These muffins are not the kind that jump up and shout, ‘notice me.’ Perhaps because they are made from an English tea, they have a more reserved presence. The flavors are subtle and mild, a quiet blend, but still making themselves known. Don’t misunderstand, these English tea muffins may be understated and simple, but they are far from Plain Jane. READ MORE
TALYA BOERNER: ROASTED SWEET POTATOES AND BROCCOLI
This roasted sweet potato and broccoli is oh so much more than roasted sweet potato and broccoli. It’s step one in my quest to cook a new dish every week during 2017. If you read regularly, you know my One Little Word for 2017 is Savor. (Savour for those of you in the UK.) And part of savoring is eating good clean food like a civilized human being at the table using one of the many, many dishes I hoard. READ MORE
DEBBIE ARNOLD: IRISH LAMB PASTIES
I’m ready to move away from heavy stews and braises in favor of lighter fare. Lamb is abundant in the markets I frequent, and I’m making use of the availability and lower prices. These Irish Lamb Pasties which I developed recently for Riceland Foods, are a super way to have a fairly quick meal on the table with relative ease. Pasties are a traditional Irish hand-held sandwich, typically made of pork. We actually prefer ground lamb. They can even be made ahead and kept in the freezer. Plus, you can use leftovers to make them. READ MORE
Throughout June we’ve been celebrating tart, red-ripened, delicious raspberries, and I’ve been humming “Raspberry Beret” the entire month. Can’t help it, y’all.
Now you’re humming along as well, I bet. Or singing. I admire you if you are.
One of our favorites for the short summer season of fresh raspberries is a Fresh Raspberry Sorbet. Less caloric than an ice cream, sorbet tempts you into thinking you can eat it with abandon. Well, maybe not. But it is light and refreshing on the palate.
And it’s summer. And the raspberries are in season. To find out how I make my Fresh Raspberry Sorbet, read more.
There have been so many delicious raspberry recipes this month. I hope you’ve taken the time to give them a try and to thank our Foodie Friday participants for going the extra mile to share those with you.
Renee and I pretty much had the same idea of bringing that raspberry goodness to a sorbet. I’m thinking you should try both — twice the love, ya’ know.
After eating our fill of cake and sorbet, Connie and Lyndi helped us out by bringing something healthy to the table. I’m thinking Connie’s Quick Raspberry Muffins would make a nice addition to a Fourth of July breakfast or brunch,
As soon as the first hint of pumpkins emerges from the farms, my son is going down the list asking for his favorite pumpkin recipes. He can’t quite seem to get enough pumpkin anything in the fall. His first request this year was for pumpkin crumble muffins! They are his all-time favorite fall treat. In his words, they are scrum-dittili–umptious. I would have to say I agree.
There is nothing like having an entire house filled with the amazing aroma of fall. The spice combination that fills the muffins are warm, tickling your taste buds.
As I pulled these from the oven, the children waited rather impatiently. Once they were placed on the cooling rack, their patience was tried even more. “How many pictures are you going to take?” echoed from their lips. I snapped several photos, and caved. They just smelled too good to not savor them warm.
The best thing about this recipe, other than eating them, is the fact that they are so simple. You don’t even need a mixer, just a bowl and spoon!
Line a muffin pan with liners or lightly oil the inside of each cupcake indention and set aside.
Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Stir and set aside.
Combine all wet ingredients together.
Stir in the dry ingredients until the mixture in just combined; fold in the chocolate chips.
Spoon the batter evenly into each tin.
For the crumb topping
Combinethe dry ingredients for your crumb topping
Add in the coconut oil and stir with a fork until it starts to form crumbs.
Divide the mixture over the muffins.
Loosely cover the tops of the muffins with foil and bake for 10 minutes; remove foil and continue to bake for 17-20 minutes.
Notes
As tempting as it is, allow them to cool slightly before diving in!
By Amanda Fiveash
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
What is your favorite pumpkin recipe?
Amanda was born in Arkansas and although lived in several other states, returned home to put down roots before starting her own family in Northern Arkansas. Her blog, Our Homemade Life is a creative outlet to share her adventures in motherhood from making messes with crafts and in the kitchen to homeschooling and their love of family travel. You can connect with Amanda on Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest & Facebook.
By Shellie Morettini of Blueberry Acres, also a member of MOWomenBloggers
Giving up canned pumpkin and making some great muffins to boot!
Pumpkins! It’s the call of fall in our household. Our littleBlueberry can sniff out a pumpkin patch like some kids know when you are hiding chocolate in the house. As a result, we find that we enjoy many pumpkin-centric treats at this time of year. But while we long ago gave up canned pumpkin, I have discovered that a great many home cooks still rely on canned when fresh is so much more amazing!
If you are thinking about trying to be a little more conscious with your food, finding fresh local produce from small farmers like us is a fantastic way to not only get to know your neighbors but it’s also a smart way to help your kids better connect with the food they eat.
To start, pick out some midsize pumpkins. If you have a choice, I recommend sugar pumpkins. They are typically easy to find and available both at farmer’s markets and your local mega mart.
Slice off the tops and then scoop out the interior. Once clean, bake flesh side up in a 350 degree oven for 20-35 minutes. Some recipes will suggest oiling them or seasoning them. I like to just roast them dry.
Just keep an eye on the pumpkins after 20 minutes to ensure that they don’t burn. A little bit of carmelization is a good thing but you don’t want them to look like the crazy tanning lady.
Once they have cooked and cooled, you can scoop out the flesh and discard the skin, or if you are like me, make some happy little Berkshire piggies happy by giving them the leftover pumpkin.
I just love those piggies and will use any excuse to show pictures of them: Wilbur, Spot, White Fur, Stinky and Hubert (he’s French), our baby barrow Berkshire piggies. I love them. And yes, I will eat them too…but I digress.
From there, you can freeze the flesh or use it right away. I’m more of an instant gratification kind of gal, so I made muffins with my freshly cooled pumpkin. And when I say muffins, let’s be honest…I mean cupcakes that I call muffins so I feel a little better about myself.
Blueberry’s favorite Pumpkin Muffins
For the muffins:
1 cup room temperature butter
1 ½ cups pumpkin puree
1 to 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
2 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 large eggs
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
2 ½ cups AP flour
½ to ¾ cup instant rolled oats
For the topping:
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons AP flour
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter, sugar and pumpkin together with an electric or stand mixture. Then add eggs and mix until thoroughly incorporated. In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients.
After you have mixed your dry ingredients, slowly incorporate them into your wet mixture. The dough should be wet but not overly wet. Think cookies versus cake. From there, scoop into muffin cups-about 2/3 full. From there, mix all of your topping ingredients in a separate bowl and spoon generously on top of your muffins before baking for about 20-25 minutes. I’ll be honest; this isn’t a great shot of the muffins. By the time I took this, I had downed several of them…in the name of research, of course! However, all of that sugar made me a little jumpy. Sigh. The things I do for blogging.
While you can absolutely buy pre-ground spices, I strongly recommend that you invest in one of these cool little things:
I cannot tell you how much I love this little grater. And if you are wondering what the heck that is in my needing to be manicured hand, its nutmeg. Once you have smelled freshly grated nutmeg, you will want it on and in everything. The little plastic jars of spices cannot hold a candle to this. In addition, this little grater can also help you discover the joy of freshly grated cinnamon
I was trying to be so cool and give you an action shot here of me grating fresh cinnamon into the mix. However, shortly after I snapped this, I managed to grate about half of my finger into the mix. You will note that I didn’t include that in the ingredient list. You are welcome.
What I really love about these muffins is that they are idiot proof, and frankly, living my life, I need more things that are idiot proof. The first time I made this recipe, I forgot the baking soda and powder but they still turned out like rock stars…or rocks, but at least tasty rocks. If you wanted to riff on this recipe, you could substitute applesauce for some or all of the butter. You could also swap out whole wheat flour for all-purpose flour. In addition, you could omit some of the sugar. Bottom line is that there are many ways to make and remake this recipe..just get in the kitchen and bake! Shellie Morettini, a member of ARWB and MOWomenBloggers, is a Mom/Wife/Farmer/Consultant whose daily life screams “portfolio career” whether she likes it or not. Her family is sharing their journey from a hectic city life to a more bucolic life on their little farm, Blueberry Acres where they raise heritage chickens and turkeys, Berkshire pigs, Belted Galloway cows, organic produce and one 5 year old nicknamed The Blueberry. To help support her husband’s livestock obsession, Shellie maintains a virtual practice where she offers outplacement, resume writing, job search and recruitment consulting to both individuals and organizations. She rants blogs about job search and recruiting topics at Looking2Landed.
Shellie has been featured on MSNBC, Modern Homesteaders and her mother’s fridge among other places. She always welcomes an excuse not to clean chicken yards, so feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.
Perusing my collection of cookbooks you’d probably find it interesting seeing Disney’s Family Cookbook {link: http://www.amazon.com/Disneys-Family-Cookbook-Irresistible-Recipes/dp/078686382X } amongst all the other more grown-up cookbooks. I bought it fifteen or sixteen years ago when I was a nanny. I loved cooking and baking for my charges and this particular cookbook was fabulous for baking with kids.
It’s filled with simple, tasty recipes easy enough for kids to help with, whether it’s scooping flour, mixing batters, or even just licking the spoon. The book is filled with large, colorful photographs, easy-to-read recipes, and comes spiral bound for easy maneuvering. The outside cover is durable enough to stand up to sticky hands {as evidenced by my much used copy} and splatters wipe off easily.
I remember making these multiple times and enjoying them every time. With this batch, however, I received only mediocre results. The muffins were better eaten immediately after baking, but seemed dry after a few hours. Reheating didn’t seem to help. Also, I would definitely recommend adding 2 teaspoons of jam instead of the as-written one teaspoon.
I was slightly disappointed that they just didn’t taste the way I remembered them! So, I asked myself how I could make them better and this is what I heard:
“Self, what goes with peanut butter better than anything??” And, I answered! Chocolate.
I added five “chunks” of Nestle Tollhouse Chunks per muffin. In retrospect, I could have added at least five more.
I liked the chocolate better, but sadly, they were still a tad too dry for my liking. Any foodies out there have any suggestions how to improve this recipe?
Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Muffins {Foodie Friday} Written by Kelly Peterson of Kelly’s Pink Bicycle.
I’m not a gluten-free expert. In fact, if there was a level below novice, I’d be in that category. But we have recently found that my husband appears to be somewhat gluten-intolerant, and since I love him very much I am learning to cook with his needs in mind.
However, gluten-free baking is INTIMIDATING. I didn’t realize how many different types of flours existed until I began scanning through gluten-free recipes for bread, donuts, pastries, and cakes. I’ve been sticking to lots of rice and vegetable dishes because they’re healthy and easy to make, but this past weekend I decided to venture outside my comfort zone and bake.
I decided to start small with my version of gluten-free chocolate chip muffins, adapted from a recipe from Arrowhead Mills. You could easily make them bigger (they’re pretty small) by filling the muffin tins all the way to the top, and lengthening the oven time to 25 minutes or so. You could also do all kinds of fillings – I used chocolate chips and dried cranberries, but I bet they’d be amazing with blueberries, chopped apples, shredded coconut, or even crunchy peanut butter!
My husband gave them a thumbs up, and he’s a pretty picky eater. I hope you like them!
Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Muffins (makes 15)
Ingredients
2 cups gluten-free baking mix (I used Arrowhead Mills Gluten-Free Pancake & Baking Mix)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp xantham gum
3 Tbsp milled flax seed
1 egg
¼ cup honey
¾ cup water
¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla
¼ cup gluten-free chocolate chips
¼ cup chopped dried cranberries
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the first 4 ingredients.
In a small bowl, mix together all wet ingredients (egg, honey, water, applesauce, and vanilla)
Pour liquid mixture into bowl with dry ingredients and mix only until lumps are gone.
Mix in the chocolate chips and cranberries (don’t over mix!).
Fill oiled muffin tins ¾ full with muffin mixture. The mixture will be thick.
Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.
Kelly is in love with her husband, her cookbooks, and her bread machine. When she’s not reading The Hunger Games or trying to sprout her own lentils, she can typically be found spending way too much time on Facebook and Twitter. You can read more at Kelly’s Pink Bicycle.
Written by ARWB February 2012 Blogger of the Month, Gina Knuppenburg of 
