Cranberry Orange Muffins

These are fabulous! They passed the younger sibling test as well and that is always the big hump to get over. Makes about 12 muffins, was super quick and easy to make and really do taste delicious. 

The link to the original recipe is http://www.joyfulhealthyeats.com/cranberry-orange-muffins/#_a5y_p=1071720, I adapted it a bit. 

Ingredients

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup cranberries

1 egg

3/4 cup orange juice

1/4 cup melted butter (could use melted coconut oil)

1 1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400º.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir in cranberries.

In a small bowl, beat egg, orange juice, melted coconut oil, and grated orange zest.

Add wet mixture to dry ingredients, stir to combine until it is just moistened.

Spray muffin tin with PAM or put in paper liners and spoon mixture into tin until 3/4 full.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned.

Remove and serve! :)

WCC Assembly - Sunday, October 27

Arrived at the Tokyo Airport

I arrived safe and sound at my hotel in Busan late on Saturday evening after an incredibly long day of traveling. Never before have I done international travel so this was a very new experience. I am very grateful that airports in Canada are like airports in Tokyo and Busan and I'm even more grateful for English being spoken in the airport and on flights.

The shuttle bus trip from the Busan airport to my hotel was significantly longer then I expected it to be. Although it did provide some time for me to get to know the delegate from the Episcopal church in Hawaii who sat next to me. Jasmine, also a young person (any one under the age of 30 is classified as a "young person" at the WCC Assembly), is also attending her first Assembly and we both were experiencing many of the same feelings of anxiety, fear, nervousness and excitement. It was helpful to connect over these feelings in such a mutual way.

After checking into my hotel room, catching up over tea with my friend Nick (here also as a Canadian Anglican delegate), I unpacked a few items took a long awaited shower (why do long travel days always make you feel like "ick"!?), post on Facebook and message my mom so everyone knew I was alive and well and then I crawled into bed looking forward to a long nights sleep.

Buildings along the oceanside 

I woke up at 1:45 more confused that I've ever been before. I was fully convinced that it was 1:45pm but couldn't understand how that could be, but it couldn't be 1:45am because I felt like I had been asleep for much longer. Checking the time back home just confused me even more! It wasn't until I noticed that it was still dark out that I was relieved to realize that it was indeed 1:45am and I still had hours of sleep time left! And so I slept until 9:30am (after waking up briefly at 6am and 7am).

I spent the morning and early afternoon with Nick and a few of the people he's already met and worked with here at the Assembly. I discovered that I'm really not an adventurous food person (it probably didn't help that I had no idea what time or day it was, where I was or what meal it should be time for!), I'll figure out a way to work around that! We all sat at the beach and enjoyed conversation, the sunshine and shared moments of laughter and stories. My, I love the ocean view and smell!

Rocks and ocean waves!

Mid-afternoon I was ready for bed but determined not to sleep until bedtime... so Jasmine and I met up and did some Busan city wandering. We had lots of fun, us two nervous directionless young females in a large foreign city! The ocean became our direction point... if we could get to the water we could get to our hotel (so we told ourselves). We had three goals: find a grocery store so that fruit and a few other breakfast/snack type stuff could exist in our hotel (really, who has time to find breakfast when you have to be on a shuttle bus between 7:30 and 8:00am in order to get to your meeting?!); find dinner; and see the city without getting too lost! We managed all three... in the midst of accomplishing those goals we saw street-side insect or small ocean creature roasting; walked down market ways filled with fish, eels and more fish for purchase; encountered a massive crab and explored different stores.

Massive crab... yes, it was in a tank!

I think I can say that by the time we got back to the hotel we both felt very empowered in our ability to spend some time in the city without getting too lost or frightened and without knowing the area or the language! And now we even have breakfast food and have enjoyed a very non-Korean-traditional meal (we just wanted to eat something we knew would not be spicy or filled with fish) consisting of pizza and salad at pizza hut.... and the fact that the menu came to us in english was a very welcomed surprise at this point in the evening!

City street market

Tomorrow the Youth Pre-Assembly begins and now that it's coming on 10pm I'm looking forward to a shower and bed!

Pizza Dough Recipe

Pizza Making... Gluten Free

Aaron and Taylor choose toppings 

So, I love to bake and I love to cook. I also fully believe that our young people (in today's case my family) should be engaged in the process of this creative creating. And that can't be fully enjoyed without some level of chaos!

I also love pizza. Like seriously, if someone would give me permission to eat pizza everyday I probably would. Pepperoni and mushroom; chicken, spinach and feta; spinach, artichoke and feta; roasted garlic, chicken, pesto... the list goes on and on. Mushrooms, olives, pepperoni, chicken, spinach and lots of cheese.

So, the fact that I love to bake and cook and that I love pizza means that when the kids come over I love to make pizza with them. And there is nothing as exciting as making personal sized pizza - each making there own! (Okay, I make the dough!)

Ready for the oven

I make a gluten free pizza dough because I can. Because at one time my love for baking was disappearing as it was just not challenging enough. I knew the ingredients I mixed in the bowl would turn out - there was no uncertainty in it. The excitement is back as I keep trying out recipes with flours and ingredients that I know nothing about and stir mixtures with this slight fear that it might all flop (that wouldn't be the first time!).

Okay, now that is all out of the way - back to what is most important!

Pizza's done baking

This is the best pizza dough I've made to date, so, so good! And it was easy. It is a yeast dough (my last recipes have not been) so deciding to make it 30 minutes before dinner will not work. It will require the necessary rising time! I commend this recipe to you - currently I'm planning on baking some more and freezing it for those days when I decide it's a pizza night 30 minutes before dinner.

I made two batches which made five personal pizza's out of it.
The recipe is below but be sure to visit Nicole's website: www.glutenfreeonashoestring.com and the direct link to the recipe here.

Enjoy!!


Pizza Dough
2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour
1 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup warm water (about 100 degrees F)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (plus an extra tablespoon or two for drizzling)

1. In a medium-size bowl or the bowl of your food processor, place the flour, xanthan gum, yeast, sugar, and salt and stir to combine.
2. To the flour mixture, add the 3 tablespoons of olive oil and the water in a steady stream, either pulsing in a food processor or mixing with a spoon or fork to combine. If you are using a food processor, pulse while streaming in the water, until a ball begins to form. Otherwise, stir constantly while streaming in the water and continue stirring until the mixture begins to come together. If the dough seems super sticky, add some more flour a tablespoon at a time, and stir or pulse to combine. Press the dough into a disk.
3. Place the dough in another medium-size bowl and drizzle it with olive oil. Turn the dough to coat it with oil. This will prevent a crust from forming on the dough while it is rising. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in a warm, draft-free area to rise until doubled in volume (about 1 hour).
4. After the dough has risen, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour before rolling it out.
5. To make pizza, roll between two pieces of plastic wrap. Create a crust by rolling in the edges, brush the dough with olive oil, and blind bake it at about 400 degrees F (that is, bake it plain, before topping it) for 5 to 7 minutes, sot he crust begins to crisp. Then, top it with sauce, cheese, and whatever else you have in the fridge, and return it to the hot oven until the cheese is melted, another 5 to 7 minutes.

Enjoy your Pizza!

Energy filled Weekend

Aaron at the playground!

Taylor, Rhys and Aaron spent the weekend at my place, it was an energy and fun filled weekend! Of course that much energy and fun also means that a few moments of quiet and deep breathing are required!

I love having them over: it is so much fun to look at the world through their eyes, to sit and read them a bedtime story and to do all the many things that they find excitement and joy in.

Friday night was low key... we had dinner, cleaned up and put on a movie and enjoyed one another's company.

Saturday was a very full day! It started my absolute favorite way; the way it starts morning when the kids are here. Aaron quietly sneaks into my room and whispers to me, "can I take your laptop?" I open my eyes, tell him that he can and then he picks up my laptop and sneaks back out the door... silently closing the door behind him. And then I sleep for about another hour. Why don't I just leave my laptop on the table for him? Because there is something beautiful about the oh so respectful and generous wake-up from him!

Pizza Making!

We went a saw "Mirror, Mirror" at the theatre, ran a few errands and then headed to the park in order to get rid of some energy. We got home and I started making pizza dough at which time the kids informed me that they wanted crackers, cheese, cucumber and strawberries while watching a movie. They decided that having pizza later would mean that they would get to stay up later. So I decided to take off down to the Cathedral to attend the last Holy Table, Holy Word service for the season - a service of prayer, scripture, silence, community and Eucharist. After a day of being with two roughhousing brothers this was exactly what I needed! And the kids having time away from me was also probably what they needed!

I came home and we made some amazing pizza's! They turned out great and it was so much fun to watch them decide what to put on it and how much to put on. And then to watch them enjoy the food that they prepared themselves... I love it!

Breakfast: Green eggs, turkey bacon and toast!

Sunday we got up and I made them green eggs and turkey bacon! The best way to make green eggs (I've since discovered) is to puree spinnach and egg together and then scramble it up! They come out so very green. And the kids loved it... Aaron was rather disgusted when he learned (after the fact) that it was made with spinach. We headed to church and then came home and decorated the twenty-two eggs we had blown out over the weekend. This too was fun to watch them be creative with...

Now that everyone is home and the second to last week of school is about to begin I am looking forward to cleaning the house, resting and then tackling the way to much homework that needs to be completed. I am also looking forward to the journey through Holy Week, the journey with Jesus to the cross and then into the great light of the resurrection!

Strawberries and Cream

Ah, I've fallen in love... with fresh strawberries and cream. And when I say fresh strawberries I mean they are fresh! Sorrento Centre has a farm (www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca), and in its second season the farm is now producing strawberries and the staff tonight got to enjoy the first pick. Fresh, sweet, beautiful, amazing strawberries covered in a light coat of smooth cream. The perfect dessert for Sunday and the perfect end to an amazing weekend.

A few other amazing things took place this weekend. The first, my three youngest brothers and sisters spent the weekend with me in Sorrento. Taylor, Rhys and Aaron joined me on Friday night and left for Savona just before dinner this evening. We had a weekend of adventures,

walks, basketball, movie watching, enjoying treats, lots of time outside, fun in the sun and a whole lot of laughter and conversation. I miss them. It was way to much fun to have them here and just be. There was no competition, no grumpiness, no impatience, just full on deep joy and fun. I love being with my brothers and sisters and one of the hardest thing is not being with them for so much of the summer. Although, even harder is saying goodbye after an amazing weekend visit when I know that I probably won't see them for at least a month. Thank goodness for today's technology!

Sorrento Centre was privileged to have John Bell, an internationally known songwriter, here for the weekend. He came as a gift to us to do a fundraiser for our farm/Sorrento Centre after spending a week with us last year. John Bell is amazing. And his music, equally amazing. I could go on forever about how wonderful it was to have him here and spend a few hours singing with him and a group of folks (including a lovely group from the Cathedral!).

So, my advise for you at the end of this weekend... go find some fresh strawberries and a bit of cream and enjoy the taste of summer!