The Stannard5 In Stick Figures

6:45 PM Unknown 0 Comments

We have officially marked our camper with a ubiquitous stick figure family. Ours has a cool Star Wars twist. Pete is Boba Fett. I am Oola (aka the twilek that dances for Jabba). Aellyn is Leia. Asher is a Jawa. Boston is an Ewok. Cute!

Toaster Oven Coconut Muffins

9:12 AM Unknown 0 Comments

I am on a huge coconut kick right now. I mean, I use the oil for everything from food, hair, and face but lately I want coconut flavor! I found this recipe for coconut muffins and made some changes.

I substituted a banana for the egg because why not? I think it is cool that this has yogurt in it which makes it creamy and delicious but also adds that extra fat. I used coconut extract because I had some and I didn't want them to taste too banana-y. I mixed the wet ingredients in my Vitamix because it would be difficult by hand.

The batter is more like a dough. Very thick and sticky and difficult to get off the spoon. I sprinkled the coconut on and mushed it down a bit because the muffin batter had created points that I didn't want to burn.

THESE SMELL SO GOOD BAKING!!! So tropical. I bet you could put pineapple in these and they'd be delish.

They are soft and not too sweet. Perfect for breakfast. 

Toaster Oven Coconut Muffins

1 Banana (as egg replacement)
1/2 cup coconut oil, liquid (warm under hot water)
1/3 cup coconut sugar
1 cup coconut flavor full-fat yogurt (I used Greek)
1 tsp coconut extract (or use vanilla)
1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1 cup shredded coconut, divided (don't buy toasted or they'll burn)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and move rack to center position. Mix first 5 ingredients in a blender or mixer. Fold in dry ingredients. Fill muffin tin and sprinkle shredded coconut on top. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Makes 24 mini muffins.

Toaster Oven Drop Biscuits

9:01 AM Unknown 0 Comments

[caption id="attachment_8565" align="alignleft" width="300"] yes, my counter space is that small.[/caption]

I am a biscuit fanatic! My grandmother made a biscuit like this one from a flavor perspective but she had to roll them out and cut them. I figured that was too much work in my tiny (non-counter-space-having) camper. I also found that most drop biscuit recipes require a food processor to incorporate cold butter with the flour. This is an absolutely delicious way to get tender, flaky biscuits. However, a food processor did not make the cut in our tiny space (I do have a Vitamix that will do the trick but I left it at my sisters). I knew there had to be a way to make biscuits easy - one bowl, one measuring cup, one spoon, etc. These are so yummy! Note, that I don't like sweet biscuits and that includes buttermilk biscuits. I like a really baking-powder kind of flavor. I'll put changes/additions if you want a sweeter biscuit like you'd get at Bob Evans.

Toaster Oven Drop Biscuits (Sweeter Version in parenthesis)

2 cups flour 1 Tbls baking powder 1/4 tsp salt (2 Tbls sugar) 1/2 cup butter, melted 1 cup milk (or 1 cup buttermilk)

[caption id="attachment_8567" align="alignleft" width="150"] center rack[/caption]

Preheat oven to 450. Move the rack to the center (see pic) - this helps ensure that your biscuits won't burn on the bottom. If your toaster oven doesn't have a moving rack, reduce the temp to 400. Mil flour, baking powder, and salt. Melt 1/2 cup butter in a 2 cup measuring cup. Pour milk on top of melted butter until the measuring cup reads 1 1/2 cups. Dump into the dry mixture. Combine gently with a folding over motion. Batter will be lumpy. Drop spoonfuls onto your baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until the tips just start to get brown.

[caption id="attachment_8568" align="alignright" width="150"] combined dough[/caption]

These are so tender and crispy on the outside but they actually stay together. If you want to split them and add butter you should make them a little larger. I make them the size of 2 bites and don't even need butter. Enjoy!

Toaster Oven Chocolate Chip Muffins

5:32 PM Unknown 0 Comments

I want to share my adventures in RV Living and what it means for cooking. Things like toaster oven and campfire cooking. Our RV doesn't have an oven so we bought a toaster oven and I'm loving it! I can take it outside and bake cookies while the kids play.

One caveat: I am NOT. A food blogger. I'm not a baking expert and I'm not going to start doing food photography so please enjoy my humble RV kitchen experiments and iPhone photos.

Toaster Oven Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients:
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1/4 cup honey
1 ripe banana
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsps baking powder
1 1/2 cups flour
Chocolate chips at your preferred amount. I used 1/2 a bag of semi-sweet morsels

Turn your oven on to 400 degrees and put the rack in the middle. If you can't move your rack and it is fixed on the lower level then reduce. Temp to 375 so the bottoms don't burn. Put dry ingredients in a bowl. Add wet stuff right on top (because who has time for that separate crap?). Mix. Add chips. Spoon into mini-muffin tin that fits in your toaster oven. Bake for 11-13 minutes. Makes 24 mini muffins.

These are really cinnamon-y which I love. We make them for a quick breakfast.

A note on ingredients. You can use a milk alternative like almond or rice milk (don't use soy, that stuff is poison). I use whole wheat flour which probably makes them less yummy, lol. I haven't tried it but if you don't eat egg you could probably add more banana instead. In my version you can't taste the banana but it would be tasty with banana flavor. You can also use carob if you don't eat chocolate. If you can afford it buy ethical chocolate.

Add ins could include flax, oats, nuts, or dried berries.

Enjoy!

Birds and Fish

8:21 AM Unknown 1 Comments

We have neighbors with exotic birds. Here are some pictures that Pete took of them:

[ait-gridgallery count="15" height="auto" descheight="50" category="188" cols="5" display="fancybox" showfilter="1" order="chronological" description="0"]

Aellyn is obsessed with them! She really wants a bird and we've had some great discussions about why we don't believe in owning wild animals (I think our neighbors would agree given that they are parrot rescuers).

[caption id="attachment_8544" align="alignleft" width="150"] baking cookies in a toaster oven[/caption]

We enjoyed our first rainy-all-day inside day. We baked cookies together and made a huge mess of our non-existent counter space. We watched movies and popped popcorn. Not as fun as being outside, of course, but once in a while makes it a novelty.

Aellyn got to go fishing for the first time and caught TWO fish!

[gallery link="file" columns="2" ids="8527,8525"]

On Living "Counter" Culture

8:19 AM Unknown 3 Comments

In the months leading up to our departure as Fulltime RVers we had many naysayers. Most were worried about the unknown while others were just sure we'd taken leave of our senses. That's ok. Living in a counter culture way can cause people to feel uncomfortable.

I've said before that I think people get upset about the choices of others because they see them as reflecting poorly on their own life choices. This is false and comes from guilt and shame that society trains us to carry. My choices and my path are mine and not a comment on on your choices or your path. No, really.

Like I said in my article about WOHM vs SAHMs we are all really the best people when we are authentic and fulfilled. The journey we should all be on is to find that authentic self inside of us and live it OUT LOUD. Finding yours has nothing to do with what others are living.

Anyways. I did have one person who lashed out and called our lifestyle "child abuse." I think this is a term we need to stop throwing around. Like using "rape" in sports, throwing the term child abuse around belittles actual child abuse and I think reflects more on the insulter's personal problems than on the insultee's. To that person I'd like to respectfully snarkily present this:

[ait-gridgallery count="15" height="auto" descheight="50" category="186" cols="3" display="detail" showfilter="1" order="chronological" description="0"]

Don't they look sad? ha!

They are flourishing like all kids do in nature. Fishing, hiking, playing at the park and around the campfire - it's just been perfect.

I didn't realize how much I took on other peoples' negativity about us living in an RV. I spent many tears and sleepless nights on the opinions of these people. It was draining to say the least and hard to counter when we didn't have first hand experience at our chosen lifestyle.

Now that we've lived this for a while I feel like a reptile that has shed that heavy skin of negativity. Our daily life is now aligned with our inner passions and the extreme RIGHTNESS of it makes all the worry about the naysayers seem silly.

I never imagined myself as "counter culture." I'm just a regular girl from middle America. If you know me in person I'm pretty normal, right? Ok, eccentric...but normal. We're just trying to take our one life and the one childhood of our children and use it most wisely - in a way that aligns with our ethics. I don't want to tell my kids "live like this" I'd rather just live it and let them live it.

I don't think that is counter to our culture but a product of it - of the freedom to choose how we live. Calling it "counter" implies it is "against" what others ("culture") are doing.

Calling us eccentric. A hippie. "Alternative." Counter culture. It just disconnects us from each other. It makes an Us and a Them. It creates Other. I've really come to believe that "other" is the concept at the root of all violence and hate in this world. When we realize there is no "other" it is impossible to hate or do violence.

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. ~Jiddu Krishnamurti

So, just call us The Stannard5.

One Week As Fulltimers!

7:37 AM Unknown 0 Comments

Well, we survived our first week living in an RV! Actually, I'd say we thrived! It definitely feels so right. We had a few mishaps.

For example we lost both a side panel and a skylight cover on the trip to the campground. We've easily made some DIY repair and it doesn't look like it will be too expensive to fix.

For the most part it has been realizing new family traditions and rhythms. We hike every morning either to the lake or through an abandoned Halloween trail. I wanted to start a new tradition and also bring Buddhism to my kids. So we transplanted my altar to a beautiful wooden box. Each morning we take out a brass Buddha bell and take turns ringing it nd saying what we are thankful for. It has been a hoot! Aellyn is old enough to have such thoughtful responses and the boys are hysterical! Ash said two days in a row that he was thankful for snakes. Boston says the nearest object next to him like "fan" and "pancake".

Everyone is so nice and thrilled to have tiny kids around. We lower the median age by at least 30 years. (For now at least. When school gets out there will be more families).

We are different than most seasonal campers in that we can't acquire things that don't fit in the rv. People keep trying to give us stuff. Out of kindness and maybe a little pity at the family of five in the tiny, slide-less rv? We keep saying no thanks we have all we need.

Right now I'm sitting at the playground with the setting sun at my back listening to birds chirp while the kids play with the owners' kids.

Life is good.

[caption id="attachment_8256" align="alignnone" width="300"] Our humble abode[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_8257" align="alignnone" width="300"] Bean in a tree[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_8258" align="alignnone" width="300"] Skipping rocks[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_8259" align="alignnone" width="300"] Walking along the lake[/caption]

A Healthier Lifestyle

7:02 AM Unknown 0 Comments

In my post about 7 Reasons to Live in an RV Fulltime I didn't mention a healthier lifestyle. We are doing this for a healthier planet and healthier relationships but an off-shoot will be living healthier too.

[caption id="attachment_8004" align="alignleft" width="150"] Day 2 - blogging in the RV[/caption]

I woke up this morning and could hardly move! The lifting, pulling, hiking, etc. is new to my body. Before Aellyn was born Pete and I were hiking up to 9 miles a day in training for doing the Grand Canyon. Now my life is so sedentary.

You don't have to uproot your whole life to get healthy but there is nothing like having an ACTIVE LIFESTYLE rather than adding activity, like exercise, to an actually sedentary lifestyle, which is what most westerners do. Like homesteading, farming, etc., living in an RV fulltime is just going to REQUIRE activity. I'm really excited about this aspect!

We're Fulltime RVers!

6:52 AM Unknown 0 Comments

It is friday morning and I'm typing this from the dinette table in our camper. The kids and Pete are exploring the woods behind our site while I clean up a traditional camp breakfast.

I'm in heaven!

Yesterday was not easy. It is beyond muddy here - like Ohio right now makes Dagoba look like paradise. The truck we hired to move the RV (because we haven't upgraded our minivan to a truck yet) got stuck in my sister's yard. We had to ask a neighbor with a tractor (god bless the country!) to get it out. In all it took 3 hours!!



Here are some more outrageous pics of getting the RV out of the yard.

But, we finally made it! We also had an easy time with the kids sleeping in their own beds. My kids have slept in our bed since birth so I was concerned it might be an issue but...really, we're like 10 ft. away from them!

The covers on one of the skylights blew off at some point in the trip yesterday. So, last night, IN THE DARK I climbed on top of the van and used a long stick to position a tarp over the opening and hold it down with rocks. Yay for DIY!

Here's our official launch video!