Muffin Love

I love muffins. I am not sure why they are such comfort food for me but they are. I know everything will be alright if I have a muffin. They can be sweet or savory, pretty much any flavor, homemade or bakery purchased, there's just something cozy and reassuring about them to me. I also love making muffins. Blueberry (wild if possible please!) and lemon poppyseed are my two deep favorites.

A thinks muffins are silly. A bizzare idea, little psuedo-cakes wrapped in annoying paper that you eat at breakfast and call appropriate. Such a waste of calories.

And yet I persist. Never one for rampant sensibility, I am not to be daunted by such views.(Doesn't this recipe look amazing?) Nothing makes me feel more surely that all is well with the world than a sizable pat of butter melting into the open halves of a warm muffin.

Dee has recently started telling me how much he loves muffins and begun not only asking for them to eat but me to make them for him from scratch. Makes a muffin loving mommy's heart bubble right over. Last night A took Ru for a Big Boys Only Outing to the local skateboard park and left me with the smallest littles. I asked Dee what he thought we should do while they were gone and his answer was, "Make muffins mommy!!!! Blueberry muffins, because those are my favorite!" And so I promptly kissed him.

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Virtual Cooking Lesson #2: Morning Glory Muffins

We did indeed get our blizzard last night, everyone's off school and work and out whooping in their driveways at the neighbors, flinging snow from shovels and winging snowballs at each other. We have had a steady stream of nice young men knocking on our front door, with snow shovels over their shoulders, looking for work. I hope they are finding work elsewhere because I keep turning them away so that Ru will be able to shovel the walk with his daddy tonight...the great longing of his heart. Cute little man.

I have been busy baking, cold, snowy weather almost demands it! So, we find ourselves in the middle of our second installation of Long Distance Cooking Lessons. I wordlessly took a month off in December but, fear not...the program is not dead. I just needed a breather, as did many of you...cooking is all very jolly in December without any assignments.

What we're baking today are: Morning Glory Muffins, a super classic recipe that has everything but the kitchen sink in it, is loaded with fiber and vitamins and tastes a bit like carrot cake for breakfast to boot. My boys say "Yum!" This variation comes from King Arthur Flour and has whole wheat flour and no pineapple although some variations have it. I have a mad love affair with muffins which, are often not such healthy items so this hits my sweet spot, so to speak.

Morning Glory Muffins

1/2 cup raisins
2 cups whole wheat flour or white whole wheat
3/4 cup of maple syrup (or honey)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups carrots, grated
1 large apple cored, and grated
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup sunflower seeds or wheat germ, (optional)
3 large eggs
2/3 cup olive oil, coconut oil or butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup orange juice or water

 

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tin, or line it with papers and spray the insides of the papers.

To make the muffins: In a small bowl, cover the raisins with hot water, and set them aside to soak while you assemble the rest of the recipe. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, spices, and salt. Stir in the carrots, apple, coconut, nuts, and sunflower seeds or wheat germ, if using. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and orange juice. Add to the flour mixture, and stir until evenly moistened. Drain the raisins and stir them in. Divide the batter among the wells of the prepared pan (they'll be full almost to the top; that's OK).

To bake the muffins: Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven, let cool for 5 minutes in their pan on a rack, then turn out of pans to finish cooling.

These muffins freeze well and also are great for snacks on-the-go and they are at their peak after a day or two of storage as the flavors just meld and marry with a little time to kill.

Picnicking in Earnest

It was one of those idyllic days with perfect weather. Just exactly perfect. 75 degrees, brilliantly sunny, poofs of clouds, blazing blue sky, light breeze, and as many happy children as you can possibly cram into one minivan. Its crazy at our house lately but, its that good kind of crazy that leaves you collapsing into a droopy, smiley puddle at the end of the day.

This is ideal, dreamy summer. We had a picnic lunch today with Penny, my good friend Nutmeg and also Painterly, another good chum and of course our grand tumble of children. Amazing experience really...the kind of thing that happens in books. There was a big pitcher of ice water, lots of fresh fruit, quilts on the grass, multiple hampers of goods, potato chips, chicken salad, fresh garden greens, goldfish in quantity and a bar of chocolate to share all around, not to mention plenty of babies to pass to any open lap.

All this sunshine has my brain desperately hung up on lemon. Somehow, even though they are ripe in winter and cheapest then and freshest then my mind craves the flavor right about now. To go along with the theme I have this song stuck in my head pretty much perpetually these days. Wish I could share Mason Jennings playing it with you but instead you get to hear this happy little ukulele dude cover it.

Dreaming of making a grand and floaty lemon meringue pie in July...and satiating myself by heading downstairs to mix up the dry portion of these for breakfast. I do so love muffins. And lemon poppyseed is my top, all-time favorite...I think. I also really love blueberry. I had lemon poppyseed muffins for the very first time, made from a really exciting Jiffy mix (mixes were verboten in our house) when I was a little girl by my very artistic and glamorous aunt with the corkscrew curls and the face splitting grin. She was an amazing aunt to have in your back pocket. She knew all kinds of fabulous people, collected black beach rocks, told breath-taking stories and loved chocolate intensely. I was somewhat adoring. And she made lemon poppyseed muffins for me and I was smitten and have loved them ever since.

And while we're on the lemon theme...what about this? Doesn't that look like fun? Can just imagine drizzling it over the fresh ravioli I'm going to make with herbs from my garden in July! Yay summer!

Coffee Break Breakfast

Made some lovely muffins yesterday...had to make some for a ladies breakfast event (MOPS) and so I used the excuse to try out three new recipes in one whack. Made carrot/currant spice muffins, allspice streusel muffins and then my new favorite, coffee break muffins. MMmmm....coffee somehow becomes extra yummy when you're pregnant and its on the restricted or complete taboo list. I'm not normally a coffee drinker, happily for A who avoids stringently in favor of drug-free purity. We don't even own a coffee maker so, any coffee I end up having is usually a special Starbucks treat drink. It has not been terribly helpful that we live right around the corner from a drive-thru Starbucks.

I tell people now that I never really understood why parents insisted that coffee kept them going....UNTIL I had two children. I get it. And friends, I was a stringent caffeine avoider with my first pregnancy and almost pure with Dee but this time around there have been mornings when I have made a beeline for that Starbucks with crossed eyes, knowing that if I didn't get a little coffee somehow, I'd never make it through using sharp knives, operating cars and other bits of daily parental life. I still am not by any means even a cup a day drinker but, I understand the value of the occasional upper and I've developed quite the taste for the flavor of our zippy star ingredient.

For those who are on their first child still....or morally object (like A)...you can of course use decaffeinated coffee in this recipe and look, they even sell decaf espresso powder. And that's what I used. Ahem. *cough cough*

But, seriously...these are really good. I like them best warm, split and spread generously with butter, eaten with a mug of milk. Very tasty and comforting. This comes to you from the fabulous Dorie Greenspan's excellent book Baking: From My Home To Yours.

Coffee-Break Muffins

2 c. of all purpose flour
1/3 c. of sugar
1 T. instant espresso powder
1 T. baking powder
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1/4 t. salt
1/3 c. (packed) light brown sugar
1 c. strong coffee, cooled
1 stick of melted butter, cooled
1 large egg
1/2 t. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Whisk together the dry ingredients, then add the liquids and whisk everything together quickly until well combined. A few lumps are better than overmixed batter. Divide evenly between muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes or until a thin knife comes out clean. Transfer to a rack and cool for five minutes before removing from muffin tin for eating! Yum!