I’d like everyone to know how dedicated I am to this blog. HOW dedicated, you ask? Dedicated enough to turn my oven on to 400 degrees, when my kitchen is already 90 degrees, just to make muffins to show to you. That, my friends, is dedication. See? And this is before I turned the oven on!
But, I have to admit, it was kind of worth it. These muffins are pretty tasty; they are surprisingly light and have a good texture to them – not too cakey or dense. Plus I loaded them up with enough blueberries to choke a horse. Assuming horses eat blueberries? I mean, I suppose they do, or would, if someone gave them some. In which case, they’d choke on these muffins.
I’ve been looking for something else to make with blueberries besides ghetto-cobbler [for real, last time I made cobbler, I didn't have flour, so I doctored some pancake mix and used that!] and realized that duh – muffins. Especially since I’ve had two over-priced muffins from the eateries in my office building as of late [I'm looking at you, Au Bon Pain]. So I searched the trusty allrecipes.com for a recipe that looked like what I wanted. Of course, me being me, I ended up with something entirely different.
The recipe I ended up making used sour cream, which intrigued me since I’ve liked using cream cheese and buttermilk in baked goods previously. So, off to the kitchen I went, with the recipe in hand. I did make a few alterations to the recipe, and still think there could be something else added for extra flavor – cardamom, maybe? – but regardless, they were worth the effort and gone very quickly.
Blueberry Cream Muffins
(my changes in bold)
2 eggs
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sour cream
2 cups blueberries
Zest and juice of one lemon
Preheat oven to 400. Zest and juice the lemon. Add to the blueberries. Beat eggs, gradually add both types of sugar. Then add the vanilla and oil. Once that’s all mixed, add in the sour cream. Then add the dry ingredients. Last, gently fold in the blueberries.
Yes, I know that the instructions I wrote are much simpler than the ones in the original recipe. I’m okay with that; while I’m sure there are a number of reasons for all the complicated mixing, I like my way just fine. Plus, 90 degrees in my kitchen.
Look at those! Bursting with blueberries. I probably did go a bit overboard, and next time would use 1.5 cups, but still. Blueberries baked into anything make me happy, and these muffins had plenty of that.
Archive for July, 2009
I can’t think of anything funny to say about blueberries.
Posted by Michelle on July 30, 2009
Posted in uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Carnitas means little meats.
Posted by Michelle on July 25, 2009
It also loosely translates into delicious, fyi.
For some reason, I usually end up making either some quasi-Mexican food or pasta for poker night. It’s always easy to make and it’s not too expensive to make for a large group (on poker night, we can go through 3 – 5 pounds of meat, along with whatever else I make). This time around, I decided to bust out the slow cooker my mother-in-law got me for Christmas and use it to to slow cook some pork for tacos.
I figured the rub probably couldn’t be screwed up, so I didn’t bother looking for a recipe. For the 4.5 pound pork shoulder that I bought, I used the following mix:
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons Mexican chili power
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon salt
That went onto the pork shoulder, and then I wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Then in the morning before I went to work, I tossed it [almost literally, I came pretty close to dropping it] into the slow cooker along with 2 cups of chicken stock. Now, before you say it, I know that traditional carnitas should be cooked in lard, but .. c’mon. I just can’t do it. I know it would have added more flavor, but it’s LARD. I am slowly broadening my cooking horizons, but I’m not there yet, dudes.
The pork shoulder cooked for just about 10 hours, and when I got home from work it was perfect. Tender enough to shred apart, still enough bite that it wasn’t just mush. Also? The rub was great. Next time I’ll probably cut the pork shoulder up into smaller pieces and sear those, so that the flavor really comes through.
After it was shredded, I threw it in the pan to crisp up a bit with some oil, to give it something closer to the traditional carnitas, with the crispy, almost caramelized edges and tender meat.
Once all of that was done, I served the carnitas with diced chicken breast [seasoned with salt, pepper and Mexican chili powder, with a splash of lime juice], refried beans, salsa, and corn on the cob.
This is a nice way to still keep the poker food budget down, but still also make something that’s a bit more creative than the typical stuff I’ve been making lately. I also liked the fact that it’s a pretty healthy meal and has great flavor from the pork and the fresh salsa.
Posted in meat, poker food, recipes | Tagged: carnitas, pork, pork shoulder, recipes, slow cooker, spice rub, tacos | 1 Comment »
Cake is actually the best part of a cupcake.
Posted by Michelle on July 17, 2009
With all due respect to my dear co-blogger, frosting is most certainly not the best part of a cupcake. They don’t call it a frostingcake, do they? Or a cupfrosting? No! Cup. Cake. Clearly, cake wins.
And let me tell you, this cake wins everything. It’s all those cliche things people always say about cake: it’s moist! It’s rich! It’s delicious! It has a delicate crumb! [What does that even mean? I always hear it being used in conjunction with cakes. Maybe I'm too much of a plebeian to get it?]
But I digress. This cake is really good. The recipe is courtesy of the same lady that gave me the pound cake recipe. I’m pretty sure she’s a baking genius.
I have to admit, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, but it was pretty damn close:
2 & ½ Cups of sifted flour
1 & ½ Cups of sugar
½ teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of coco
1 cup of buttermilk
1 & 1/2cups of Oil or (Soft Butter)
1 teaspoon of vinegar
2 eggs
1 ounce of Red food coloring
1 teaspoon of vanilla flavor
Preheat oven to 350. Cream together sugar and oil or (butter). Add eggs, beat well. Sift together flour, salt, and soda (set aside). Mix together food coloring, vinegar, and coco. Add to sugar and oil mixture. Add vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Blend well. Pour batter into two, well greased and floured pans, or spray with non-stick oil. Bake for 35 minutes. Cool.
I, of course, had to make cupcakes instead of cake. I always feel pressured when I make cake; that it has to rise perfectly, and there always seems to be so much of it. Cupcakes are way less pressure. Plus, they’re easier to carry to work, which is why I made them in the first place — it was my turn to bake for the department birthdays.
The only other change I made was to scale back a bit on the fat in the recipe. I used butter, but I only used two sticks [only! my husband was horrified and intrigued at having to take out two sticks of butter for me before I got home from work]. I also used slightly less sugar than listed, but didn’t cut back too much, since I wasn’t sure how that’d affect the taste. I feel like I could cut it by maybe a third of a cup and not have the taste affected too much.
See? I even spelled out “happy birthday” in little candy pieces. How precious am I? I also made one for the husband, because he looked all sad face at the thought of me bringing all the cupcakes to work. Yes, that is store bought frosting. Cream cheese frosting, which I’ve heard some people like on this cake and other people think is blasphemy. It works for me though, because I feel like it cuts some of the sweetness of the cake.
But seriously people, do yourself a favor and make this cake, in whatever form you want. Look at how beautiful it is!
Posted in baking, recipes | 5 Comments »
Lobster is love. Or somethin’.
Posted by Michelle on July 9, 2009
Let’s talk about lobster. The husband and I are big fans, and living in New England makes it even easier since there’s Maine lobster in abundance all around us. We’ve had baked stuffed lobster a few times lately in restaurants around Boston, and it’s of course always delicious. However, besides being delicious, it’s expensive. Like upwards of $40 per person expensive. Aren’t these things the cockroaches of the sea? Why are they so damn pricey? So you can imagine how pleased I was to see lobsters at $6.99/lb at our local grocery store. OBVIOUSLY, I had to get some. And get some I did! [Ed. Note: that's not as dirty as it sounds. (My mother-in-law reads this!)]
Before I bought the lobsters, I did some reason on making baked stuffed lobster – not a recipe, so much as .. you know. The stuffing part. As in, how do I go from live lobster to not so alive lobster with tasty stuffing in it. Unsurprisingly, it’s kind of gross. The internets told me that in order to properly make baked stuffed lobster, you take a live lobster, and cut it in half while it’s alive. The idea is that if you cut it where the head meets the body, it should kill it instantly and be a better way to kill it than boiling or steaming. While I’m sure that’s true, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. After some tense negotiations, the husband gave in to my pleas and his desire to stab things, and took the task in hand. My hero!
Once that was done, I got down to the enviable job of cleaning out the lobster. While some people still eat the tomalley, we’re not down with that. Maybe it’s that it looks like green goo, maybe it’s the sliminess of it. See? SLIMY. Also, I’ll spare you the pictures, but let me just say that the tomalley was the only part of the lobster that came out easily. When I was done cleaning them out, my countertop looked like I had butchered all sorts of things on it. Clearly my method needs practice.
Now, the stuffing recipe I used is from RecipeZaar. Neither of us were huge fans. Even though we had both shrimp and crab in the stuffing, there were way too many crackers. I think next time I’d use about a 1/3 of the amount listed, so that the shrimp and crab aren’t overwhelmed.
Even though the stuffing wasn’t quite what we wanted, it was still great to make a meal at home that we both really enjoy for half the cost of what we pay in a restaurant. Although, I’m not gonna lie, next time I might parboil the lobster and then cut it in half, because I’m a wimp.
Posted in seafood | Tagged: baked stuffed lobster, crab, lobster, shrimp | 2 Comments »
