Kiwifruit Muffins

Kiwifruit Muffins Recipe from allrecipes.com

Tried out this recipe for Kiwifruit muffins the other day and they were a big hit. Very tasty muffins that are light and fluffy with a tart green apple taste. Yum :) I doubled the recipe to make 20 nice sized muffins.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 2 dashes salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 4 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted (I used Canola oil)
  
• 4 kiwifruit, peeled and chopped
• 1 cup raisins
  In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients. In another bowl, beat the egg, milk and butter. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in kiwi and raisins. Fill paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 425 degrees F for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.
  

Artisan Bread, the easy way!

I just had to share with you my latest bread making experience. The recipe for this delicious, wonderful, hard, crispy, crunchy, crusted artisan bread is from the book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking.
This book contains the basics for making the bread plus a large quantity of additional recipes.

This is an incredibly easy method of baking bread with four basic ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast. You do need a large mixing/storage container, a pizza peel and a baking stone. Although all of these things are not 100% necessary it does ensure a hard artisan crust. This bread is much better than the other No-Knead method I had tried and liked before I knew about this method. Much better...hands down! My first loaf was going well until I heard a big bang from the oven. My approximately 20 year old baking stone cracked into 4 pieces! Have no idea why that happened except for the fact the stone was so old. We ate the bread even though I had to finish baking it on the broken stone. Did this discourage me from wanting to try again?...NO....the bread was incredible!! The loaf was a little small for us, but I knew I would be baking more of this bread so I went right out and bought a replacement stone from our Williams and Sonoma outlet store for eight dollars and some change. Baking on the new stone yielded a wonderful loaf and no breakage this time. I did make a larger loaf though (hard to tell from the picture). If you want to see a video of the book's authors demonstrating the technique click here. Here's the link to their website. Here's a link for you to try the basic recipe before buying the book. I think if you try it you will be impressed. I can't wait to try more of the recipes. Yesterday I baked a loaf in a bread pan for sandwiches. Sorry no photos. My only problem now is slicing the bread. I sure wish I could afford a bakery type bread slicer like this one or even this one. I am terrible at slicing even slices. Does anyone know the secret for slicing perfect slices of homemade bread? Do you think this Rival Folding Food Slicer would do the trick? I would be so happy if I could find something that would make slicing bread easy and affordable :)

Scalloped Potatoes and Ham

This is not really a "recipe"...but it is the way my mother always made her scalloped potatoes with or without ham. The picture is what's left after we enjoyed it...it was delicious!

• Preheat oven 350 degrees
• About 4 large potatoes peeled and sliced very thin
• 1 large onion peeled and sliced very thin in rings
• sliced ham (optional)
• flour
• butter or margarine
• salt (I leave this out when I use ham)
• pepper
• 1 12oz can of evaporated milk
• lowfat milk

First butter or spray with PAM a casserole dish. Layer first some sliced potatoes, then onions, sprinkle with flour, add salt and pepper, and dab with small pieces of butter. Add a layer of ham.
Repeat until all the potatoes, onions and ham are gone. End with onions, flour and butter. Pour on top the whole can of evaporated milk and add more low fat milk until it just about reaches the level of the potatoes. Put into a preheated 350 degree oven for about 2 hours. Check after about the first 30 minutes and make sure all the potatoes, flour and onions are submerged with the milk. You know it's done when a fork is inserted easily and the potatoes are done. Yes, it takes a long time to bake!
Enjoy! Now this is what I call comfort food :)

Blueberry Muffins

Here's a recipe for blueberry muffins which I found here:

I made 6 jumbo muffins instead of the 12 regular sized ones. I also substituted canola oil for the melted butter and I used frozen blueberries. I often do this with recipes for health reasons with no ill effects. We enjoyed them very much. Next time I think I'll sprinkle a little sugar on top.

Enjoy :)

Barbara's Cranberry Bread

I love this recipe! It make two big loaves....so easy and so good!





4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 pinches of salt
juice of two oranges
4 tbsp. oil
2 eggs well beaten
2 cups of cranberries cut in half

Sift together dry ingredients. Combine juice and oil to make 1 1/2 cup (juice from the carton is ok). Stir in beaten eggs. Pour this mixture into dry ingredients, mixing only to dampen. Fold in cranberries. Bake in 2 greased loaf pans at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Sprinles top with sugar before baking.

Enjoy :)

French Doughnut Muffins

My boys love doughnuts, so here a muffin recipe (that I've modified) that's is a whole lot healthier than eating a doughnut. The original recipe says to dip the baked muffin in butter, then roll in the cinnamon/sugar mixture. I omit this step and just sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar on top of the muffin before baking. We like them just as well and it cuts out some of the fat.

3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup milk
2 large eggs beaten
2/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla

topping:
1 tsp cinnamon
~1/4 cup sugar

Sift flour with sugar, baking powder, salt & nutmeg. Combine eggs and oil & vanilla.
Add liquid ingredients to flour mixture, stirring only until all ingredients are moistened. Fill greased muffin pan half full, top with cinnamon and sugar mixture. Bake at 400 degrees approximately 20 minutes. Make 12 large or 24 small muffins.