Apple almond mini muffins (GFCF, dye-free)

These have become a breakfast favorite.

They're dead easy to make, but they do require spensy almond meal.  Here's the neat thing...the recipe is basically a densely filled baked quiche.  Predominantly an egg base with finely milled/grated stuff suspended heavily within.  GF oatmeal can substitute for part of the almond meal if you so desire (Bob's Red Mill has certified GF oatmeal; McCann's...my preferred oatmeal brand, gf or not, processes in dedicated facilities but does not have an official GF certification).

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Oxtail Scrapple

Scrapple gets a bad rap.  Full disclosure: I've never had any but homemade, so maybe it's on account of packaged store-bought versions.  Full disclosure: I'm not squicked out by the idea of making foodstuffs out of all edible parts (like ears, feets and tails), and in fact, I rather think it's irresponsible consumership not to.  Full disclosure: I'm not from Pennsylvania (whence hails scrapple as a regional dish), so I haven't a clue whether what I make is anything like "the real thing".

I think it's largely a linguistic problem..."scrapple" is a hideous-sounding word.  I've successfully served this dish as "breakfast meatloaf" to people who squeal like five-year-olds at the word "scrapple".  When you frame it as "fried herbed polenta with braised pork", it sounds like something out of Food & Wine Magazine.  Words matter, yo.

At its core, scrapple is nothing more than a grain (like cornmeal) cooked with broth and herbs (this is called "polenta" if you're Italian or "cornmeal mush" if you're Southern American, and I never hear "Jimmy's in my AIR SPACE!" squealing about those dishes) and some finely chopped meat, usually from a very bony part that's hard to cook in any way other than boiling (i.e. the "scraps" of the animal), then chilled in a loaf pan, then sliced and lightly fried.  The exact blend of grains (sometimes buckwheat is used), the particular herbs and what meat "scraps" are used may differ.  

I've made this recipe with pork neck bones, pork shoulder and beef oxtail. I like oxtail the best...the more bony the part, the more gelatin is extracted in the cooking process and the richer the final dish is.  I've not done it, but I would imagine this would be an ideal way to use parts highly gelatinous parts like trotters or pig ears without the dish being too, well, trotter-y or ear-ish.

I also like getting the meat part cooked in a crockpot because who has time to sit around for 2-3 hours babysitting a simmering pot o' oxtail?  Crockpot-ing also keeps the meat especially tender and easy to pull off the bones.

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Shakshuka

I've seen and made multiple versions of the eggs-poached-in-chunky-sauce meal...one with a bed of sauteed spinach and mushrooms, another with caramelized shallots and a marsala-beef consomme reduction, among others.  This one is a recipe from the cookbook Jerusalem by Ottolenghi that uses a stovetop-simmered pepper-tomato sauce as the poaching bed.  A similar sauce that would probably also work well for cooking eggs this way is this roasted red pepper sauce.

The original recipe calls for harissa, a super-spicy pepper paste, that I don't have on hand.  I used some minced jalapeno and ginger from my freezer stash to bring a little heat and depth of flavor to the sauce.  If you like things hotter, use more or hunt down some harissa.

To chop your pepper finely enough for this dish, I highly recommend using the food processor.  Pulse quickly and stop short of pureeing them.  If you use canned tomatoes instead of fresh, drain them very well to shorten the cooking time needed to thicken the sauce.

I like how quickly the sauce went together and how well this recipe lends itself well to prepping ahead and freezing ahead.  You can chop all the ingredients for the sauce ahead of time and fridge them, or make the sauce completely in advance.  If you're going to freeze the sauce, you can even freeze it in individual portions for a quick meal-for-one.  Just bring the sauce back up to a simmer (from its frozen state even!), crack an egg into the sauce, cover and simmer 8-10 minutes.  Probably this thaw-and-poach process could even be managed in microwave...I don't know offhand how long to zap an egg to poach it, but if you do, let me know!

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Pear Muffins

Pears are available year-round, but fall really is pear season.  My favorite way to eat pears is actually a no-recipe dish...a fully, juicy, tender ripe pear sliced thinly with thin slices of Havarti cheese.  I'll eat that for breakfast, dessert, snack, you name it. 

Pears are a valuable addition to one's diet for reasons other than their deliciousness though. 

WARNING: things are about to get a little gross. 

Pears contain sorbitol which is a natural osmotic laxative (the type of laxative that "just makes it easier to go", as the commercials say).  So do prunes and plums, but I know a lot of folks are anti-prune even though you shouldn't be...but that's another post.

If you're thinking about prepping some snacks and meals ahead in preparation for having a baby, pears should be on your list somehow.  If you've just ejected another human being from your body, whether via the baby chute or through the "sunroof", chances are there's gonna be some issues in the osmotic laxative department (personal experience speaking here).  If you're helping someone who is laid up after a surgery or long illness, chance are they're having some issues in the osmotic laxative department.  If you're caring for an elderly person, chances are...well, you get it.  Medication (particularly pain medication), surgeries, inactivity due to injury or bed rest, dehydration from illness, normal aging all tend to cause constipation, and pears will help.

OK, enough poop talk.  Pears are good for what ails you.

I've frozen batches of these muffins before just as is.  They are gooood, but get a little soggy on top in the freezer.  I've played with different ways to freezer-fortify them, and what I've come up with is a good solution I think that can be applied to any type of muffin.  A streusel topping that incorporates nuts or coconut will stand up to the freezer pretty well.  The nuts/coconut doesn't lose crunch and keeps the otherwise-soggy muffin tops covered up.

You can always make the batter and freeze it for later baking which totally side-steps the freezer-sog problem, but it does require back-end time to bake.  If you freeze before baking, spoon the batter into paper cupcake liners in a muffin pan.  Freeze the whole pan, then remove the filled liners to a ziptop bag for storage.  To thaw, put the liner-cups in the muffin pan while still frozen and let thaw in the fridge or at room temp.

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Sausage Apple Pie

This is one of my husband's favorite dishes, and has become a favorite of everyone I've shared it with.  Sausage, apples and cheese may seem like a strange combination, but think about it...pork and apples are a pretty common combination as are cheese and apples.  There's a culinary syllogism here, and trust me, it works! 

I like using hot sausage to offset the sweetness of the pie filling with extra sharp cheddar, but feel free to substitute mild sausage or another type of cheese.

This pie reheats beautifully, so it is ideal for make-ahead breakfast, brunch or dinner.  Serve with fruit salad before noon and green salad after noon :D  It also can be frozen in its assembled-unbaked state or after baking.

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Lemon Sweet Rolls

That sounds contradictory, doesn't it?  The lemon filling on these sweet yeast rolls is tartly sweet, and the yeast roll is just delicious.  Sort of like a grown-up cinnamon bun.  The recipe is originally from the Argo Cornstarch recipe book and calls for a gooey sweet cream cheese frosting which I left off, but feel free to make it as instructed or use a store-bought cream cheese frosting.

This recipe requires some planning as the dough is a yeast-leavened dough.  However, you can do all the raising over a period of several hours in the refrigerator if that works better.  You can also make this up to the point of slicing the rolled dough and freeze the slices!!  Just arrange them in a pan to freeze, take it out at night and put it in the fridge to thaw/raise overnight, then bake in the morning.  Or make them totally ahead the night before for instant yummy breakfast in the morning.

This is also a handy way to use up a bit more of your Thanksgiving leftovers...1 pan of the rolls needs 1/2 cup of spuds.  Just be sure to use pretty plain cream-and-butter mashed potatoes (or bake a medium potato in the microwave to mash) rather than a heavily herbed or garlicked version.

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Pumpkin Soup and Pumpkin Muffins

Oh look!  There I am, reflected upside down, in the spoon!

I was reading a newspaper article recently that claimed Halloween was the only "major" American holiday that didn't have a signature food or meal associated with it...Thanksgiving has turkey, Mother's Day has brunch, St. Patrick's Day has green beer, the list just goes on LOL

That statement rang true at first, but as I thought more about it, I realized Halloween does have a signature food...the pumpkin!  I think most of us tend to think of pumpkins as edible only in pie form, but they're part of the winter squash family and as such, are versatile menu players. 

Peeling a fresh whole pumpkin for a recipe is an undertaking, and I prefer when possible to use canned puree (not pumpkin pie filling which is actual pumpkin plus a bunch of other stuff).  The following recipe for soup (which I made for our pre-trick-or-treating repast) only calls for 1/2 a can, so I made muffins with the remaining puree...less waste = less cost = less aggravation.  I am brilliant ;)

The soup recipe is from the Frugal Gourmet Cooks American.  You can make this soup up to the point of adding the scallops and milk and fridge or freeze it (be sure to include scallops and milk as part of the freezer kit to finish the soup).  Just reheat the soup base to a simmer, add the milk and scallops and simmer 5 minutes to finish.  Or if you don't have front-end time to make the soup in its entirety, prep and group the ingredients for next-day or same-day cooking: onion/celery/garlic/ginger in one bowl, flour/spices in another, stock/Worcestershire/Tabasco in a bowl, pumpkin/squash cubes in yet another and scallops/milk saved for last. 

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Sneaky Apple Muffins

You don't *have* to be sneaky about these muffins, if you don't want.  You *could* just tell everyone that they're whole wheat and that there's zucchini in them...or just keep that tidbit to yourself.  If you use green apples, the visible zucchini peel will totally pass for apple.  You *could* even flat-out lie and make this with all zucchini and still tell 'em it's apple ::shhh::

I used thawed frozen shredded zucchini from my garden bonanza.  If you grate up a fresh zucch for this, be sure to press as much moisture out as you can.  The zucchini will be a little "toothier" in the muffins if it's fresh, too.  You'll need a small apple and half a small zucchini for the amounts called for.

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Marsala baked eggs



French name: Oeufs en cocotte au vin

The original recipe is from a book about French "homestyle" cooking (as opposed to fancy-schmancy restaurant cooking).  It calls for Madeira wine, which I wasn't able to find the first time I made the recipe.  I used dry Marsala instead and have it that way ever since, as it was delicious!  I also think you could use Champagne for an ultra-luxe version of this dish...just leave out the tomato paste and substitute chicken for beef stock.  Other subsitutes include the original Madeira or another semi-dry red wine.

Shallots figure very prominently here and their particular flavor comes through very nicely, so it's worthwhile to procure some.  They don't taste exactly the same as onions (though I also don't go in for that "halfway between onion and garlic" description either), but if you absolutely cannot find shallots, use a quarter of a medium onion for each shallot.

In terms of make-ahead planning, you could double or triple  the sauce and freeze it ahead in portions that suit your family's appetite.  My husband thinks 2 eggs is one serving, while I think 1 egg is one serving, so I make 5 egg cups for the 4 of us.  Also the more you scale the recipe up, the more of the Marsala you'll use...one 750ml bottle will make this recipe about 3 times, or you can save it to use in dishes like Chicken Marsala or Marsala-glazed carrots.

Last note, you'll need some ceramic or Pyrex baking cups for this.  The classic ones are straight-sided ceramic cups that hold about 6 or 8 oz.  They're easy to fit 4 at a time into an 8x8 pan for the water bath they'll bake in, but in a pinch you can use ceramic coffee cups instead. 


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Grapenut custard

I had this dessert at the Scargo Cafe in Dennis, MA while on vacation attending my brother's wedding.  Delicious!  And I'm assured by Massachusetts-ians that this is a bona fide regional specialty rather than some BS branding strategy hatched by the State Department of Tourism (Indiana Hardwoods, anyone?). 

This is a great way to use up a large number of eggs, if you find yourself with a surplus (you know who you are out there, you chicken-raisers).  I think this could be made with whatever cereal you want, though using, say, Cocoa Krispies would detract from the authenticity of the dish.  If you want to make a half recipe (this does make a lot, but it keeps well in the fridge), halve all the ingredients...I'd use 5 large eggs or 4 jumbo...and bake this in an 8x8 dish.  Start checking for doneness after 60 minutes. 

The Scargo Cafe's recipe is found here, but I thought it was lacking in, er, directions. Here are my directions. 

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Quiche

Quiche is a glory of the kitchen.  It can be as budget-friendly or budget-busting as you want, made with humble chopped ham, caramelized onions and grated cheddar cheese or with luxe smoked salmon, asparagus and chèvre.  It is a perfect vehicle for upcycling leftover cooked meats and veggies.  It can be vegetarian and completely seasonal.  It can be prepped ahead in a pie plate for same day cooking, fully cooked and reheated for next day service or assembled as a kit for the freezer.  It plays well for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or midnight snack.  And it's as easy to make two as it is to make one, so you can double the ingredients to make one for dinner right now and freeze the second.

Some suggested filling combinations: ham with caramelized onions and cheddar, chicken with sauteed mushrooms and pepper jack, leftover pork roast and sauteed zucchini with swiss, leftover salmon and thawed frozen spinach with goat cheese, canned tuna and peas with American, roasted butternut squash and white beans with havarti, diced cooked bacon and radicchio with provolone, sliced baked potato and bacon with bleu cheese.

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Breakfast cookies

I was feeling stuck in a pancake/waffle/muffin/fruit/yogurt rut with the kids' breakfasts (and eggs before noon make me feel blarky), so I thought I'd give these a whirl.  I'm not sure I can say that this is an adaptation of the original recipe, since there are only 3 ingredients that are the same, but the *idea* comes from Natalie Haughton's Cookies.  You can store them in the fridge or freezer.  The kids scarfed them down this morning.

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Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

I originally saw this recipe in a Washington Post article about lesser known traditional Hanukkah foods.  While I am genuinely interested in food as ritual, what I like most about this dish is the fact that you can completely mix up the batter in advance (as opposed to conventional pancakes which require segregation of the wet and dry ingredients until the last minute). 

That, and I had a pound of ricotta cheese that was about to expire.

Serve these in sweet fashion with fruit or syrup, or in savory fashion with crême fraîche or sour cream.

The finished pancakes are freezable. I suspect the batter would be, too, though I've never tried it.

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Berry Good Smoothie

"It smell delicious!" says my almost-3yo.  He has no clue there are beets in it...shhhh!!  This is my latest attempt to slip more vegetables into my kids' snacking routines.  You can use whatever combo of berries you wish, just be sure to get about 3-4 cups of berries total.

This recipe makes a lot of mix.  I needed 4 full ice cube trays to stash it all.  It also has a high mess/stain factor, and I'd use paper towels or a red dish cloth to mop up after yourself.  Be prepared.

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Mixed Grain Granola

We've hit the time of year that if I need to turn on the oven for dinner, I'll go ahead and make something else that requires the oven at the same time.  If you're going to heat up the house, you might as well make the most of it and avoid doing it again later.

Since I had to bake tofu for dinner tonight, I decided to make some granola too.  This is a recipe from Martha Stewart's Favorite Comfort Foods (gotta say, she and I have really different ideas about what constitutes a "comfort food" in general).  I change ingredients to use what I have on hand and I always make a double batch and freeze half.  It's like the oven...if you're going to the trouble, you might as well get twice the use out of it.  It's yummy eaten like cereal with milk, sprinkled into yogurt or eaten out of hand as a snack.

Martha calls for oatmeal, soy flakes and wheat flakes.  I don't think I've ever found soy flakes, but I've used quinoa flakes, barley flakes, wheat flakes and "mixed grain cereal".  It's all basically like oatmeal, but made with grains other than oats.  You might need a trip to a natural foods store to find alternate grain cereals, or you might find them in the natural foods or "special diet" section of your grocery store.  You can just use all oatmeal, but the mixture of grains brings nutritional variety as well as different flavors.  Just be sure to get 6 cups total of grains.

If you plan to freeze part or all of this recipe, try not to break the granola up too much as you bag it.  I don't recommend using a vacuseal bag as the pressure of the vacusealer will smash the granola into near-dust.

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Zucchini Tomato Frittata

I betcha you haven't thought about freezing eggs before.  They're so easy, why bother...right?  Because they do expire, and they do run out, and if you want something more than plain ol' fried, you need to have other stuff on hand. 

In other words, it saves a trip to the grocery store on those days when you decide to get dressed at 9am and don't have a chance to do it until noon (that was my first day home alone with two kids under 2, about a week after the birth of Boy-o #2) or during weeks where you try for 3 days straight to put more toilet paper in the downstairs bathroom and just can't manage to do it (that was last week).  If you don't have days and weeks like this, congratulations, here's your trophy, now scram.

A frittata is started on the stovetop and finished in the oven.  I do it under the broiler as my pans are broiler-proof.  If yours aren't because they're non-stick pans, you can bake the frittata at 400F for about 10 minutes to finish it.  If only the handle is not broiler-proof, you can wrap the plastic handle in foil and still put it under the broiler.

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Breaking News: Toddler Eats Vegetables

In case anyone thought I was exaggerating about E liking smoothies with spinach...

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Bacon Candy

I pretty much only use the oven to cook bacon any more.  If I need just a piece of two, I'll fry it or nuke it, but to do up a pound of bacon, the oven is the easiest way to go.  I put extra bacon (for a family of 3 bacon-consumers, a pound should produce leftovers, ahem) in a ziptop bag in the fridge for sandwiches or snacks later in the week.

Baking also lends itself well to making what I call "bacon candy".  I do not recommend making this a frequent part of your normal breakfast, but every now and then isn't so bad.  Please consume bacon responsibly ;-)
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Microwave Pumpernickel Muffins

These are not too bad.  What a ringing endorsement, huh?  Haha!  But did anyone else try those microwave cake kits in approximately 1987?  Blark.  These muffins do not suffer from the same ills I recall from microwave baking 20+ years ago.  Microwaves are famous for not browning food, but these delicious whole grain muffins don't need extra browning.  The microwave leaves the muffins extra tender and of course, it's unbelievably fast, kid-friendly baking without heating up your house.  I also experimented with freezing the uncooked batter and baking single muffins from their frozen state...results are a little ugly, but still tasty.  I think these may enter the lineup of quick ready-made breakfast/snack options.

This is a recipe I dredged up out of a 1980's era cookbook, but unfortunately I don't have the citation.  The only adaptations I've made are to use what I routinely keep in my pantry/freezer and to make the whole process a little less fussy. 

I was a bit short on my 3 oz. of cream cheese when I tested these on account of a certain Little Dude liberating some of the product and giving himself a little moisturizing cream cheese facial in the middle of Meijer, but I think it turned out okay.  I think using a teaspoonful of prepared flavored cream cheese would be on point here, too--the muffins are not so insistently pumpernickel-y that a sweet fruity cream cheese would be out of place, but they are savory enough to support a garlic-and-herb type of filling as well. 
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Green smoothie

I have been scheming ways to get more vegetables onto our snacking menu, and I now give you Green  (honeydew-spinach) Smoothies.  No, it does not taste like spinach.  I promise.  It tastes like sweet honeydew lightly accented with cardamom. 

I recommend scoping out your produce section to see if they have a "clearance" area.  I rescued a container of pre-chunked honeydew that was on its last good day (and was thusly discounted); this is the BEST fruit for this type of recipe because it is super-duper ripe, soft and sweet.  And on sale, ka-ching!  And you're saving perfectly good produce from being thrown away.  Fruit rescue perhaps isn't as emotionally fulfilling as animal rescue, say, but it does put me in a dancing mood.

You want to get the spinach pureed as smoothly as possible so the texture doesn't rat you out.  I did pretty well with pureeing the spinach with the honeydew, but next time I'd zap the spinach in the microwave for a few seconds to make sure it's really soft and whiz it in the food processor by itself first to get it even smoother.  My instructions reflect that planned change of procedure.  As with the other smoothie recipe detailed on this blog, you'll need 2 or 3 ice cube trays to freeze the mixture.

Honeydew-Spinach Smoothies
Makes 7 toddler-size smoothies or about 3 adult-size smoothies

1 10-oz. box frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 cup apple juice
1 lb. cubed very ripe honeydew (about 4 cups)
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp cardamom
1 cup vanilla yogurt

Put thawed, squeezed spinach in a microwave-safe container and zap for about 10 seconds.  Squeeze again.  Put spinach in a food processor and add a tbsp or so of apple juice.  Puree until very smooth.  Add honeydew and puree again until smooth.  Add cardmom, sugar and yogurt and puree again.  Pour mixture into a container with a pouring spout and stir in the remaining apple juice.  Pour into ice cube trays and freeze.



Kitchen Assistant (optional)

 To make a smoothie: Put 3-4 cubes in a blender with 1/2 cup water (for a toddler portion), or 6-8 cubes with 1 cup water (for an adult portion).  Blend and serve. Pin It