Fresh Cracked Pepper

Happy Monday readers! I’m Emily Cobb, author of art and lifestyle blog “emily’s eye.” It is quite the honor to be your Muffin Monday contributor for I must admit: I am not a professional baker or cook.

I love food though, and have been working in the restaurant industry for seven years so I’m not completely clueless. As an artist, I love combining the flavors of various ingredients as if they are paint on a canvas. When grocery shopping I’ll buy ingredients that interest me rather than having a specific recipe in mind. So when it comes time to cook or bake I become a pantry scavenger and will select items that I feel may mesh well. My goal is for the ingredients to accentuate each others’ best qualities without overwhelming.

Sometimes I come up with kitchen gems . . . sometimes I get laughable flops. The element of surprise when experimenting sure keeps things interesting.

Clearly the creative process is what I really love about cooking – well, the eating part is pretty awesome too. That said, lets talk muffins . . .

For today’s recipe: a medley of medjool dates, cashews, coconut, orange, fresh ginger and cardamom put a funky twist on the typical carrot-nut muffin rut. The spice combination makes these muffins downright mysterious while the dates, like nature’s caramel, add a serious dose of sweetness.

Warning: these muffins may be treading on carrot cake territory. . . not that there’s anything wrong with having dessert for breakfast. In fact, I can’t think of a better way to start your day. (Even if it is at the crack-of-noon, as is typically the case with me.)

As a true American my personal motto is “Go Big or Go Home:” I use a jumbo size muffin tin. This recipe will yield a dozen sensibly sized muffins or 6 big boys.

In closing, big kudos to Jen for creating the opportunity for local (and familial) foodie collaboration. Way to bring people together through baked goods. Viva Muffin Mondays!

Emily of Emilyseyelive.com

Emily’s Spiced Carrot-Date Muffins with Cashews

The Dry:

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup coarse bran (miller’s bran)

½ cup brown sugar

1/3 cup coconut flakes (plus a bit extra to garnish)

3 tsp baking powder

1½ tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp ground clove

½ tsp salt

The Wet:

2 eggs

½ cup orange juice

¼ cup yogurt (plain or vanilla)

4 tbsp softened butter

The Delicious:

3/4 cup shredded carrot

½ cup chopped (& pitted) medjool dates

1/3 cup chopped cashews

2 tbsp shredded fresh ginger (for the best flavor use fresh, otherwise, substitute ½ ground ginger)

1½ tbsp orange zest

1. Preheat the oven to 400, and use a food processor to shred carrots and a little nub of skinned fresh ginger. Prep the rest of the items by hand and combine each set of ingredients (the dry, the wet, and the delicious) in 3 separate bowls with the dry in the largest bowl (all the ingredients will end up here.)
2. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it. Then fold and stir the two forces together until everything is just moistened.
3. Fold in the remaining ingredients (the delicious). The consistency should be lumpy and moist – do not over work! Spoon the batter into a greased muffin tin, and sprinkle the remaining coconut flakes on top of each muffin.
4. Depending on the tin size and/or the oven the muffins need anywhere between 20-30 minutes to bake. Do the clean toothpick test every 5 minutes after 20 minutes of oven time have passed to determine when they’re done. Like most pastries these muffins are excellent when served warm or reheated in the toaster oven. Enjoy!

Remember these?

The leafy crunchy greens that had me  swooning in a Colorado mountain town are back. Say hello to kale chips: so much more than just a stand-in for those Doritos you’re trying to hide from view.

With my oven already roaring at 400° from two other dishes and a healthy bunch of lacinato kale in my fridge, I finally got around to try making these myself. Lacinato kale is different from the regular curly kale you often see in grocery stores. It’s sometimes called “dinosaur kale,” and like any self-respecting T-Rex, it holds up particularly well to heat.

What runner/triathlete out there doesn’t love a good salty snack? Maybe it’s all the salt we lose on those mammoth bike rides and speed drills. Maybe it’s just a good old fashioned craving. Whatever it is, it’s tasty and packed full of all those things your eyes gloss over when reading articles in Runner’s World and Clean Eating.

Things like beta carotene, vitamins K and C, calcium, and antioxidants. Those age-old nutrients that we’ve only recently decided to heroize into  “super foods,” “power foods” and “clean foods.”

Well kale is as mighty as they come, and it tastes great too. It’s nutty and not as heavily sulfurous as some of the other cruciferae specimens. It’s a dark mineral-green, which to me says “good for you” like coffee beans say “hello day.”

And crisped-up in a hot oven with just some good olive oil and salt, there is no better destiny for the wrinkled kale leaf. Paired with a cold beer and some sweet evening relaxation, these guys almost, almost, make me want to toss the tortilla chips sneering at me from behind my morning muesli.

But then I remember the salsa. Oh, the salsa. Too heavy for such dainty chips as these, and just not the right flavor match either. I can’t let the salsa down!

And so I don’t toss the tortillas — with their oil and calories and lack of antioxidants — because they’ll come in handy one day when I just don’t care about so-called Superfoods. But until that moment comes, I’ll take the Super, and all the taste that comes along with it.

Kale Chips

1 bunch of kale, washed, stemmed, and torn into chip-sized pieces

olive oil

your favorite salt

Preheat oven to 400. Toss the kale pieces in a big bowl with a few drizzles of olive oil. Sprinkle with a few pinches of salt (kosher, sea, Celtic, or harvested from the rocks of the coast, your choice). Bake for 8-12 minutes, or until the edges of some of the pieces have just begun to brown. Remove to the counter top to cool, and serve as a snack or appetizer.

Hello, fresh cracked pepper readers! Jen sweetly asked me to write a post for her new series, Muffin Mondays. I’m Jessie Bea from Jessie Bea Eats, and here’s my contribution:

Autumn in upstate New York is one of the biggest reasons why I’ve lived here for most of my life. Sure, Syracuse winters are pretty tough, but I like snow, outdoor winter activities, and hot cocoa, so it really isn’t a problem for me. And sure, we might get 30 °F weather in October sometimes, but the leaves are pretty, the apples ripe for picking, and hot mulled cider is one of the best things in the world, if you ask me. It all evens out.

That being said, I have many pounds of handpicked apples from Beak & Skiff Apple Orchard in Lafayette, N.Y. to use up. This recipe for Autumn Apple Muffins is a great way to have a quick, seasonal and healthy breakfast treat. The recipe makes 6 muffins, which is perfect for those of us living alone. I hate wasting baked goods when I make too much! Another bonus of making this recipe is that most 6 cup muffin tins fit inside my toaster oven, which makes these take even less time.

Jessie from Jessie Bea Eats

Autumn Apple Muffins

makes 6 muffins

Preheat (toaster or regular) oven to 375 degrees.

Dry Ingredients:
¾ cup flour (either all purpose or whole wheat pastry, or a combination of both)
2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients:
½ cup apple cider or apple juice
3 Tbsp canola oil
½ capful vanilla extract
¾ cup apple, finely diced (I used Jonagold)
sliced almonds (optional)

Directions:

Stir together dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Combine wet ingredients, except for the apple, in a measuring cup. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Fold in apples.

Divide batter evenly between 6 muffin cups (either greased, or with muffin liners), top with a few sliced almonds. Bake for 20-22 minutes. Let cool slightly, then enjoy!

Squash is a rather deceiving name for the vegetable to which it refers. With pudgy approachability and even cuteness, the squash family is far from cushy. Take, for example, this buttercup. Looks delightful enough. With its little cap and almost folded-in appearance, it’s the grandmother of the fall harvest.

But set a knife to it and it sure puts up a fight. This hard fact is what led me to one of the most important realizations of my cooking life: squash need not be peeled before cooking. Nope. No matter what those recipes tell you, “squash, peeled, seeded, and chopped” need not require a follow-up cool down and protein shake.

The secret’s in roasting the squash first: Hack it up (or not, as some argue) throw it in the oven, and digging into that squishy soft squash-flesh will become one of your happiest soup making memories.

Lately I’ve been trying to venture out of my butternut rut. There are just so many other squashes to try: hubbard (not so impressed with my specimen), spaghetti, and acorn (one of my favorites to stuff), to name a few. I finally got around to this buttercup, whose dense, creamy flesh surprised me. I’ve also got two Delicatas on hand to try sometime this week.

There are as many ways to prepare squash as there are to love it, but one of my favorites has to be soup. I know I could have just substituted this buttercup into any squash soup recipe, but instead decided to do an off-the-cuff version with whatever needed to be used.

And it was good. Very good. With bright tomato red, spinach green, and buttercup orange, this soup is fall’s palate in a bowl.

Continue reading ‘buttercup lentil soup’

This post begins a fall series on that best-loved of breakfast foods: the muffin. In all its varieties, the muffin captures special moments in the guise of the commonplace.

I am honored to present this inaugural guest post by my mother, Sheri Ward, whose solution to one of life’s transitions inspired the idea to devote my Mondays to muffins. I’ve invited some of my favorite bloggers and writers to share their most muffin-esque words and recipes, which I will dutifully post on Mondays throughout the coming weeks.

So if your mornings are lacking luster on these chilly days, check back often for new reasons to mix up a muffin or two.

Hello readers, this is Jen’s Mom writing. As I was thinking of how to begin my first (and hopefully not last!) guest post here on my daughter Jen’s food blog, I thought what better way to begin than this?

With the word “Mom” comes many things … gifts that have been lovingly passed down through generations of mothers before me, gifts that I have endeavored to pass on to my own children. For my love of cooking, and especially baking, comes from my own mother, and hers before that, and hers before that. It seems we all just can’t bake enough! It is almost a sacred thing to the women of our family: the dreaming and planning, then the creation of some warm and wondrous treat. And then of course the best part, the tasting — usually with a mug of freshly brewed coffee. We women have been known to curl up in bed with a favorite cookbook or food magazine, in search of another new recipe.

My husband Don and I recently embarked on a new stage of life: We are now “empty nesters” On the one hand it’s a lovely time of life, with a quieter household and a time of re-discovering each other. But after almost 30 years of baking and cooking for a family of 5, I found myself somewhat lost in this new chapter. Who would I bake for now? Yes, we both still enjoy fresh cookies, but a dozen muffins for two people? It was a real dilemma!

And then it came to me. I would start a muffin club with my Mom and sister Judi, also a recent empty nester. Every Monday morning we’d take turns baking a dozen muffins or scones, and deliver four of them to the others, keeping 4 for ourselves. And so, the “Monday Morning Marvelous Muffin Club” was born.

We are blessed to live within three miles of each other so this has made it somewhat easier. What a delightful treat is has been to open the door into my garage on Monday morning to find a basket of warm muffins waiting. We are all loving it.

Fall always draws me to the fragrant spiciness of all things pumpkin: pie, scones, and of course, muffins. And so it was that the first recipe I baked for our Monday Morning Muffin Club was Pumpkin Quinoa muffins, a new and healthy twist on what is no doubt a favorite with many of you. Quinoa, an ancient grain, is a comlete protein and gives these muffins a nice texture and a slightly nutty taste. The addition of pepitas, or pumpkin seeds, adds just the right amount of crunch.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, and that maybe I’ve inspired you to start your own muffin club with one or two close friends. Happy baking!

~Sheri Ward

Sheri and Jen

Pumpkin Quinoa Muffins

makes 12 large muffins

In a large bowl combine:

1 ½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 ½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp baking soda
1/3 cup pumpkin seeds
1/3 cup raisins
¾ cup cooked and drained quinoa (best made the day before, the grains fluffed with a fork).

Combine in another bowl:

2 eggs, beaten
1 cup unsweetened pumpkin puree
¾ cup buttermilk or kefir
4 Tbsp melted butter
2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just incorporated. Spoon into muffin pan lined with paper liners or buttered. Sprinkle with a little cinnamon and sugar, and bake at 400 for 25 minutes (until nicely browned and passes the toothpick test). Let rest 5 min, then remove to a rack to cool.

Besides the “stuffed” part, these two recipes have little to do with our Canadian Thanksgiving up in Ottawa this past weekend. Fermented soy beans don’t have much in common with turkey and pumpkin pie, but somehow, last week’s discovery of tempeh reminded me of all I have to be thankful for.

The weekend was a cornucopia of food delights. Friday we scarfed injera and doro wat at an Ethiopian restaurant with an old friend of mine. After a delicious brunch at my aunt and uncle’s, Mark and I indulged all afternoon in delicious home-roasted coffee and mile-high ginger cookies — this time, the old friends were his.

All that food fueled a good cause— the true highlight of the weekend. On Sunday morning I hit a personal best half marathon time at the Ottawa Fall Colours Marathon. With the hubby’s support and 8 weeks of hard training, I achieved a time of 1:51:35. Knocking 2 minutes a mile off my last half marathon time made me finally feel like a woman who doesn’t just finish. She races.

It was a great way to begin a day stuffed with turkey, cabbage gratin, and pie (of which there were multiple slices).

And there were other, non-homemade treats. Sunday, at one of Ottawa’s esteemed Bridgehead coffeehouses, we got to try Clover coffee for the first time.  A late lunch at Von’s Bistro in the Glebe chased down the luscious mugs nicely. Both get five Fresh Cracked Pepper stars.

As I got to thinking about what I’m thankful for, a few things came to mind. One, the incredible variety of food available to me here, today. I’m so grateful to be able to sample the abundance of the world so freely, and so relatively cheaply. This brings me to my latest discovery and the topic of this post: tempeh (pronounced temp-ay), my latest experiment with a new plant-based protein source.

Tempeh is an old food. It’s been made for centuries in Indonesia from fermented soy beans, and it’s more nutty and chewy than even the firmest tofu.

I tracked some down at the Syracuse Real Food Co-op, and quickly discovered that tempeh can be used just about anywhere: stir-fries, burritos, pastas, and sandwiches are all worthy vessels. It’s low in fat and high in protein, and best of all, it’s fermented. (Yes, I have a thing for fermented things. Case in point.)

I searched for a few tempeh recipes online, and taking a pinch of inspiration from this one, concocted fajitas that showcased tempeh’s satisfying chew (pictured above). The next day I mixed up the leftover filling and stuffed it into poblano pepper halves, one of my favorite ways to use up leftovers.

One dinner is often a door opening into another. Along the way, two fabulous new ingredients boldly introduced themselves: tempeh, and canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. As I face the lows that a cold and rainy, post-race week will bring, I look forward to new experiments in the cozy refuge of my kitchen.

Continue reading ‘tempeh two ways’

I tend to like cooking best when innovation rules. I tend to stay away from the tuna casseroles and shepherd’s pies of past decades to take advantage of my era’s best.

But there’s something about the classics, right? And something kind of pathetic about a foodie who has never, in her 28 years, made spaghetti and meatballs. Or any type of meatballs for that matter.

Something about this plain-Jane meal appealed to me on a chilly October Sunday evening after a tough 13-mile run. And (as you can read in my guest post over on Washington Post food columnist Kim O’Donnel’s Eating Down the Fridge challenge), I had enough spaghetti to carb-load the Boston marathon.

You can read more there about why I chose to make spaghetti and meatballs when Italian-American is about the last cuisine to have graced my pots.

There was one problem. I’m not much into ground beef. Actually, ground meat in general and I aren’t really on the best terms. I’ve read too much Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser to be at peace with the industrial beef system any longer.

Then there was the sweet couple at the farmer’s market selling their grass-fed, lean bison meat.  I was suddenly without excuse. And right there, standing at the back of their truck chewing the cud, spaghetti con bufalo (yes, that’s the Italian spelling) was born.

There must be thousands of recipes out there for this standard, and luckily I didn’t have to bother looking. Another component of the inspiration for this dish is courtesy of my mother. We share meal and food ideas like its some kind of hopeless addiction. (My father’s recent caveat on joining a phone conversation: “As long as you guys are done talking about food.”)

Poor guy.

So to stray from this blog’s usual vegetarian-or-vegan themed meal ideas, I bring you a decidedly meaty post. I’m warning you now: there are raw meatballs at the end of this post.

With a little help from my friend who, taking off in search of beer and bratwurst left me the contents of her cupboard, we had this dish on the table in no time. Mark was in charge of touching the ground meat. I simmered the homemade sauce, and then together we dropped the meatballs into the sauce to cook, all together in a pot.

No frying or baking required. How’s that for a one-pot success?

Your regular programming will soon return. Maybe I’ll even do a vegan version of this dish: spaghetti and bean balls, anyone?

But then again, these healthy, pasture-raised, nutrient-rich meatballs from free-roaming buffalo was indeed a treat. And after 13 miles, my quads also thanked me.

Continue reading ’spaghetti con bufalo‘

One of my favorite radio programs features a game called “Stump the Cook.” In it, listeners call in with lists of ingredients in their fridges and cupboards, and the host has to create a dish on the spot.

Big deal, you say. I do that every night.

For busy people (and is there any other kind in these times?) this type of cooking is standard fare. Bookmarking recipes and hunting down ingredients are reserved for guests and holidays. For the not-quite-so busy, these activities are saved for the weekend.

But on life’s Tuesday nights, necessity calls for something a little more unhinged. Something that today’s Eating Down the Fridge launch exists to celebrate. A call to improvisation, putting away cookbooks, and taking risks, EDF salutes the inner chef in all of us.

Washington Post food columnist Kim O’Donnel is hosting the challenge on her True/Slant blog, and she’s allowed me to be one of her guest bloggers during the week-long challenge. Check back on Tuesday to see what my “dance of the cupboard-raider” yields. I can’t promise gourmet, but I can promise a good time— I can already hear a joyful chorus of neglected dried goods rising up from my cupboards.

Join me in eating down your fridge (cupboard, freezer, or pantry). For the next week,  let inspiration trump organization, and the right brain lord over the kitchen. Remember: the “rules” are loose. Strictness is not the point. The challenge is to curb excessive shopping, but of course, if you need something, buy it.

Let’s see what we have lurking in our modern-day cellars, and practice the lost arts of whipping up and throwing together. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Thanks, Theo chocolate, for making a cold and rainy night momentarily warmer. After a long afternoon in front of an computer screen, the wet streets seeming to have seeped up into my bones, I was not feeling inclined to bliss as I stood in the organic chocolate aisle.

But such things sneak up and steal you away from your supper-hour somnolence: A bar that is exquisitely fashioned from the best ingredients, nothing Hershey’s or Cadbury-esque about it, boasting, paradoxically, a commonplace surprise: bread.

I’ve tried my fair share of vanguard chocolate bars. Applewood bacon. Curry. Hemp seeds. Each one quite novel, but then I find I still prefer the simplicity of good, plain dark chocolate. But this, this was novel with such subtlety that it must be French. I turned over the bar and sure enough, French bread was right there in the ingredients list, along with sea salt and the other usual suspects.

I’m a softie for salty crunch, and in this case, when paired with silky, rich 65% cacao chocolate, divine things happen. The flakes of artisan bread in this bar grant just the right amount of crunch to take texture to new levels in the realm of chocolate. As far as taste the chocolate stands firm; it will not be overwhelmed.

Do yourself a favor and get your hands on this bar. It’s definitely going into my chocolate repertoire so that I shan’t forget the way it ushered me into October.

Oh, and if that weren’t enough there’s a cat on the front. Two cats. Theo, you’ve done it again.