the American heroes and their families who gave the greatest sacrifice of all.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ~ John 15:13

Camping Weekend

Jeff and I headed out on Friday morning on our inaugural camping weekend with our new vacation home in tow.  Towing our vacation home was not our trouble, it was the canoe on top of Jeff's vehicle that kept giving us problems.  We had to stop a couple of times to make sure all was up on top safe and sound and then we would be on our way again.  We arrive at Pamona by noon and in no time had our camp set up.  Our plan was to call the kids and tell them where we were in the campground, as they were coming after they got off work, but we had no cell phone service.  I had to drive back in about 5 miles until I found service and gave them a call with our campsite location.  We had great weekend even with the pouring down rain on part of Saturday.  With our tent trailer, we were all dry inside with electricity even.  This was my first time camping with electricity, what a concept, we even had air conditioning at night.  Can this really be called camping?