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2 Ingredient Pumpkin Muffins

Well, hello again!  I can't even pretend to be surprised anymore that it's been so long. 

This really is a two ingredient pumpkin muffin. Kind of. So I guess not really, but really. Are you confused yet?  

2 Ingredient (Incredibly Easy and not confusing) Pumpkin Muffins:

1 box Spice Cake Mix - regular size (525gr or so)*

1 can (400ml or 15oz or somewhere close to either of those numbers) can of Pumpkin Puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling, just plain pumpkin)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Makes 12 muffins.

Mix these two ingredients together until well blended. Scoop into prepared muffin tins, either greased or lined with papers. The batter is VERY thick, and this will make 12 really full muffins, but don't worry - they won't spill over. If you want prettier muffins than mine, wet the back of a spoon and smooth the tops. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes. 

That's it! See - it is easy. And it's kind of two ingredients, if you discount the fact that boxed cake mix is a zillion ingredients.

* this little asterisk is there so I can tell you that Betty Crocker has made it's boxed cake mixes smaller. Yes, smaller. It still makes the same amount of cupcakes or cakes, but the volume of mix is less than last year. I know this because I bought some Betty Crocker cake mixes on sale and then found one box buried in the back of my cupboard. The instructions are similar, but the new, smaller boxes call for a little less water, and they suggest filling the muffin tins less. Subtle.  

Gluten free Blueberry Oatmeal muffins

Well, that's been a long hiatus!  

I decided to post this recipe because I've noticed how hard it is to find simple Gluten-Free recipes!  My significant other is undergoing some investigation for Gluten intolerance and/or Celiac disease, so I have started experimenting with wheat free cooking.  It's a challenge, that's for sure!  Bread will be the next big thing I attempt, since both of us really used to enjoy those grainy artisan breads from the bakery.  

Mark (my significant other) wants me to make gluten-free beer, but I think I'll stick to baking. This recipe calls for ingredients that should be easy to find. 

Just a note about ingredients:  I've used oatmeal in these, and oatmeal is generally considered safe for Celiac and wheat-free diets (and here is another link from Health Canada).  However, the 'generally' is there because there is some fear of cross-contamination of the grain. If you are incredibly sensitive to gluten, or deathly allergic to wheat, please use caution with the oatmeal!  If in any doubt at all, don't make these, and if only a little worried, then make sure to use certified gluten and wheat free oats. If you are newly diagnosed, then tuck this recipe away, and make it when you are reintroducing potentially problematic foods!

Artisan bread English Muffins

I really am on the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day kick right now.  I can't stress enough how easy the bread is to make, and how great it turns out! I typically use the Light Whole Wheat recipe from the book, and I cheat and bake it in a loaf pan (I don't have a pizza stone, which is the suggested thing to cook the bread on). It has turned out great, it's incredibly cheap to make, and I can make so many different things with the dough that is always ready and waiting in my fridge.

There is an english muffin recipe on the Artisan Bread site, but I wanted something easier, and I wanted to cook my english muffins on a griddle. The official website recipe calls for English muffin forms, and letting the dough rise, baking in the oven, and then the muffins turn out  rounded on one side. That actually *does* offend my sensibilities, so I did things a little differently.  

This is why I love this bread dough - I pulled my dough out of the fridge, freezing cold, and sort of patted it out/rolled it out on a counter sprinkled with cornmeal until it was about 1/4 inch thick (maybe slightly thicker). I made sure that both sides were well coated with cornmeal (yum! A favourite of mine), and with no rest, no rise, no warming up, I cut the muffins out with a clean empty tuna can. Then I put 7 of them on my electric griddle at medium heat. The time to do all this was at most 5 minutes, and it took about 10 minutes of unsupervised cooking to have the muffins finished.  Easy. Cheap. Did I mention easy, and cheap? The English muffins were fantastic to boot! The only thing I may do differently is to let the muffins rise slightly before cooking, more to allow the dough to warm up first - it was hard to get the muffins to cook through to the centre when the dough was so cold.

Whole Wheat Carrot Pineapple Muffins

Whole Wheat Carrot Pineapple Muffins are sort of a 'creation from leftovers' special.  New Year's Eve here at my house was a family friendly affair, and we made eight different kinds of homemade pizza for all the kids and adults.  One of the pizzas we made was a Hawaiin pizza (we'll talk about the steak dinner pizza later!), and I ended up having a half can of pineapple tidbits leftover.  From the veggie tray, I managed to salvage a few carrot sticks - and the inspiration for Carrot Pineapple Muffins was born.  I added in some whole wheat flour, mainly because I have some lingering around, and I thought it would add some flavour and 'healthy' to a nice treat.  The amount of whole wheat flour can be adjusted up, if you'd like more whole wheat in your muffins, but in my experience, a little white flour is needed to lighten them up. If you do try all whole wheat and they turn out great, then let me know, I'd love to hear about it. To get the crushed pineapple called for in the recipe, I whizzed the leftover pineapple tidbits in my food processor until I had something probably more correctly called pureed or pulverized pineapple, but it worked.

For the New Year's Eve party, we had a Nintendo Wii competition for the kids, and a Playstation2 Sing Star competition for the adults!  I highly recommend Sing Star - what a hoot!  I'm pretty confident saying we all had a great time, and I can't wait for the next party.  

Apple Pie Muffins

 

It's been a while. Thanks to the power of Facebook and a little apple spice muffin bragging, here I am posting a new recipe. I was actually craving an apple pie, but that seemed like too much work, so I did a little hunting and came up with this recipe. It's an old recipe I had around, but hadn't made in a long time - I'll definitely have to keep it in the roster. There's a great topping on these, sorta like the top of a Dutch Apple Pie. Enjoy! These are really moist, yummy apple spice muffins. They taste good coming out of the oven, but they're even better the next day.

Bagels in New York City

 

So, after a long hiatus, some really inedible suppers, and lots of grocery store chicken, I am going to try to get back at my blog. And the first post for the new year isn't even a recipe of my own, it's a review of a bagel. I've included a recipe for Herb and Garlic cream cheese at the end of the review, just to keep on topic. My first trip ever to New York City was fantastic, and since I travel for food, I absolutely had to try a New York style bagel. That quest led me to Absolute Bagel on Broadway St. It's a little tiny shop on the edge of Harlem, and it served up some excellent bagels.

Waffle Bread Pudding - Leftover Tuesdays 6

 

It's Leftover Tuesdays #6 and this month it's being hosted by Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity . More good news is that I finally (FINALLY) got to make my Leftover Waffle Bread Pudding. It took some sly, spy-like moves to keep the family from eating the homemade belgian waffles, but I did it. 

Dutch Baby - Oven pancake

I have to admit that this is the first time I've ever eaten one of these. I was looking for a 'yummy' breakfast recipe, as per the request from my hyperactive 5 year old, and came across these Dutch Babies. It occurred to me, while the 5 year old bounced around my kitchen talking non-stop, that I could see why the Dutch would actually eat their babies. Then I read the recipe and decided it was an oven baked pancake, or an oven baked crepe. This dutch-baby recipe has no leavening in it other than eggs; this seemed to be the usual recipe, although I did find some that had some baking soda or powder in them. I decided simple was better (and cheaper). The recipe originally calls for 4 eggs but I've changed this to 3 or 4 eggs. We have our own chickens here on the farm, and our eggs are REALLY large - so I use 3 eggs. But if you are using grocery store eggs, you'll probably need 4 of them. I guess there's a 'method' to making these, which believe it or not I followed, so my suggestion is to actually read the instructions for guidance. I'm not sure what would happen if you didn't follow 'the method', but I wouldn't want to be responsible for any breakfast disasters.

Leftover Tuesdays - Chocolate chocolate chip Oatmeal Cake

 

Squeaking in my own Leftover Tuesdays entry just under the wire, here is Chocolate Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cake. Are you saying "huh"? Me too. My sister once mentioned that she should find a recipe for leftover Oatmeal, and four years later I've finally decided to post one for her. I personally don't like oatmeal, but add some chocolate, turn it into a cake, and it's edible. My sister's oatmeal is cooked plain, two parts boiling water to one part oatmeal, and her family adds cream and sugar as they like it, so that's the cooked oatmeal I've used in my recipe. 

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cake is kind of based on an Amish recipe I found many years ago. I've altered some things, added others, and finally decided I like this recipe. I've used leftover oatmeal here, but the original called for cooking the oatmeal right before you make the cake. I have to admit though, I've seen the other entries for Leftover Tuesdays, and to be honest - leftover oatmeal seems a little pedestrian compared to the other dishes! My mother always told me I was a peasant at heart, and I suppose it's definitely true when it comes to food. And I suppose I should admit that I eat this cake for breakfast (we call it the breakfast cake, which Mr. Chef says is just wrong).

Omele-quiche - an oven omelet

 

This is an oven baked omelet recipe that got two big thumbs up from me and two of my children. On the other hand, it got a big thumbs down from Mr. Chef, who felt it violated the idea of a classic omelet. I loved this recipe because it was easy to make, took less than twenty minutes from start to finish, and tasted great. I personally loved the texture of this omelet over the 'classic' version - it has a little more 'bite' to it. Mr. Chef was apalled. He thought it was thick, which I liked, and too much like a cross between a quiche and am omelet ("make one or the other"). I don't think either quiche or omelets, but I did this hybrid. My oldest son, who is seven, declared this "Yummy!" and ate two pieces; my two year old daughter ate hers. The five year old boy, well, he sided with his dad, but still ate some of the omelet. A winner, in my books, and a definite keeper. There are two ways to serve this omelet - either sliced, like in the pictures, or if you use a 9x13" pan you can roll the finished omelet and slice it for serving. This recipe is by Karen over at Recipezaar.