Traveling with Muffins

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Our Midwest Road Trip

Our Midwest Road Trip

When Mathew was turning one year old, we decided to introduce him to all our relatives and friends in the Midwest. During those 3 weeks, we traveled over 5,000 miles from New York to Minnesota down to Oklahoma then on to Virginia and back to New York. We spent Mathew’s 1st birthday, in Chicago at the Shedd Aquarium. Before we left, I wanted to stock up on nutritious unprocessed snacks for the ride. I had never been much of a baker but I thought muffins were a good choice. I could pack them full of nutritious ingredients and they would travel well. After a great deal of searching, I found this amazing woman, Cathe Olson; she wrote cookbooks with delicious recipes using basic ingredients. I actually started to correspond with her via email and she emailed me several recipes to choose from and has since then sent me several more. Most of her recipes were for loafs but they easily converted into muffins. After the trip, I started to make different types of muffins each week and froze half the batch. After a month, I had a freezer full of a variety of muffins. This kept snacks fresh and from getting too boring.

YUM!

YUM!

Here’s one of Mathew’s favorite muffin recipe:

Apricot-Nut Muffins

This moist, delicious bread supplies vitamin A and iron. You can omit the nuts, of course.

1 cup chopped dried apricots

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1/4 cup maple syrup, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, or honey (always used maple syrup)

1/4 cup oil

1 cup apricot soak water

1/4 cup orange juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 cup wheat germ

1 cup walnuts, chopped

Place apricots in a heatproof bowl. Pour boiling water over apricots and let sit about 15 minutes. Drain apricots, reserving 1 cup of the soak water.

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Oil a muffin pan. Beat together sweetener, oil, apricot soak water, orange juice, and vanilla. In separate bowl, sift together flours, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt. Stir in wheat germ. Stir in liquid ingredients until just mixed. Gently fold in apricots and nuts. Pour into prepared muffin pan. Bake about 20 minutes, or until tester inserted in center comes out dry. Remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack.

If you bake this in an 8 or 9-inch square baking pan or loaf pan, it will be like a cake. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until tester inserted in center comes out dry.

Mathew and the tooth pain from hell

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toothache

Poor Mathew 🙁

Recently, Mathew complained of a toothache. He has had cavities, but it was the first time he ever had any “real” oral pain. We were getting ready for a trip to his grandparents in Virginia and his dentist was out of town, so we decided to continue with our plans and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, nothing I gave Mathew totally relieved the pain. Some items worked better than others and made him a bit more comfortable. Since, it was difficult to know exactly what the cause of the pain was I tried several different approaches.

The first thing Mathew did was floss, brush and then rinse his mouth with warm salt water. It didn’t relieve any pain but it cleaned out his mouth. Since Mathew had complained the prior week of headaches, I thought the pain might be related to a sinus problem, so, I made a tea that contained a variety of herbs that focused on relieving sinus and toothache pain; I chose tea because its warmth by itself soothes tooth pain.

The tea contained:

The tea helped Mathew relax and soothed some of the pain but it still did not eliminate it. When he started to complain more, I gave him children’s ibuprofen. It also helped but did not eliminate the pain. The next day everything seemed to get worse. I made a paste out of Ground Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) and water and used a Q-tip to apply it to the painful area. The clove paste helped numb the area, thus reducing the pain. Cloves contain eugenol, it’s a powerful anesthetic and antiseptic that relieves pain and wipes out germs.

We did end up taking Mathew to a dentist in Virginia. After the examination and an x-ray, we were still not absolutely clear as to the cause of Mathew’s pain, nor why nothing seemed to stop the pain. The guess was it was decay behind the filling. We agreed to have the filling cleaned out and filled with a temporary medicated pain reliever to get him through the visit until he could see his dentist. The medication used in the filling had Clove oil in it. The procedure did relieve some of Mathew’s pain. However, the dentist was confused that even with the Novocain to perform the procedure Mathew still experienced pain. Nothing seemed to eradicate the pain.

I asked Mathew what remedy helped reduce the pain the best, he felt the Ground Clove paste worked the best as it numbed the area and the tea helped soothe him. Unfortunately, when the Ground Clove paste wore off, the pain came back worse than before. The children’s ibuprofen and acetaminophen worked equally as well. The dentist recommended that we switch back and forth using ibuprofen or acetaminophen, which we did, as well as use Ground Clove paste. Mathew sipped tea throughout the day. He was comfortable but definitely not pain free.

Mathew went to his dentist in New York, who felt the all he needed was a pulpectomy, which is a dental procedure in which all of the material in the pulp chamber and root canal of a tooth is removed (it sounds like a root canal to me, but only takes 20 minutes to do). Then a filling is put in, pain is gone, and the tooth will fall out when Mathew’s adult tooth is ready to appear. At least that was the plan. So we tried that, but when we left, Mathew experienced more pain than before. Thank goodness, it dissipated during the next 24 hours. Hopefully, this is the end to the drama and will inspire Mathew to take better care of his teeth.

Have you ever had a tooth pain that could not be relieved? What did you do? Please share and I will continue to share.

All information is shared for educational purposes only and has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.