This isn't the first time I've made these muffins, but I think I really perfected their look here. Nice golden tops with spinach speckled throughout. Now if only I could get any of my baked goods to stay risen! For some reason baking soda is just not working out for me.
To make these muffins I use the Louis Lang bread recipe and mix in some honey and butter baked pork and a bit of spinach. Cheddar cheese is good in this too. What I really like about this food is how convenient it is to get a decent meal when hungry. It makes a great snack for traveling or when I'm running errands.
Today I started the first semester towards my associates degree!
I was prompted to start thinking about my education (or lack there of) back in May when my job search wasn't looking so well. I'm not under-qualified, I'm just suffering from an already narrow job market being squished even more by the under performing economy. So anyway, to get unemployment I had to go to a meeting about how to make myself more employable and I stumbled across a program that's funded by the state to help people augment their experience or education with training certificates relevant to their field. This program wont get me the full associates degree, but it will get me all my under division classes for an associates and two certificates for programming, one in C++ and one in Java. Since I've already done a lot of my general education I'll only have about 2 semesters left of course work after this year to get my associates. All the under division classes (a full years worth) will be paid for by unemployment and the rest will come out of my pocket. Not a bad deal really. When I'm done with my associates degree Drew should be done with his Masters. At that point we'll have to evaluate what our five year plan is and see if a bachelors degree is in my future as well.
I'm so excited about this endeavor that I've been reading about my class topics ahead of time. So much so that after the first day of classes I've finished both assignments that are due next Monday. If I can keep 7 days ahead of the class I think this will be a low stress summer.
This weekend was my first venture out into the wilderness since I've started SCD. Far away from any kitchen, restaurant, or any other food source. It's a pretty nerve racking situation considering one wrong meal and my condition deteriorates considerably. But I love, love, love going out into the backcountry and I'm not going to let something like a restricted diet stop me from going. You can see all my pictures here and all of Shawna's pictures here.
Day 1
I left the Bay Area around 11 am on Saturday morning with Sadie and a few extra packs in my car. We were headed for Sacramento where my good friend Leslie was waiting for us. We had a bit of traffic before Davis, but other than that it was a nice drive. Leslie rode the rest of the way with me up to the Talbot campground. She was a good navigator, but that didn't stop us from chatting and reminiscing about past backpacking trips and old times. Leslie is one of the core group of friends that goes on just about every camping trip I do. She's known my husband since they were in elementary school and she's known me since we were in high school, I meet my husband through completely different connections and to this day it's fun to talk about how small the world feels sometimes.
We arrive at the campground and trailhead about 6pm and the 5 of us (we've meet up with the other girls at this point) are thinking we might be able to get an hour of hiking in before it gets dark. We load up our packs, strap them on and walk to the map near the trailhead. At this point we realize that the trail we want to take is completely in the Deer Fawning Zone where no dogs are allowed and we have three dogs with us this time! Ugh. All that planning I did for the trip goes up in smoke. So instead we decide to stay at the campgrounds for the night and investigate other local trails in the morning.
The night was good, we had a campfire and the girls had smores (not me!) Fortunately there were no melty marshmallow disasters which is a personal fear of mine. And as the moon came further up the temperature went further down, into the 40's as expected. So 5 of us girls and 2 of the dogs piled into one two person tent. That was a riot, and it was warm. Emily told some good stories, though sadly NONE of us knew any ghost stories. As it turned out we didn't need any ghost stories to keep us up that night. We had heard from our camp neighbors that a bear had visited the campground the last 3 nights and every cough, sleeping bag shuffle and gust of wind left us tense and awake. Fortunately the bear didn't come back that night.
Day 2
We woke up not so bright an early to our undisturbed bear canisters, had a late breakfast and packed up camp. Now we were off to check out the other nearby trails. So we drive back down the dirt road and find the road that leads to the new trailheads. This road goes up in elevation quite a bit; up, and up we go. Although we've been seeing a few patches of snow on the ground we are starting to see quite a bit more as we get higher. Until we get to a spot in the road that is completely covered in snow still blocking us from getting to the trailhead. Ugh, foiled again!
Well, since we're here we let the dogs play in the snow (we did a little playing too). It's always fun to see Sadie roll in the snow, then she digs in it while laying on her side, and finally eats it. She likes it so much. The other two dogs we had with us enjoyed the snow too, but they were runners. There padded paws would hit the snow and they would start dashing around.
Well, since this avenue was now closed to us we figured we would go back to where we were and check out a creek trail we heard about. So we all pile back up in the cars and we're driving back down the big hill when suddenly our lead car stops and starts honking. I really can't figure out what's going on so when we the lead car starts moving again I think it must not be anything interesting. As it turns out it was a big 'ol brown bear! They were honking to scare him off and it worked, they said he "scampered away", which I thought was a great image. A big fat bear butt scampering off into the woods.
We get to the third trailhead and are investigating. Looks promising enough so we strap on our packs (again) and get the dogs ready and start hiking. There's more snow here, but on foot it's not so bad. About 15 minutes into our hike we hit a properly line "No Trespassing" sign. Ugh (again), we just can't win this trip! Were tired of all this wandering around and we don't have enough time left in the trip to find a new trail, so we hike back about 10 minutes and make camp by the creek we passed on our way up. It was a good spot, and we didn't see anyone else. Overall it was a great spot. We pass the night similar to the evening before, but without a campfire and with a little more time to relax in the afternoon. Of course we all snuggled into one tent again, I like this tradition, lots of giggling and fun talk.
Day 3
A late morning again, more breakfast and packing up camp. We finally break camp around 11:50, take a few more pictures and then hike back to the cars. We were there by 12:10 or so, that's how close we were at our campsite. The drive back was an uneventful and quick conclusion to the trip. We all agreed that it was a bummer we didn't get a good hike in, but that it was a really fun trip due to the good company!
Quick Food Notes
For food I mostly ate parmesan crackers, peanut butter, almond butter, banana chips, canned tuna, honey, peppermint tea, beef jerky, asiago cheese. I'd also brought some dehydrated eggs but we never seemed to have enough time in the morning and I wasn't that motivated to make them. The last night I heated up some dried Zucchini to get some veggies in my diet. And on the last morning I had some bacon, which even though it's cured with sugar (I'm not supposed to eat that) it's okay to have some crispy bacon once a week. Well, this bacon kicked my butt. It tasted good, but by 2 in the afternoon I could tell I was getting sick, and by 8 that night I was very sick. I'd had bacon in the past and was fine, so I think it's just that particular brand of bacon had a hidden ingredient in it. I won't be eating it again.
This is my first batch of dehydrated food for my first backpacking trip post SCD. From top left to bottom right:
Zucchini - Mushrooms
Cheddar Cheese - Broccoli - Eggs
Onion - Tuna Fish - Banana Chips
My little dehydrator is working harder than I am trying to keep up with demand. Right now I have tomatoes, yellow peppers and green peppers in there. Still up is beef jerky, another batch of tomatoes and more eggs and cheese. I'm thinking I should have started sooner than I did :)
As promised, I've been putting the dehydrator that my mom procured for me to good use while prepping for my backpacking trip. So far not much has turned out that great since I'm still figuring out which foods do best in it. Spices, like garlic powder have been most successful, dried crushed pineapple has been the least (I should have used full slices). But I did have success with my first beef jerky!
The recipe that I used can be found at the Eating SCD blog. I used light sesame oil, instead of dark because I had it on hand, and I didn't use any liquid smoke because it's hard to find SCD safe. Drew felt the jerky was a little spicy, not that he couldn't handle it, but that spicy isn't exactly what you want when you are hiking on the trail. Next time I might use less pepper and/or red pepper flakes and more pineapple juice.
