A Little Bit of Everything

I've been a little uninspired to blog lately. I don't feel like any one thing that has happened is worthy of an entire blog post, but I have been taking a few pictures of things thinking I  might eventually feel inspired to blog. So here is a post about a little bit of everything, home, food and a baby thrown in at the end. Enjoy.

We recently bought a big clothes drying contraption at Costco. Its main use will be for drying baby diapers because the sun works as a natural bleaching and deodorizing tool. It also seemed a little more earth friendly since you have to run cloth diapers through the dryer several times to get them completely dry. One problem this has brought up though is that clothing that is line dried tends to be scratchy and stiff. Am I doing something wrong? People talk about how wonderful line dried sheets are, but if they are anything like line dried diapers then I have to imagine slipping into line dried sheets would be rather scratchy and uncomfortable. I've started putting them in the dryer on a heat less cycle after they are dry just to soften them up, but this sort of defeats the purpose and seems like a ridiculous extra step. I would try fabric softener but everything online says those will lessen the absorbency of the diaper. Any ideas?

In food related news, I made a fool the other day. A fool is a simple old fashion dessert that is basically a fruit compote folded into whipped cream. I know I'm not suppose to be eating dairy right now, but I had a bowl full of fresh picked strawberries sitting on my counter and couldn't resist trying it. I think this would have worked better with a tart fruit (the original recipe called for rhubarb) or one with more body, but it was still pretty delicious. I also saw some ideas online for strawberry fools that add a little basil to it. I wasn't feeling brave the day I made this so I left it out, but next time I'll add it. Whatever fruit you choose to use, this would be a great way to use up leftover cream. It always seems like during the holidays I have recipes that call for a cup of cream and then I have to find uses for the rest. Generally it ends up being a treat in my morning coffee, but this could be a fun way to change it up.

Ok, so if you know how to make whipped cream you don't really need a recipe for this one, but here ya go. I didn't measure anything when I was making this but these general amounts made two big fools (hey wait a minute...). I think next time I'd use something more the size of a whiskey glass. These could be a great way to make a pretty dessert for a dinner party without a lot of effort because you could do that fruit ahead of time and just whip up the cream after dinner.

Strawberry Fool "Recipe"

ingredients

+/- 1 cup of whipping cream
1-2 tbsp. powdered sugar
a splash of vanilla extract

+/- 2 cups of strawberries quartered
2 tbsp. sugar

1) Wash and quarter the strawberries and then add the sugar. Allow to sit for at least a half and hour until they get juicy. Then, mash them with a fork.

2) Add remaining ingredients to a bowl and whip with an electric mixer until its the consistency of thick whipped cream. You'll want it a little stiffer  than you would normally make it because its going to sit for a bit.

3) Layer ingredients in a glass and then spiral a spoon down into it and back up. Refrigerate for a half and hour and then enjoy with a couple of shortbread cookies.

And now on to Baby. She's been having mild but continuing diaper rash issues lately so I've been trying to give her some diaper free time every day. While we still haven't been able to completely clear up the rash, it has led to some cute pictures.

Well that's it for my jumbled theme-less blog post. Hope you all are having more inspired weeks than me!

Lemon Bundt Cake with Boozy Berries

Hello friends, I know what you're all thinking. Why oh why do you have to look at so many adorable baby posts when what you really want is a tasty recipe or garden post. Well fear now more, today I have a fun summer recipe for you that also happens to involve alcohol. You're welcome.

I have been neglecting my strawberry patch this year. I'm pretty sure many a good berry has been eaten by birds or withered in the sun because I haven't gotten to it in time. While that thought makes me sad, it is simply the reality right now while I learn how to be a mom and a garderner and a housewife and an individual and a...well you get the idea. All in all I'm pretty pleased with the amount I have been able to get done in the garden so far, and I was very excited to notice a decent little crop of berries just as a friend was coming to stay the night. I was able to whip up this cake and berry combo quickly and it made a great dessert to cap off a lovely summer day. The boozy berries were inspired by this post from David Lebovitz and the cake from this Southern Living recipe.

I used butter to grease my pan and did not dust it with flour. This resulted in an awesomely crip outside of the cake.

I think these boozy berries would also be good over a lemon pound cake, but apparently pound cake requires an unholy number of eggs so I switched to bundt cake instead. I started the berries soaking early in the afternoon so they'd be good and marinated and their juices would leach out. The cake took all of ten minutes to whip together and then I let it bake while we ate our dinner. Does anyone else have a favorite summer go to dessert?

Lemon Bundt Cake with Boozy Berries
Cake ingredients
1 cup salted butter at room temp.
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
5 eggs
3 cups all- purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2/3 cup almond milk (or regular milk)

Fruit topping ingredients
2 cups strawberries, cleaned and cut into bite size pieces*
1 soup spoon of sugar
semi-sweet white wine such as sauvignon blanc

Directions
1) Place strawberries in a bowl, top with sugar and let sit for 15 minutes or so. Then add enough wine to completely cover them. Let them soak in the fridge until ready to serve, preferably three or four hours.

2) Preheat oven to 350.

3) In a large bowl cream sugar and butter together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, add lemon juice and zest and blend until well combined.

4) Beat in eggs one at a time, make sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next.

5) In a separate bowl mix the flour and baking powder. Add to the wet batter in three batches alternating with the almond milk. Start and end with the dry ingredients.

6) Pour batter into a greased 12 cup bundt cake pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until it starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and and springs back when poaked. Let cool for five minutes and then invert on a cooling rack or plate.

7) Serve slices of cake covered with with boozy berries. The cake is dense but not overly moist so you'll definitely want to pour a generous amount of the berry liquid over it as well. The cake will hold up to getting wet.

* This was enough berries for three people. Adjust according to how many you're feeding. The cake itself could easily feed 7-8 depending on how big you slice it. I would not plan on making more berries than you need for that day.

A Clean Milkless Dessert

As many of you know from my constant complaining about it, I am currently not supposed to be eating any dairy. Not just straight milk and cheese, but any products that have milk in them. This can be a little tricky, because lots of processed products have a little in there somewhere.

For savory foods, this has generally just meant hold the cheese, but for desserts it has posed a bigger problem. It seems the majority of my favorite store bought treats have milk involved. Ice cream is obviously out, along with most brownies, puddings, cakes, etc. I am turning to making stuff from scratch now so that I can switch cows milk for almond milk, but this takes a decent chunk of time and forethought. I can't wait until a craving strikes me at 8:000 or 9:00 to get started.

The last couple of nights I have been thinking of some quick treats I can make last minute by turning to my trusty milk free dark chocolate bar from Trader Joes. One nice thing about Trader Joes products is that they list any common allergens their foods contain so I don't have to search the whole label looking for milk.

A few nights ago, after discovering that their gram crackers are milk free, I melted a little chocolate and spread a thin layer over one side of the gram cracker and then popped them into the freezer for a few minutes to harden up. Nom Nom.

Last night, I decided to get even more creative and made homemade peanut butter cups. Jeff said he thought they'd be better if I added a little powdered sugar to the peanut butter first. While I agree this would make them more like Reese Peanut Butter Cups, I liked that these only had two ingredients, only made a coffee cup and a spoon dirty and I think they qualify under the clean eating guidelines because they are dark chocolate. They are certainly rich enough without the sugar, but its up to you. Here is the "recipe."

Down and Dirty Peanut Butter Cups

Ingredients
10 squares of Trader Joes Pound Plus dark chocolate bar
3-4 Tablespoons all natural salted peanut butter

1) Place the chocolate in a coffee mug and microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring between heatings. It should only take three times to be completely melted.

2) Spread thin circles of chocolate onto a plate or cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. Mine were a bit bigger than 50 cent pieces, but you can make them as big or as small as you want your finished cup to be.

3) Drop a little dollop of peanut butter in the middle of the chocolate circle and then cover with another thin layer of chocolate.

4) Place Peanut Butter Cups in the fridge for about a half an hour to harden up and enjoy!

Notes:
Keep your chocolate layers thin. By the time you add two layers of chocolate and a layer of peanut butter these things can be a bit much if you make them too thick. More is not always better.

This recipe makes six large peanut butter cups and I could only eat two before I'd had my sweets quota for the day.

You could also make these in a cupcake pan if you wanted a more cup like experience. I was in a hurry and was concerned they'd stick to the cupcake papers and make a mess. If you try it and are successful leave me a comment and let me know.

Lemon Curd

In the continuing what can I do with all these lemons saga, I decided to try my hand at some lemon curd. I had read a blog a while back about making curds and had filed it away under the someday category of my brain but I had honestly forgotten about it as I stared at my pile of lemons over the last couple of weeks. I had been waiting for them to speak to me, like a sculptor staring at a blank rock waiting for it to tell him what it's meant to be. Then, a week ago I had a baking day with some friends, one of whom brought a jar of lemon curd her mother had made. Suddenly that filed away blog post came running back into my mind and I felt silly for not having remembered it earlier. A brief Internet search later I marched into my kitchen with a recipe in one hand and a basket of lemons in the other, ready to create that beautiful mixture of sunshine and happiness that is lemon curd.

Before I launch into the recipe, I know some of you may still be stuck thinking, lemon what? Lemon curd, which is sometimes also referred to as lemon cheese, became popular in England and America in the 1800s as an accompaniment to toast, scones, muffins, etc. during afternoon tea. It can also be used as a filling for cakes and tarts. The most popular form in which you are most likely to have encountered it is in lemon meringue pie, the bottom half of which is lemon curd. Lemon curd is similar to lemon custard, but curds contain more juice and zest than custards, which makes their flavor more intense. Oh and just in case you aren't particularly fond of lemon, curds can be made with any citrus and even other fruits such as blueberries and raspberries!

Lemon Curd aka Sunshine on a Spoon
recipe from Fine Cooking

Ingredients

6 Tbsp. soft unsalted butter
1 cup of sugar
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2/3 cup of lemon juice
1 tsp. lemon zest

Directions

1) In a large bowl beat the sugar and butter together with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes.

2) Slowly add the eggs and yolks. Fully incorporate each egg/yolk before adding the next one.

3) Beat mixture for 1 minute then add the lemon juice. Be sure to strain the lemon juice  to get all the bits of  pulp out so your curd comes out smooth. Cheese cloth works great for that.

4) Heat the mixture in a non-reactive pan over medium heat for about 15 minutes stirring gently but constantly. Do not let the mixture boil. The curd is done when it reaches 170 degrees or when it has thickened significantly and your finger leaves a path through it on the back of a spoon.

5) Remove curd from heat and add zest. Allow to cool slightly then transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap so that the wrap is touching the curd. This will prevent a skin from forming on top of the curd as it cools. Refrigerate overnight and then transfer to permanent lidded containers such as canning jars.

*Notes
-When you first add the lemon juice the mixture may curdle a bit, don't worry, it'll all melt together.

-The curd is very hot at 170 degrees. Be prepared for it to hurt your finger if you use the spoon test.
-This batch should make roughly two cups of curd (total estimate, I didn't measure).
- Curd will keep in the fridge for a couple weeks, or you can freeze it and use it over the next six months or so.
-Be careful when heating your curd that you don't overcook it. It quickly goes from being about 150 to being 170. I got surprised by that and ended up cooking mine up to about 180. It tastes fine, just not quite as awesome as it would have.




Blackberry Oat Buckle

I've been eyeing all the blackberry bushes in my area over the last couple weeks. With the abundance of rain we had late in spring, combined with my areas already high water table, I figured this season would be filled with plump juicy blackberries that would certainly find their way to my table. Over the weekend I couldn't wait any longer and took a little trip down Hwy 29 to see what I could find. Unfortunately they were all growing on pretty steep embankments, and I wasn't eager to repeat my spill last year when I slid down a blackberry hill (note: it's not the falling, but the getting back up that hurts the worse), so I just got what I could from the slightly less treacherous parts. Even with that restriction, it only took 30 minutes, and about twenty thorn scrapes, to have three and a half cups of bulging berries tucked away in my bag. Of course that not counting the ones I ate along the way!

From what I saw, only about half the berries on the bushes were ripe last Saturday. I'm sure there will be several more trips down to the patch before the season is over. Here is the first of my recipes involving one of my favorite parts of summer.

Blackberry Oat Buckle

Recipe adapted from
Cory Shreiber's
Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More

Ingredients

1 tbsp. butter for pan
1.5 cups flour
.5 cups oat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
.5 tsp. baking soda
.75 cups butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
2.5 cups blackberries
.25 cups rolled oats
2 tbsp. brown sugar

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 350 and butter a nine inch square backing dish

2) Mix the regular flour, oat flour and backing soda. If you don’t have oat flour, simply chop up regular oats (aka oatmeal) in a food processor until it resembles a coarse meal.

3) In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and white sugar with a hand held mixer at high speeds until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at and time and then the vanilla.

4) Stir the flour mixture into the butter/sugar mixture in three additions, alternating with the butter milk. Start and end with the flour mixture. The resulting batter will be much lighter/airier than a normal cake mix.

5) Fold in half of the blackberries and pour the mixture into the prepared pan.

6) Sprinkle the top of the buckle with the remaining berries, oats and brown sugar. Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

This cake can be served right away with ice cream as a wonderful dessert. The blackberries stay nice and juicy inside and ooze a bit when the buckle is sliced. It's also good the next morning without the ice cream as a delectable coffee cake. Its not an overly sweet buckle so you don't feel like you've started the day off with a sugar rush. Also feel free to substitute your favorite berry or even a mix of berries!

Creamy Stuffed Strawberries

I know this isn't the best pic, but I was literally holding a friend back from eating one at the time!

As I said in my last post, this weekend was filled with Irish goodness as we had a group of friends over for an evening of Guinness and savory foods from the Emerald Isle. While I’m not sure if stuffed strawberries are very Irish (hey I had made a loop hole for it by saying the savory foods were authentic), they are very delicious, so I threw them in with the appetizers. These are simple to make, impressive to look at and will quickly disappear once placed within reach of your guests. These would also make a great dessert for an at home romantic evening.

While I made up how to make these, the idea was not originally mine. An old friend of mine used to make a similar dish for potlucks and guarded the recipe with his life because he didn’t want anyone else to start bringing them. I had always respected his secrecy, until we stopped hanging out regularly and having said potlucks. One day I decided that I could probably guess the basic ingredients and gave it a go. Honestly, with these ingredients, it would be hard to make something that wasn’t to die for. Enjoy!

Stuffed Strawberries

Stuffing:
One 8 oz. package of cream cheese
¼ cup of powdered sugar
a few shakes of vanilla extract

several splashes of milk

2 small packages of strawberries
½ cup of chocolate chips, or dipping chocolate

1) Wash strawberries and remove their tops and the white insides. Make sure strawberries are completely dry before moving forward.

2) Use a hand mixer to combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla extract. Add the milk a splash at a time until the mixture is completely smooth and just thin enough to squeeze easily through a piping bag. It should be similar to a thick frosting.

3) Use a piping bag or make your own out of a Ziploc bag to fill each strawberry with the stuffing.
4) Melt the chocolate either by following the instructions on the bag (if it’s melting chocolate) or using a double boiler.

5) Either dip stuffed strawberries in chocolate and place on wax paper to dry or use the piping bag method again to do some swirls of chocolate on one side of each strawberry. The second method is quicker and less messy, but it’s really a matter of personal preference and time.

6) Refrigerate the strawberries for half an hour to make sure the chocolate sets.

Notes:

-I bought three packages of strawberries and picked out the bigger ones and had about one package left over of smaller ones. They became part of a fresh fruit salad the next day.

-If you don't have a double boiler, fill a small pot a couple of inches with water and place a glass measuring cup with your chocolate in the pot. Presto! A homemade double boiler. Just be very careful not to get any water in with your chocolate.

5 Minute Ice Cream

Jeff and I have always enjoyed running down to the local $1 a scoop ice cream place in our town after dinner, but now that we are eating dinner together almost every night instead of just on the weekends, I've been looking for easy and less guilty desserts for us to enjoy.

I found this recipe a few weeks ago on Dianasaura Dishes and thought it sounded perfect for our situation. In a matter of minutes you can have soft-servesk ice cream, minus the cream, sugar and hours other recipes require!

Banana Ice Cream

Ingredients

3 bananas

+/- half a cup of milk

1) Peel and chop your banana's into small pieces. Then, freeze them.

2) When your ready to make your ice cream, simply throw the frozen banana pieces into the food processor along with 1/4 cup of milk and whirl. Continue to whirl and add milk until your bananas reach a creamy soft serve consistency. Hold onto your food processor while doing this step.

3) Either eat now or return to the freezer until firm if you want hard ice cream.

Alterations

The above was the original recipe I used, but as you can imagine, this recipe is very open to changes. For example:

-add a small amount of nuts and chocolate chips for added sweetness. We had a couple nut clusters lying around so we threw those in.
-substitute a different fruit for one of the bananas. We tried half a mango we had from breakfast and we substituted the regular milk for light coconut milk which we had left over from a curry the night before. The result was a refreshingly tropical ice cream!

There are some other additions I haven't tried yet but plan to are: strawberries, kiwi, blueberries, raspberries or a spoonful of jam! I'd be careful with how many berries you add simply because their water content is so much higher. You should be fine as long as you adjust the amount of milk you put in. If you happen to have some nilla wafers lying around, that could be tasty to add as well. Even if you do an add in like a little chocolate or a cookie, it's still better for you that the double chocolate marshmallow caramel crunch style ice creams you'd get at the store. Feel free to comment if you have any other recommendations.

A Note of Caution

*I know all of you would be wise enough to not freeze your fruit in one giant mass. If you did, your food processor would have to tackle a large hard frozen ball which would be pushing the limit of its powers. If you try and make it chop up said frozen ball of fruit, you might think for a moment that you have broken your beloved food processor, and you will start coming up with excuses that you will tell your boyfriend about how the food processor was really broken, that have nothing to do with your lack of forethought. I know you won't make this mistake, but just in case, you have been warned.

Irish Cream Cookies

Just incase you haven't had enough sweets over the last month, or if you are looking to reward yourself for doing good on your New Years resolutions, I've procured a cookie post for you all. This also looks like a great one to keep in mind for St. Patty's Day which is only a few short months away. Thanks for the post mom!

Our church was having a Sunday evening meeting for one of our members to report on a short term mission trip to Ireland. Since good Christians can never seem to get together without food being involved (See Acts 2:46) we decided to have cookies and ice cream. I was one of the women who were asked to make “themed” cookies for the occasion. OK, when I think of Ireland the first thing that comes to my mind is Bailey’s Irish Cream. Since chocolate chip cookies are my favorite cookie, the following recipe was perfect. They are delicious (especially warm from the oven) and were a hit at the meeting. I actually use Carolanns Irish Cream which I like better than Baileys (and is about 40% cheaper) but the added flavor of Irish Cream to a basic chocolate chip cookie is amazing. So grab a few warm cookies and enjoy the cold, foggy weather.

IRISH CREAM CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

½ c butter
½ c granulated sugar
½ c brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
½ c Irish Cream
2 ¼ c flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 (6 ounce) pkg chocolate chips
¾ c coconut
½ c chopped pecans

Cream butter, sugars and egg until fluffy. Add vanilla and Irish Cream. Mix dry ingredients and blend into creamed mixture. Add coconut, nuts and chips. Drop onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 374 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

50s Coffee Cake

Until I moved out of the country and into civilization, I had no idea that coffee cake did not specifically mean the flaky cherry frosted pastry that my family enjoyed every Christmas morning. The idea that this term applied to a whole host of different recipes with an innumerable range of flavors never occurred to me. I think it was actually at Starbucks in high school when I first ran into some other pastry which claimed the same name and was very confused.



I must admit, I have never tried any coffee cake other than my family's recipe and until yesterday I had never made one either. My mother however, was sick on Christmas, so I was given the sacred duty of coffee cake making. To me coffee cake is a very special dish that one only gets the chance to eat one day of the year(and considering what's in it that's a good thing for your body). This results in an overabundance of it being consumed with coffee and milk during present opening time! If you make this for your family next Christmas, be sure to schedule breaks during present opening for everyone to go and grab a second, third or fourth piece!



50s Coffee Cake
(just like grandma used to make it)

ingredients:

4 cups of flour
2 cups of melted butter
4 egg yolks
2/3 of a cup of milk
1 tsp. sugar
1 package of yeast

1 can of cherry pie filling

2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 stick of butter
capful of vanilla extract



1) Add yeast packet to 1/4 cup of warm water and set aside.

2) Mix 4 cups of flour with the melted 2 cups of butter.

3) Add the teaspoon of sugar to the milk and scald.

4) After milk has cooled slightly, beat the four egg yolks and add to the milk.

5) Mix all ingredients from step 1-4 in a large bowl and blend with hands until well combined. The dough will be rather moist.

6) Cut the dough in half and roll each piece into your desired shape between 1/2-1/4 inch thick.

7) Spread pie filing evenly over one piece of dough leaving about an inch around the edges without filling. Place the other piece of dough on top. Crimp edges to keep the filling in.

8) Let the pastry rise in a warm place for an hour. Then cut a few slits on the top and bake for 35 minutes at 350 or until the top begins to brown and looks dry.

9) While the pastry is cooling mix together 2 cups of powdered sugar with half a stick of butter, a capful of vanilla extract and enough milk to make it all come together into a nice icing.

10) Once the pastry cools, spread the icing over the top and enjoy!

Peach Cobbler

So it has been a bit harder than I expected to continue posting now that I am back in school again. Not only do I find it hard to make the time to post, but its even harder to find the time to do the things which inspire these posts such as gardening and cooking. On top of all of that, it's been too damn hot to enter the kitchen for the last several weeks! I am hopeful however, that the weather is soon to change and the baking bug will once again return. In anticipation of that, I have a peach cobbler recipe for you all that is to die for. I know lots of people are attached to crumbly topped cobblers, but give this biscuit topped recipe a try. You won't be sorry. Oh and no picture for this one folks (note the too damn hot comment above), but you can see some on the blog I stole this recipe from.

Kristen’s Peach Cobbler

You’ll need:
6 cups peeled and cored peaches
1/2 cup sugar5
tablespoons unbleached flour
——
1 3/4 cups unbleached flour
6 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 tablespoons butter or non-dairy butter-cold
1/2 cup milk or dairy-free milk
——-
2 tablespoons butter or non-dairy butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cardamon

Instructions:
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. Peel and core the peaches and put them into a cast iron frying pan(I just used a regular glass baking dish). Mix in the 1/2 cup sugar and 5 Tbsp flour. Set aside.
——
Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt. Add the cold butter and milk and stir until mixed. Spoon the biscuit mixture over the peaches.
——
Brush the melted butter over the cobbler. Mix the sugar and cardamon together and sprinkle on top of the cobbler. Put into the oven and bake until the top browns, about 45-50 minutes. Cool for about 20 minutes and serve with fresh whipping cream or ice cream.

Harvest Muffins

Hey everybody, we have another guest post! This one is from my sister Theresa up in the foothills. Hope you enjoy her ode to fall and tasty sounding recipe!



Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. In fact, when FOX was a fledgling network they had a short lived science fiction show whose name escapes me, but on one episode one of the characters (a female Space Marine) was waxing eloquent about why she missed autumn on Earth….she said, “There is something so desperate and sexy about autumn….” I have always found that to be a perfectly fitting description. Desperate because it’s the last push to get the harvest in and the household/farmstead/den battened down and sexy because it’s when the vast majority of animals mate in order to ensure a spring birth….lots of action, activity and pheromones in the air! I myself have very fond memories of helping my father’s family with the fall harvest on their farm in Iowa . As a small child I couldn’t help much, but help I did and it was the one time of year that whole side of the family came together to work as a clan. Crisp mornings, sweatshirts, my dad’s big coyote-fur lined winter jacket that I would get to wear once he worked up a sweat, leather work gloves, the crunch and smell of dried corn, the pulsing sound of the combine, the ubiquitous snarl of a chainsaw that we and others were constantly running to try to beat the snow with firewood preparations, and the occasional crack of a hunter’s rifle echoing off the land are all indelibly burned into my brain….desperate and sexy indeed.

As such I am a sucker for anything “harvest” whether a theme (how about a harvest wedding…sans chainsaws, of course!), decoration, movie or recipe. I received a recipe recently called “Harvest Muffins” from one of my Yahoo user groups. The ingredients sounded like a slam dunk, but the first batch left a lot to be desired….they made the house smell wonderful, however the spices called for were just enough for aromatics and not taste. In addition, the cook temps and times called for resulted in a very dry muffin that resulted in the last two remaining being thrown out. Plus the quantity of raisins called for completely overwhelmed the recipe.

I did a second batch and the only thing that resembles the original is the ingredients list. All spices and the raisins have been significantly adjusted and the baking temperature reduced while the time was increased. This resulted in a muffin that not only smells GREAT while baking, but tastes wonderful and remains very moist inside. Bear in mind that even once the toothpick comes out clean these muffins retain a lot of moisture around the apple shreds and may appear underdone if you eat one right after baking. Give them some time to sit and the moisture disperses evenly through the whole muffin. I store them in a plastic tub with a light dishtowel draped on top to keep them moist but prevent molding. Also keep in mind that these are more like a zucchini or banana bread than a true muffin and as such don’t rise terribly high.

I hope you relish them as much as I do—they are utterly perfect for a desperate, sexy fall morning (or even a mundane, frumpy one!). Serve with hot coffee or plain black tea and enjoy!!

2 c all purpose flour
1/3 c sugar
1 TBS baking powder
1 ½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground allspice
½ tsp ground nutmeg

1 c apple juice/cider
1/3 c vegetable oil
¼ real maple syrup
1 large egg beaten
2 tsp vanilla

1 granny smith apple, peeled, cored and shredded
3 oz chopped walnuts (1/2 of a big package)
½ c golden raisins

Blend dry ingredients in one bowl. Blend wet ingredients in another bowl. Combine the two until just mixed and fold in the last three ingredients.
Divide batter into muffin pan (the cups will be pretty full)

Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. The apple should still be really moist inside.