another pumpkin-bran muffin

as you know, there’s nothing i love more than a yummy homemade muffin (maybe a bowl of oatmeal? an oatmeal muffin?) and as it’s the middle of october already (?!?!?!), i decided to kick off true muffin season with another pumpkin-spice-bran variety.

from the archives:

• pumpkin muffins
• pumpkin-spice bran muffins

they’re all good–i’d pick which one to make based on what ingredients i have in the house.

so here’s…

another pumpkin-bran muffin
(inspired heavily by domestic dreamboat’s recipe)

1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup wheat bran, toasted in a skillet until toasty-smelling
a scant 1/2 cup granulated sugar (measure a 1/2 cup and take out a tablespoon or so)
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 large eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
chocolate chips

in one bowl, mix together the first nine ingredients and in another bowl, mix together the next five. make sure you put your spices, especially the ginger, and your baking soda/powder through a fine sieve. they are always lumpy and you don’t want lumps.

gently mix the two together. there’s so much fiber in this recipe – and i cut the sugar a lot – i would have felt just fine adding chocolate chips (so good with pumpkin), but he doesn’t like them so i abstained. i’m sweet enough already.

grease your muffin tin well and scoop batter in. i sprinkled some old fashioned oats over the top of each just because i like how they look. not necessary, though, especially if you went the chocolate route.

bake at 400 degrees for 20-22 minutes.

black-tarine-berry whole wheat crisp

i had peach crisp in mind when i went to the farmers market this evening, but the nectarines were riper, so i started there. then i saw the blackberries…

wow. the size of plums! and sooo tasty.

so here we are. two large and two small nectarines and about 18-20 very large blackberries.

i chopped the nectarines pretty small and tossed them with a little sugar, salt, nutmeg (great with stone fruit and dark leafy greens. not at the same time necessarily) and about a tablespoon of corn starch. i’ll usually squeeze some lemon juice over it, too, but i didn’t have a lemon around tonight.

i didn’t want the blackberries to fall apart, so i didn’t toss them, but set half of them in a glass pie plate, poured the nectarines around, then nestled the rest around the top

for the crisp topping, i decided to use whole wheat flour and WOW. such yummy, dark flavor. a less guilt! i can’t believe i haven’t done this before.

crisp topping
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
pinch of salt

mix together and squeeze through your fingers until everything is combined and looks like sand.

sprinkle liberally over the fruit – i ended up with a some leftover, which will keep fine in the fridge for all your emergency crisp needs – and bake at 400 degrees until the fruit is bubbly and the top is golden.

sometimes this can take up to 40-45 minutes, but because i made mine in a shallow pie plate, it only took about 25 (plus, you get a higher topping-to-fruit ratio!)

whole wheat banana-blueberry-coconut muffins

these are, hands down, some of the best muffins i’ve made in a good long time. they manage to be fluffy and moist, while still containing 50% whole wheat flour. tasty and (almost) guilt-free!

cream together

8 tbsp unsalted butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar

beat in

1 large egg
4 small (or equivalent) brown-speckled bananas, smashed
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla

in a separate bowl, mix

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup large-shred, unsweetened coconut

my new favorite trick is adding the mix-ins before you combine the wet and dry ingredients. as you know, once you combine the two (once liquid hits the gluten in the flour), the more you mix, the tougher the final product becomes. combining the blueberries and coconut with the flour mixture first means less mixing later and less chance of over-mixing.

also, one school of baking thought will tell you coating the blueberries in flour keeps them suspended in the batter. it’s true, in certain batters, all your blueberries sink to the bottom. i think this one is hefty enough that wouldn’t happen, but hey, consider it a safe-guard anyway. just look at how many blueberries are at the top of those muffins!

mix wets and dried together until just combined. scoop into a muffin tin with paper liners. your scoops will be big – this recipe makes a dozen honkin fat muffins.

bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, or until puffed and slightly golden on top, and a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out just barely clean.

oh, speaking of cake testers… have you heard that metal ones are no good? i love my metal oxo good grips one, but apparently metal cake testers cause cake deflation. i don’t think i’ve ever noticed that. can anyone speak from experience?

new orleans bbq squid and grits

if you will indulge me, i’m going to start with a short rant about shrimp.

shrimp are yummy and they don’t really have faces. i love shrimp. but the shrimp market is almost entirely swamped by shrimp farmed in southeast asia and not only is this bad for the environment, it leads to polluted shrimp which is bad for you. there are also some serious human rights concerns in this industry.

so when i – very uncharacteristically – felt like making shrimp and grits out of the blue, i decided that if i couldn’t find domestic shrimp, i would use something else. squid seemed like a good alternative because of its texture and the fact that it’s a great vehicle to transport flavor to mouth. plus it’s a sort of down and dirty ingredient that sounded like the perfect match for a new orleans barbecue sauce.

don’t be scared of cooking squid. your fish counter will sell you cleaned squid, so you don’t have to worry about beaks or guts. i ask for lots of tentacles cuz we’re weird like that. but the bodies are “less scary” if you’d like. cut them cross-wise into rings that are about half an inch wide.

the recipe i used was from a cajun cooking class we took at the cambridge school of culinary arts. (thanks, grandma! side note: the class was great. if you’re in the area, i strongly recommend taking one. fun evening with tons o’ food.)

it was supposed to be a shrimp appetizer on french bread, but let me tell you, it was wicked good on grits, too. so let’s get it on!

squid and grits bbq sauce
1 pound squid, cleaned and cut
2 tablespoons creole seasoning*
10 garlic cloves, minced
2 bay leaves, crumbled**
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, minced
3 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons hot sauce
1 lemon juiced and quartered
1/3 cup lager beer
2-3 tablespoons butter

* i couldn’t find any, so i made my own: 1 tbsp paprika, 1 tsp oregano, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/4 tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp garlic powder

** weird, right?? try it!

toss the squid with half the seasoning mix.

saute garlic, bay leaves and rosemary over high heat. don’t let it burn!

add seasoned squid, worcestershire, hot sauce, lemons and lemon juice. i love that you add the lemons in. wow. flavor.

cook for a minute or two and then add the beer to deglaze the pan. let the sauce bubble until the squid are done. add the rest of the seasoning, plus salt and pepper.

remove the squid to a bowl. reduce heat under the pan and whisk in the butter. add the squid back and toss to coat.

pour over grits. hot damn, that’s good.

lentil and roasted vegetables salad

this recipe was from melissa clark at the times and it turned out really well. healthy and very flavorful.

i would recommend making more roasted vegetables than you think you need/the recipe calls for, because they are so delicious and i think the salad was slightly on the lentil-heavy side.

i also recommend making extra dressing, but her recipe is way too olive-oily. i use much closer to a 1:1 ratio of vinegar to oil, whereas she uses 1:2.

finally, instead of just roasting the herbs with the veggies (which i really don’t think imparts all that much flavor), i minced them and added to the dressing. they contributed to the freshness of the salad. the juxtaposition of dark roasted vegetables and lentils with the freshness of herbs and tangerine juice is really what makes this so yummy. make sure you top with the fresh parsley and green onion, too.

oh, and it goes without saying that i left off the bacon, although he added it to his at the end as a garnish. we talked about fried onions on the top, which i think would be a good alternative for vegetarians.

ginger biscotti

these turned out remarkably well, especially given the fact that i think the recipe was actually wrong in several places. or if not wrong, then very weird. i made some modifications, but only for flavor and cooking time.

ginger biscotti

1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons dried ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup chopped candied ginger
7 tablespoons room-temp butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg

preheat oven to 350 degrees.

mix your dry ingredients and ginger in a large bowl.

in a separate bowl, cream together the sugar and butter either by hand or with a mixer. add the egg and beat well.

stir the butter-egg mixture into the dry ingredients and turn out onto a floured surface.

here is the first place i’m sure something is wrong. this is not a dough:

this is a pile of sand.

i kneaded it by hand for awhile and it started to come together barely. i had to be VERY gentle.

divide the dough in half and – here’s the next part that just cannot be right – “form each half into an 8-inch log about 3/4 of an inch in diameter.” WHAT?

first thing – i can barely handle this dough it’s so dry and flakey. it is certainly NOT shaping into a 3/4-inch log. (unless i don’t know what “log” means??)

secondly, if you’ve ever made biscotti, this won’t make sense. usually, you form a wide flat slab because the dough isn’t going to change shape (very much, if at all) during baking. so what am i going to do with a 3/4-inch log of cooked biscotti??

as you can see, i made mine bigger:

so of course, they took longer to bake. the recipe says 8 minutes, mine were in for about 15.

see? no change of shape.

then it says let them cool for 5 minutes and slice on the diagonal into 1/2-inch slices.

you can start to see how weird it is they wanted a 3/4-inch log, right? also, these were INCREDIBLY fragile.

lay on a baking sheet and toast at 275 degrees until crisp, “about 30 minutes.” definitely took mine longer and i flipped them halfway through.

they don’t look superb, but i painted some dark chocolate on them and they tasted just fine.

although i hope all my holiday baking doesn’t come out this weird…

pumpkin-spice bran muffins

real talk: i’m not the only one who tries to consume as much pumpkin-spice product as possible this time of year, even occasionally venturing into the terrifying world of pumpkin spice hersey’s kisses….

as you know, i’m also a devout muffin lover. in fact, this blog should be called incredible crunchy muffin (ew?! incredible moist delicious muffins? doesn’t quite ring…) because i think i have more muffin recipes than anything else.

so what a great a opportunity to develop a new combination. this one is in honor of a friend who – like me – is obsessed with garam masala, especially combined with pumpkin. in my opinion, it’s the best pumpkin spice out there.

these muffins are healthy and delicious, combining good ingredients with lots of whole grain for tasty fiber.

pumpkin-spice bran muffins

1 cup wheat bran, toasted
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/3 cup plain yogurt
3/4 cup pumpkin
pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, oatmeal, nuts, etc for topping (optional)

toast your wheat bran in a cast iron skillet or dry frying pan over medium until it smells toasty.

when coolish, mix white flour, baking powder, salt and spice. use a whisk to make sure everything is well-combined.

in a separate bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, milk, egg, oil and yogurt. when completely combined, use a spoon to mix in the pumpkin.

 

pour the pumpkin mixture into the bran mixture and combine gently. (remember, over-stirring leads to a tough muffin!)

using a 1/4-cup measure, spoon into baking cups. i lined mine with papers, but the papers stuck a little to muffins at first. i’d recommend just spraying the tin and skipping the papers.

since i thought they needed some additional texture, i sprinkled some sunflower seeds on top. this was all i had – pumpkin seeds would have been much better. if you don’t have either, some oat-fashioned oats would work or nuts, if you don’t live in a nut-free house!

bake at 400 degrees for about 18 minutes, rotating once in the middle if you’d like. (ATK swears i must do this. also, my oven heats unevenly.) check with a cake tester to make sure the inside is done.

my house smells like fall!

orange blossom sweet potato muffins

unfortunately, i don’t seem to have any pictures of these. blogger fail. but here is the recipe, and i can tell you they turned out delightfully. they were tender and light – you could never guess they have whole wheat flour – with a subtle sweetness. 

i had leftover sweet potato from the sweet potato-salmon burgers, but you could used canned pumpkin or leftover mashed squashed, too.

mix together:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp salt

in a separate bowl, mix together:

1/3 cup white sugar
2 tbsp honey (i used raw. i doubt that it makes a difference)
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs (i used egg replacer)
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup mashed sweet potato

fold the dry ingredients into the potato mixture gently. don’t over-mix or your muffins will be tough.

spoon into a greased muffin tin and bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

french onion soup

i made this one on new year’s day, because it seemed like a cozy and clean way to start 2014. the recipe is from the new york times, and i have to say, it takes a long. time. to cook all the onions, but it was worth it! you come out with a really tasty and flavorful soup without meat broth.

i mean, a LOT of onions.

especially when they make it clear you don’t want to “crowd the pan” for best browning.

a long time.

see the dark liquid at the bottom?

after you brown the onions, you deglaze the pan with water and save that liquid. that’s what you see here. it’s the base for the broth.

add lots of garlic and some herbs and water and cook a long time.

did i mention this recipe takes a while?

instead of covering the top with cheese like we americans think of french onion soup, just make some nice cheese toasts.

it was a lovely soup, but i don’t often have a whole day to devote to a cooking project like this. alas, i don’t think i’ll be making it again.

vegetarian nachos

have you seen that commercial about superstition and quinoa burgers? now i call it “queen-o.” it’s my favorite.

this chili from damn delicious might also be my favorite. recommended by mrs. lnrb.

thoughts:

• don’t cook the quinoa before you put it in. why bother with another step? just add one cup dry at the point that the recipe calls for two cups cooked. it’s going to cook in the chili anyway, and i didn’t want it to get too mushy. plus, it soaks up the flavor better
• instead of water, add one bottle of beer
• i only added one can of kidney beans and no black beans, and i had to use frozen corn because my whole foods didn’t have canned. it was fine
• as mrs. lnrb warned me, this turns out much thicker than you usually consider chili to be (one reason i only put in half the called-for beans). while you could definitely serve it as chili, i omitted the last step where you stir in cilantro and lime juice and used it as vegetarian nacho topping instead

no picture because i was too busy watching peyton w. manning demonstrate why he’s only the second best quarterback in football. but the nachos were delicious, topped with your choice of chopped tomatoes, avocado, green onion, cilantro, sliced jalapenos, greek yogurt (instead of sour cream) and lime wedges.