Pumpkin Carrot Muffins

Here is another tasty muffin with veggies inside.  No pictures of this yet, but imagine yummy in the shape of a muffin, and you should have a pretty good idea what these looks like.

1/2 C oil
1/3 - 1/2 C brown sugar (to taste)
2 large bananas, mashed
1/2 can pumpkin (so about 1 C, but I never measure, I just eyeball half of the can)
2-4 carrots, grated (as many as you think you can hide in there!)
2 eggs
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 C oat flour (grind oats in a blender to make the flour)
1/4 C wheat germ (or substitute with more oat flour)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
3/4 tsp salt

Cream together oil and brown sugar.  Mix in the bananas, pumpkin, carrots, and eggs.  Stir in all remaining ingredients until just combined.  Scoop into greased muffin cups.  Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.  Store in fridge.


And now some pictures of our cute, wild things. 

This little guy LOVES his bike.  He gets better at getting some speed and balancing everytime we take the bike out.

Pretty girl on her blessing day.

A teaser from our newborn photos that we just got from our fabulous photographer/friend Andrea.  She did a beautiful job and was ever so patient with both Brooklyn and crazy little Isaac.

Baked Banana Oatmeal

Today I read a blog post from my delightful sister-in-law and instantly thought of a few favorite "muffin" recipes.  And since I've been taking pictures of food for months with the good intention of one day blogging again, I even had a photo of these muffins.

3 mashed bananas, the riper the better
1 C vanilla almond milk (or use normal milk and a few Tbsp brown sugar to sweeten)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 or more grated carrots (I do as many as I think I can get away with)
1 Tbsp oil
3 C oats (I use about 2 1/2 C old-fashioned oats and 1/2 C oat flour)
1 Tbsp baking powder
Chocolate chips (a small handful - I probably end up with about 1/3 C)

Combine bananas, milk, eggs,  vanilla, carrots, and oil.  Add oats and baking powder.  Stir in chocolate chips to taste.  Drop into well greased muffin tins.  Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.  Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes.  Remove from pan and cool on racks.  Enjoy!

Part of my lack of blogging is due to this adorable little girl: 

She was born February 6th, weighing in at a mighty 5 lb 12 oz.  And while Isaac my be indifferent (at best) regarding her, I love her to pieces!

Sweet Potato Muffins

These were really yummy.  You could make them for yourself even if you don't have a baby to feed.  I, however, made these specifically for my little Bean. Speaking of my little bean, have I mentioned how wild and wiggly he is lately?  An omen of things to come, right?  The other day he was crawling with purpose and rather than go around Tina, he went straight over her.  Just crawled up over her back without skipping a beat.  What a good dog to just sit there and watch him do it.

Our skinny little bean's waist can't quite hold pants up.  We're always a size or two behind in the pant department.

1/2 C all purpose flour

1/2 C wheat flour

1 C old fashioned oats

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Whisk all the above dry ingredients together.

2 eggs

1/3 C brown sugar

1/2 C milk

1/4 C oil

1 tsp vanilla

Whisk all the above wet ingredients together.

1 C mashed sweet potato*

Add mashed sweet potato to the wet ingredients.  Blend well.  Gently fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just mixed.  Batter may be lumpy.  Scoop into mini muffin tins (for baby) or full sized muffin tins (for you!).  Bake at 350.

Mini muffins - 350 for 15-17 minutes

Full Sized Muffins - I didn't bake any myself, but someone commented on the original recipe that it took 20ish minutes for full sized muffins

* For sweet potato, bake ahead of time at 400 for 1 hr.  Or dice and cook in a pressure cooker with a touch of water for 8 minutes or until done)
 

And in other news, we got a piano.  I think it's fabulous.  Isaac likes it too and pulls himself up to play on a few keys several times a day.

Gooey Goo for Chewy Chewing and Wheat Bread

That's what that Goo-Goose is doing.

In an attempt to help our little boy have a happier digestive experience we have pulled a handful of foods out of his diet.  Unfortunately, this included pulling rice out entirely (goodbye convenient baby rice cereal) and anything fortified with iron (goodbye convenient baby oats).  While rice is gone completely for the foreseeable future, we're still giving him oats so long as they are not fortified with iron.  This means cooking him his own little pan of baby oats.

Start by blending up dry old fashioned rolled oats in a food processor or blender until it resembles a coarse flour.  Then add 1/2 C oats to 1 1/2 C boiling water.  Simmer, whisking continuously for 10 minutes - or I should say, whisking as continuously as a wild little boy who is set upon playing with the dog dishes will allow.  It will resemble goo.  Not blue goo mind you, but goo none the less.  I'm storing it in the fridge and hoping it will be enough for a few days worth of cereal.  Not terribly thrilled about making him oats all the time, but I'd still like him to consistently eat some grains.

Note:  I first tried just mixing the coarse flour with some hot water and mixing it with fruit.  He ate it fine but it didn't digest - just came straight out still looking just like it had going in.  On the bright side, at least it came out - already an improvement.  Anyways, the hope is that cooked oats will digest better.

(Update: Now we are just throwing 1-2 Tbsp oats in the microwave with a bit of water.  3 Tbsp water per 1 Tbsp oats.  Cook for 30 seconds.  Turns out perfect everytime.)

One day I had stepped into the kitchen while baby was crawling around in the living room.  I heard him fuss a little but didn't worry about it but as the fussing gradually increased I poked my head over the ledge to find him like this.  He had crawled into the bottom of the excersaucer and couldn't get out.  He was not impressed with the situation but it certainly warranted shooting a picture before helping him get out.

Wheat Bread

This wheat bread is phenomenal.  The recipe is from my mother, who I think got it from my grandma, though I'm not certain.  Anyways, living in humid Houston, I know that I need to use a little bit more flour than she does in dry Colorado.  (1-1/2 to 2 Cups more than she uses).

Also, I use fresh ground wheat.  My grinder produces a flour that is finer than the flour you can buy at the store.  I don't know if that makes a difference.  So add flour cautiously so you don't add too much.

1/3 C oil
1/3 C honey
1/3 C molasses
5 1/2 C warm water
1 Tbsp salt (plus maybe a pinch more)
2 1/2 Tbsp yeast
1/2 C vital yeast gluten (or dough enhancer or gluten flour)
2 1/2 Tbsp vinegar

Mix all the above ingredients together in a big stand mixer and let rise 5-10 minutes until bubbly.

Add 10 C wheat flour and 1/2 C old fashioned rolled oats.  Cover and let rise to the top of the bowl.

Gradually add 2-3 C flour (I add white flour here, though you can do white or wheat) until the sides of the bowl clean.  Don't add too much too fast.  It will need to beat for 7-8 minutes.  Let raise to top of the bowl again.

Divide into 5 greased 8x5 bread pans.  Shape.  Let the dough rise for another 10 minutes.  Bake at 365 for 40 minutes.

Yummy!

Christmas Goodies!

I can't believe it's almost Christmas!  Even if the house is a mess, even if there is a pile of old mail and newspaper sitting in the kitchen, even if the puppy is neglected (or at least thinks she is - she still gets her two walks a day), even if I haven't made dinner in over a week, and even if I just had a baby a month ago, I can still find time to make Christmas goodies!  And boy are they delicious this year!  Tina can attest.  In retaliation to us having a baby, she is misbehaving - including jumping on the counter and eating 15 cookies and untold numbers of pretzel turtles while we weren't around to stop her.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread, Toffee, Chocolate Chip Peppermint Cookies, and pretzel turtles!

 Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

Cream Cheese Filling - beat all ingredients together until smooth:
8oz cream cheese
1/2 C sugar
1 Tbsp flour
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla


Bread:

Combine:
1 2/3 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg

In a separate bowl combine the following ingredients.  Beat Well:
15 oz can pumpkin
1/2 C oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 C sugar

Stir the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture until just combined.  Pour 1/4 of the batter into two greased and floured 8inch bread pans.  Spoon the cream cheese mixture on top of the batter in each of the bread pans.  Top with remaining pumpkin batter (it's ok if you don't quite have enough pumpkin batter to cover the cream cheese as you will be mixing the two layers anyways).  Using a knife inserted through the top two layers, swirl the cream cheese and top pumpkin batter together to create a marble effect.

Bake at 325 for 55-60 minutes.

Adapted from recipe posted by the Nanny Create Blog.  Thanks for a delicious recipe!

Chocolate Chip Peppermint Cookies

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 C chocolate chips
  3/4 C Andes Peppermint Crunch Chips - At first I couldn't find these so the first batch I made used chopped up Andes mints.  It turned out delicious.  The next day I went to the store and there they were in a special holiday display in front: Andes Peppermint Crunch Chips.  Despite the name "crunch" they are soft white chocolate peppermint chips.  Truth be told, Geoff and I couldn't really tell the difference between the cookies with the chopped up mints and the cookies with the Peppermint Crunch Chips.



Combine flour, baking soda, and salt.


In a seperate bowl, beat together the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla until smooth.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Stir in the flour mixture.  Stir in the chocolate chips and peppermint chips.

Refrigerate dough for 24 hours (I'm a believer - the dough really improved after the 24 hours in the fridge).  Scoop cookies onto cookie sheets.  Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.


Original Recipe from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody.  Thanks for the delicious recipe!

Toffee:

1 C coarsely chopped almonds or pecans, toasted, divided (to toast, spread onto a cookie sheet and bake for 4-5 minutes at 350, stirring halfway through).
1 C unsalted butter
1 C sugar
3 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp corn syrup
3/4 C semisweet chocolate chips

Line a 9x13 pan with foil, extending the foil over the edges of the pan.  Sprinkle with 1/2 of the toasted nuts.  Set aside.

Butter the sides of a heavy 2-qt saucepan.  In saucepan, melt butter.  Add sugar, water, and corn syrup.  Stir over medium-high heat until mixture boils.  Reduce heat to medium.  Continue to boil at a moderate, steady rate stirring constantly until a candy thermometer reaches 290 degrees (about 12-15 minutes).  Watch carefully after 275 because the last 15 degrees will go fast!  Immediately remove from heat and pour into prepared pan.

Let stand 5 minutes.  Sprinkle with chocolate chips.  Let stand 2 minutes.  Spread chocolate chips over candy.  Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 C toasted nuts.  When candy is firm, use foil to lift it out of the pan.  Break into pieces.  Store tightly covered.

Original Recipe from bhg.  Thanks for the delicious recipe!

And finally, some baby photos, as that's what my biggest fans (aka - my parents, babies grandparents) actually come to the blog looking for.

 

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

I love fall if only for the excuse to eat pumpkin in everything (and because it's finally becoming liveable in Houston).  The original recipe from here instructs you to freeze the cream cheese/sugar mixture in a thin log and then cut off frozen log pieces to put in the middle of the muffin mixture.  My thoughts:  I'm never going to plan far enough ahead to actually freeze the cream cheese.  I just used two spoons and plopped a spoonful of cream cheese in between two layers of muffin batter and it worked just fine.

Muffins:

3 cups flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

4 eggs

1 ¼ C oil

2 cups sugar

2 cups pumpkin puree

Filling - whip together until well combined:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened (I used 1/3 less fat cream cheese)

1 cup powdered sugar

Streusel Topping - Mix together with a pastry blender until crumbly:

½ cup sugar

¼ cup and 1 tsp. flour

4 tbsp. butter, cubed

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

To make the muffins, combine the flour, spices, salt and baking soda. Set aside. Using an electric mixer, combine the eggs, oil, sugar and pumpkin puree.  Mix until well combined.  Add in the dry ingredients and stir together until just combined (a little lumpy is fine).

Fill each muffin well with enough muffin batter to cover the bottom.  Drop a spoonful of cream cheese into each muffin well, on top of muffin batter.  Top cream cheese with more muffin batter until tins are a little over 3/4 of the way full.  Sprinkle the streusel topping over the top of the batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350.

 Makes 24+ muffins.

Again, thanks to Baked Perfection for this delicious recipe.

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

We've had some serious amounts of blueberries as of late and so this is the second batch of blueberry muffins we've tried.  Geoff liked this recipe the best, and I'll have to agree.  Enjoy!

3/4 C milk
1/4 C lemon juice
2 C flour - I did 1 C white, 1 C whole wheat
3/4 C sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/4 C oil
1 C blueberries

Combine milk and lemon juice; set aside (the milk needs time to "sour" from the lemon juice)

In a large bowl, combien flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.  Set aside.  Add egg and oil to the milk mixture.  Mix well.  Gently stir milk into the flour mixture just until moistened.  Fold in blueberries

Fill muffin cups 2/3 full.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.


Original recipe by Carolyn Gilman, found here on allrecipes.com

Foccacia Bread

We had already eaten over half of the bread when I realized I hadn't taken a picture.  The other half of the bread had tomato slices on top which were amazing - wish I had enough tomatoes for the whole thing.

I wanted to make some sort of delicious bread using my rosemary plant to go with our salad dinner last night.  I found this recipe on allrecipes.com here and it was perfect.  I could have eaten the whole thing myself!

1 Tbsp honey
2 C warm water
1 Tbsp yeast
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 C onions, diced
5-6 C flour
1 Tbsp salt

3 Tbsp olive oil
Fresh chopped rosemary
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Freshly ground salt

Dissolve honey in warm water and sprinkle yeast over the top.  Let stand for 5 minutes until yeast begins to foam.  Combine with 1 Tbsp olive oil, onions, 5 C flour and 1 Tbsp salt.  Beat with dough hook, adding flour as necessary to get a smooth and elastic dough.  Lightly oil a large bowl.  Place the dough in the bowl, turning to coat with oil, cover with a damp cloth and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in volume (~20 min)

Spread dough onto oiled cookie sheet or jelly roll sheet.  Use tips of fingers to make indentations all over the dough.  Drizzle with 3 Tbsp olive oil.  Sprinkle with rosemary, Parmesan cheese, and salt.  Let rise for 10 minutes.

Bake at 415 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Banana Bread

I adore banana bread.  Not the super sugary stuff that you can buy from stores or bakeries, but the delicious, hearty bread my mom always made.  Favorite way to eat it: toasted with a little butter. (If only butter weren't so repulsive sounding right now.  I keep having vivid dreams where I eat something with butter on it and then immediately throw it up because it was so nasty.  To many dreams like that, and you'd want to stop eating butter, too.)

Mix together:
1 C sugar
2 Tbsp oil
1 egg

Stir in:
3/4 C milk
1 C mashed bananas

Sift together and then add:
2 1/2 C flour (I do 1 C brown flour, the rest white)
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Add:
3/4-1 C shopped walnuts

Pour into well greased bread pans.  Bake at 350 for 50+ minutes (I forgot to set the timer, so I don't know how long mine actually baked).  Remove from pan onto a wire rack to cool.

This is the only recipie where I actually sift the dry ingredients together before adding them to the wet.  I almost always skip that step, but I've found that if I skip that step for banana bread, it doesn't turn out as well.

Original Recipe from my Grandma!

Oatmeal - Apple Muffins

1 C Oats

1 C Buttermilk

1 Egg

1/2 C Brown Sugar

1/4 C Oil

1/4 C Applesauce

1 C Flour (1/2 Whole Wheat, 1/2 white)

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1 Tbsp Cinnamon

2 tsp Vanilla

1-2 C coarsely chopped, pealed apple

Mix all ingredients together.  Batter will be lumpy.  Spoon into greased muffin tins.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  Makes about 1 dozen.

Thanksgiving!

Sometimes I think Thanksgiving is the greatest holiday ever.  A day dedicated to eating - all day long.  First an outrageously huge dinner with stuffing, rolls, and yams; and then another meal of pies.  I say pies plural because in my family, something is wrong if there isn't at least one pie per person present at the Thanksgiving meal.  (In fact, I did not eat with my family yesterday, though my husband and I dropped by later that night.  They had 4 people for the Thanksgiving meal and the following pies: razzleberry, pumpkin, pecan, cherry, and chocolate.)  No wonder I like pie so much.

We ate at my husbands grandparents.  I had volunteered to make rolls before I knew there would be over 20 people at the meal so I made two different recipes of rolls.  I can't decide which was best.  They were pretty similar.  The 1st one I'll post was sweeter and easier to make (in my opinion).

Crescent Rolls:

1 C boiling water
1/2 C margarine, melted
3 eggs
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 C sugar
1+ Tbsp yeast
5 C flour

Beat water, margarine, and eggs.  Add salt, sugar, yeast, and 4 C flour.  Add the fifth cup as needed while mixing for 8-10 min.  Be careful not to add to much flour.  You want the dough to be smooth and elastic (it should stretch if you pull on it. Ex: you should be able to make a window - called a gluten window - with a small piece of dough)  Allow to rise to double in size.  Punch down dough and cut in half.  Roll out 1/2 of the dough at a time in a thin circle on a greased or buttered surface (a floured surface will dry out the dough).  Cut into 16 pie shaped pieces.  Roll starting from the wide end and allow to rise for another 20ish minutes on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 325 for 12-15min.

I have made the next roll recipe several times and it is harder to get the exact amount of flour and avoid stiff rolls than the above recipe.   

Rolls

2 Tbsp yeast, dissolved in 1/4 C very warm water
2 C warm milk
1/2 C margarine, melted
1/2 C sugar
2 tsp salt
2 eggs
6 1/2-7 1/2 C flour

Dissolve yeast in water and let sit.  Heat milk in microwave.  Combine milk, melted butter, sugar and salt.  Add the eggs and the yeast.  Add about 5 C flour and mix.  Begin adding flour 1/4 C at a time until the dough is not too sticky.  Again, you want the dough to be smooth and elastic.  With this dough, I found that if I waited when it was sticky and just needed it gently outside of the bowl, it would get smooth without me adding more flour.  Allow to rise.  Punch the dough down and divide into 3 dough balls.  Roll out, cut, and roll from the wide end (as described above).  Allow to rise another 20 minutes.  Bake at 350 for 12-15 min.

 These were once part of a full circle with 16 pieces, but I was almost done rolling them by the time my husband came back with the camera.

 Rolling the dough.

Piles and piles of rolls.  We made 80 rolls.  I can't decide which I liked better, so now you have both recipes an can choose for yourself.  

And finally, it can't be a Thanksgiving post without pie.  My husbands favorite pie is key lime.  So we made 2 key lime pies to take to his grandparents.

Key Lime Pie

See nicer picture of this same key lime pie recipe here, when I made it for pi day.

Put 8 oz cream cheese, 1 can sweetened condensed milk, and 1/2 C key lime juice (either from fresh key limes or you can find bottled key lime juice at Kroger chains) in a blender.  Blend until smooth.  Pour into graham cracker pie crust.  So easy your husband can make it (and mine did)!  Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!