Carrot Apple Muffins

Healthy Carrot Apple Muffins

I love the Carrot Cake muffins that Starbucks recently started selling but wanted something a bit healthier.

Today I made these muffins.  I made a dozen of them and decided to add pecans and raisins to the remaining batter and bake a variation.

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

1/4 cup olive oil

1 mashed ripe banana

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 apples peeled and cored

1/2 cup turbinado brown sugar

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup milk

3-4 large carrots peeled

2/3 cup old fashioned rolled oats

1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour

1/4-1/2 cup raw pecans (optional)

1/3-1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2.  Spray muffin tin or place liners in the tin.

3.  Mix eggs, oil, banana and syrup in a large bowl.

4.  Shred apples and carrots with a grater.  I like this one (using the fine grater wheel) by Salad King:

Mine is an older one.  There are similar ones for sale at Amazon.com - just type "Salad King grater" in the search string.

5.  Add brown turbinado sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.  Mix thoroughly.

6.  Stir in grated apples and carrots.

7.  Add oats and whole wheat flour.

8.  Stir in pecans and raisins if desired.

9.  Spoon into muffin tins, filling almost to the top.

10.  Garnish with any or all of the following:  shredded carrot, pecans, or oats.

11.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the muffin.

12.  Cool for 5 minutes and move to a rack too cool completely.  If you used muffin liners,  be sure to cool completely to avoid the muffin sticking to the liner. 

13.  Enjoy!

These can be stored in an airtight bag or container.  They can even be frozen and thawed.  I like to put a frozen one in my lunch and let it thaw until lunch.

Here are the muffins with pecans and raisins:

Life to the Full

In John 10:10, Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full." What does that mean to you? I have often wondered why it is that we live as if we are still enslaved? Why is victory over some areas of sin in our lives so elusive? Jesus declared in his hometown that he was the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah which says:

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners."

Are you tired of being unhappy and feeling like you are powerless over some area of sin in your life? Jesus invites you to come and take his yoke upon you. He promises it to be easy and the burden to be light. Why then does it feel so heavy weighing on me? Many times it is because I have not surrendered the burden I carry around. I think I have to fix it myself because, after all, I am the one who got myself into this mess. All of a sudden I find myself living with a heavy burdened heart rather than living life to the full.

Everyone has a different struggle. My personal struggle is food related. When I feel cheated in life I try to find some food to make me feel better. When I am stressed I go for chocolate or something sweet to try to ease the stress. When I am weary I think to myself, "Who cares is this is healthy for me. I have too much on my mind to worry about eating right at this moment in my life. You may think, "So? What is the big deal. It's just food. Eating isn't a sin." That is how I felt for a long time until I realized that I had replaced God with food. Instead of turning to him when I am feeling neglected, stressed, or weary I look for food. If I am a new creation in Christ, why do I still do that - especially since I am aware of it now.

This week I was reminded of the woman at the well in John chapter 4. There was a Samaritan woman who came to draw water while Jesus was resting there and waiting for his disciples to return. It turns out that the woman had been married 5 times and the man she was with at the time was not her current husband. Jesus asks her for a drink. She is concerned that he is even talking to her because Jews and Samaritans did not associate with one another but Jesus said to her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." She doesn't get it at first and asks him how he is going to get this water since he has nothing with which to draw water. After he explains to her that the water he is speaking of will quench thirst forever she asks him for it.

Here is this woman who has been seeking fulfillment in relationships. Her past is littered with broken relationships that haven't worked out. I imagine that each time she started out, she felt fulfilled for a time. But over time she was disappointed because the relationship couldn't quench the thirst she had deep in her soul. Isn't that how addictions take root in our human souls? We seek something to satisfy our thirst and it does for a time but then it turns out to not be enough so we take it to the next level. At some point we become dependent on seeking out that object of our addiction to get by.

Sadly, it is like trying to quench our thirst by drinking from a sprinkler. The water is dispersed in many directions and we are lucky if we get a small stream or trickle which leaves us thirsting for more. The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, however is like drinking straight from the garden hose with the faucet opened all the way up. It will leave us overflowing and full. I think that is what Jesus meant to live life to the full. He doesn't want us to go "thirsty" when there is an abundant supply of "water" at our disposal.

Are you feeling discontentment with your life? Do you feel like you have been sowing wheat but reaping thorns instead as Jeremiah puts it..wearing yourself out but gaining nothing and then bearing the shame of your harvest? (Jeremiah 12:13) Perhaps it is time to sow something new. Heed the words of the prophet Hosea from chapter 10:

"12 Sow for yourselves righteousness,
reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unplowed ground;
for it is time to seek the LORD,
until he comes
and showers righteousness on you.

But you have planted wickedness,
you have reaped evil,
you have eaten the fruit of deception.
Because you have depended on your own strength
and on your many warriors,"

We need to quit depending on our own strength and begin breaking up our unplowed ground and seek the Lord so he can come shower righteousness on us. Psalm 126:5 tells us that "those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy". Let us go to him in tears of sorrow and repentance and reap the fruit of unfailing love with songs of joy! Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to work in our lives if we will just invite Him in. Notice that Galatians says, "The fruit of the Spirit" is love, joy, peace, etc. It doesn't say, "The fruit of the Christian" is love, joy, peace, etc. The Spirit will do His work in you if you yield your life to Him and seek him until he comes. Be like the tree planted by streams of living water spoken of in Psalm 1:3 and just watch the fruit begin to grow.

As a side note, if you are struggling with an addiction in your life, I found the folks at www.settingcaptivesfree.com to be a great help in my life.

Going Green

It is that time of year in our community where we have heavy trash pick-up days. A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook that she is amazed at all the people who come by in pickup trucks scouting out other people's trash to glean items that have been deemed trash. Her post got me thinking. Have we ever stopped to wonder where all that "heavy trash" goes? I know that I certainly haven't. Just last weekend they came to my house and hauled away an old console TV and 2 broken microwaves. Did I worry about what they were going to do with them? No. I was just glad to get rid of them because they were taking up space in my house and garage. They were trash to me. However, an old saying came to my mind when I read my friend's post: "One man's trash is another man's treasure." If people can find use for my "trash", then isn't that a better solution than handing it off to the city to deal with?

Growing up we always used to poke fun at what we dubbed "tree huggers". I saw them as radical and liberal. But as I've gotten older, I am finding myself agreeing more and more with those who are worried about what our carbon footprint will be. I am realizing that caring for the environment is not just for tree-hugging liberals. Don't misunderstand me, it is not that I never cared for it before, I was just too busy and self-absorbed in my own pursuits to pay attention to it.

My generation has such a throw-away mentality. When something breaks, we throw it away and buy a new one. In some respects, we can blame manufacturers for this dilemma. There are many products that have become less expensive to replace that to repair. One example of this is the printer industry. Many printer manufacturers have made the cost of their ink cartridges so expensive that, oftentimes, it is just as cheap to buy a new printer as it is to replace the ink cartridge. Another example is the razor industry. The cost of buying replacement blades is so high that it is more economical to use a coupon and buy a new razor that comes with an extra blade than to buy replacement blades for the one you already have. Our family has experienced both of these situations. Manufacturer's have intentionally designed their products to be this way so they can sell more product. They control the supply of replacement parts with patents and then charge exorbitant prices for the parts.

While it is easy to blame manufacturers for our growing waste problem, there are steps we (as consumers) can take to ease the growing problem of waste. Now, if you are like I used to be you probably don't stay awake at night worrying about where your trash is going and whether we will run out of places to put it someday. I am becoming more "green" the older I get. The reduce, reuse, recycle mantra is becoming part of my lifestyle. I pay my trash company to haul away and process my recyclables. I use cloth bags for my groceries. I have glass water bottles that I wash and use over and over for water on the go. There are many other ways I am trying to be less wasteful.

Why do I do it? The answer is simple. It all boils down to stewardship. We were given this earth and all of the resources we have. It doesn't belong to us. It belongs to the creator. He has given it to us to use and manage. I Chronicles 29:11 says everything in heaven and earth belongs to God. I want to be a good steward of the resources I have been given so they will be there to sustain life in the future.

Even with all of the changes I am making in my lifestyle, I know there are still more things I can be doing to be a better steward. It is becoming increasingly easier to recycle. However, I need to pay more attention to reducing and reusing. My parents' and grandparents' generation understood this better than my own. My mother-in-law reuses plastic packaging instead of buying expensive containers such as Rubbermaid and Tupperware. I could cite many examples of reusing that I have witnessed. Some are more sanitary than others.

I would submit that we could add a fourth item to the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" slogan: "Repair". How many items do we throw away out of convenience. We've adopted the "Replace" mentality. Who has time to figure out how to fix things, right? In some cases, this is true. Some items require more knowledge than we have to repair them on our own and hiring someone with that knowledge set costs too much. Or perhaps the part to replace it costs too much as I mentioned earlier. However, if we take a little time and elbow grease, there are many items we throw out that could be repaired.

For example, I have a sliding screen door off of my kitchen that has been replaced 3 times since we have owned our home. They always end up getting torn up and coming off the tracks. Eventually they get thrown out and a new one is purchased. Recently, while my father-in-law was visiting he saw the broken down screen with it's loose screening and inability to stay on the track and slide properly and figured out a better design for it. With four L brackets and some effort, my screen door was re-screened and made new and improved. It slides on the track like no other one we have had. And to think I had written it off as destined for the trash heap!

There are still extremes out there that I poke fun at. A couple of years ago Sheryl Crow made this statement:

"Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required."

While I applaud her efforts to make people more aware of our environment, I would be a little leery about shaking her hand, if you know what I mean. As I said earlier, some solutions are more sanitary than others.

I look forward to hearing your feedback on this topic.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This excerpt taken from our Declaration of Independence declares that the pursuit of happiness is one of our inalienable rights endowed by our Creator, yet happiness seems to elusive to many of us. According to one world study on happiness, the United States ranked 46th in terms of overall happiness. Another study measures happiness by state. It was sad to note that Indiana, my home state, ranked 40th out of 51 states measured (they included the District of Columbia). The states that ranked in the top 3 were Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas. And despite the claim that "happy cows come from California", apparently happy people don't. California ranked dead last.

The question then begs to be asked, "Why are we as humans always seeking and never finding happiness?" Just last weekend I was at our Middle School Swimming and Diving Conference with my son. He was one of the divers representing our school among a total of 21 divers from 7 different schools. He ending up taking 2nd place in the boys competition and his score ranked him 2nd among all the divers there. After the awards presentation he brought me his ribbon and with a disappointed look on his face he said, "I didn't get a medal. You only get those for first place." He is like so many of us. We let our never ending quest for more steal the joy we should be feeling over where we are at. Why is it that we always want the one thing we can't have?

I submit to you that it is because our souls are empty. We attempt to feed our souls with things that cannot nourish them and then wonder why we aren't satisfied. We are on a quest for things that satisfy our physical beings but leave us in spiritual poverty. I recently read a quote from C.S. Lewis in a book we are reading together at church. It said, "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." If this is the case then we are trying to cater to what we have - not who we are. I know all too well the trap of trying to find happiness in many pursuits such as food, money, clothing, possessions, popularity, beauty treatments, praise from others, and the list goes on. None of them have left me feeling content or happy.

The only food I have found for my soul that brings me contentment is my creator. Jesus said that he is the Bread of Life, the Living Water, and the Way, the Truth, and the Life. How can we expect to find life from anything or anyone other than the Author of Life Himself?

What is it that you have been pursuing that isn't satisfying your soul? Seek after your creator. He longs to fellowship with you. He longs to fill you so that your soul will never hunger and thirst again.

Spring is in the Air!

Despite the remaining bits of snowdrifts and melting snowmen around town, I have sensed Spring in the air lately. It is evidenced by the more frequent chirping of birds - including the ones trying to make a nest in my garage, once again, this year. I've also noticed more sunshine this past week. All of this has gotten me thinking about the "Spring" that is about to take place in me. God has been doing an amazing work in my heart lately. I am seeing some of the frozen walls of ice I had let build up over this past season of "Winter" start to melt. I feel alive again. I can't wait to see the coming show of blossoms that is on its way in a literal and quite figurative way.

I am reminded of of the man described in Psalm 1:3. It says that:

"He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers."

I want to be planted by the One who called himself the "Living Water" and promised that he who drinks from it will thirst no more (see John 4:13 and John 7:37-38).