Cabin Creations

Our annual cabin getaway to Holly River, a tranquail West Virginia state park, is the perfect summer vacation for the two of us.  The one room cabin has a kitchen, stocked with dishes and pans.  We pack a cooler and drive the two hour trip to this gorgeous mountainside park in rural Webster County.  

The cabin has a bathroom and fireplace, but no electronics.  No TV, internet or cell phone access for three days.  We hike, we take pictures, we read.  This year we even brought our crafts. I swam laps in the pool in fairly chilly water on two afternoons-a summer pleasure that always delights.

I brought my crock pot the first day and filled it with vegetables and a small local chicken shortly after checking in.  That was dinner with leftovers.

For breakfast I made eggs over easy, one day with sunny morning muffins, once with pancakes and once with biscuits.  Blueberries and strawberries were 99 cents a package for the July 4th holiday and those were a perfect fruit combination.

The beef and vegetable skewers, filled with local vegetables and a little steak was dinner on the second day.  The last day we shared a dinner from the park restaurant.  The food is homemade-the portions are big-and we each got a homemade roll to go with our meat and two vegetable dinner. One night we got ice cream and ate it on the restaurant swing.  Another night we shared a dessert.

The pancake recipe is from Eating Well.

Blueberry Pancakes

(Serves 5)

Beat egg and sugar.
1 egg
1 teaspoon sugar 

Stir together dry ingredients.
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
Dash salt

Mix together liquid ingredients.
3/4 cup skim milk
2 teaspoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon oil (olive or canola)

1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Alternately add dry and liquid ingredients to egg-sugar mix.  DO NOT OVERMIX.

Stir in blueberries.
1/2 cup fresh blueberries


I did not have the perfect dippers like at home, so I poured the batter from a cup into the iron skillet in the cabin.  What fun!

The kabob marinade is from Family Circle.

Sweet Soy Marinade

(Serves 2)

2 tablespoon soy sauce, reduced sodium
1 tablespoon mirin
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
1 garlic clove, smashed
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger