shining egg

muffin madness*

this post was supposed to happen on monday.  then it would have been muffin madness monday.  no matter.  prepare yourselves, i'm going to go on about muffins for a bit.

last week i made five batches of muffins.  yes, five.  they really are the perfect breakfast/snack/pop-it-in-the-lunchbox/standing-around-the-kitchen-preparing-thanksgiving-dinner food.

on monday, it was the multigrain muffins from this cookbook - a major favorite, and our go-to-muffin recipe.  those were gone by wednesday.  then, on tuesday, after reading about heather's pumpkin muffins (and with a can of organic pumpkin in the cabinet for just such an emergency) i had to make those.  you might remember that i mentioned them here last week?  they were moist and light and absolutely delicious.  and after i professed my undying love for them...i went and made a different pumpkin recipe on thursday morning.

because as much as the parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and great-aunts and cousins loved those muffins, the taste of the molasses was too strong for the kids.  this is entirely my fault - you see, i only had blackstrap molasses in the cabinet (alicia, that would explain why your muffins were so much lighter in color than mine), and the flavor of the blackstrap definitely overpowered the pumpkin.  delicious, but sophisticated.  for a mature palate.  and gone by wednesday at bedtime.

 

but thursday morning, wanting to make muffins that the whole family would love, i used this recipe.  and oh. my. goodness.  they were delicious.  also light and moist.  pumpkin-y.  and gone by thursday afternoon.  (there were a lot of us in the house last week.  ok?)

on sunday, we were invited to brunch with friends, and i took the pumpkin muffins.  24 of them.  i modified the recipe slightly, and this is going to be my go-to recipe for pumpkin muffins (for mixed-age gatherings) for now.  until i get some good old molasses and try heather's recipe again.  in the meantime, we're out of muffins, so i'd better get busy around here.

pumpkin muffins

adapted from smitten kitchen

preheat the oven to 350

fill a muffin tin with paper liners (i use unbleached)

in a medium bowl, whisk together:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (use regular whole wheat flour if you don't have the pastry flour)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

in a separate bowl, mix together:

2 large eggs

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup oil (i use safflower)

1 can solid pack pumpkin

add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring until blended

fill the muffin cups to almost full

then, in a small bowl, mix:

1 tblsp sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture on top of the muffins

bake for 25 minutes

cool on a wire rack

and devour

*thanks to leslie for the title of this post.

speaking of the kitchen

thanks for all of the kitchen love.  i'm enjoying the space so very much.  and this week, i even took two kitchen photos, trying to embrace the light - which wasn't nearly as bad as i had feared.

i have been - and will be - spending lots of time in the kitchen this week, as we're having 14 people for thanksgiving dinner.  this is my favorite holiday.  (you've probably heard me say that about other holidays.  i love each one more than the next.)  the food, the family, the universal feeling of gratitude.  it's all so good.

 

i took out my thanksgiving file last weekend.  my brother and my husband (and some of my friends) make terrible fun of me for keeping a thanksgiving file, but i suspect that some of you will appreciate my desire to preserve memories and notes about who was here and what we ate and how the table looked for from thanksgivings past.  what a treat to open the folder and find menus, notes about what people were thankful for, marketing lists, place cards going back to b.'s first thanksgiving - he was two months old, and there is a single place card bearing both of our names.  and the leaf-print place cards, the photos of flower arrangements, place settings.  none of it fancy, most of it forgotten, all of it lovingly remembered as i flipped through those pages.

two items of particular interest from the file this year.  the first is a note to myself following the last thanksgiving we hosted, three years ago.  it's attached to the menu for that meal, which includes a cornbread stuffing we had never made before.  the note reminds me how many pounds of potatoes are enough and how much sugar to cut from the sweet potato recipe (i'm thankful to myself for thinking that i'd want to know those things in the future, because of course i wondered).  the note also reads, "DO make the cornbread stuffing again!"  but there is no recipe for the cornbread stuffing.  alas.  it seems that i kept some notes, but not others.

the second item of particular interest is a page torn from a white letter-sized legal pad.  it's been folded many times.  the words on the page are scribbled in my father's handwriting - there are probably only three people in the world who would be able to read it anymore.  it's from my dad's last thanksgiving, the words he wrote in preparation for sharing at the dinner table that night about all that he was thankful for; he passed away four months later.  that was ten thanksgivings ago, and we have read from that piece of paper at every single thanksgiving since.  his words are eloquent, they are universal, and they remind me exactly how much i have to be thankful for.  (reason enough to keep a thanksgiving file, don't you think!?) 

before i go off to wash the dishes from the pie crusts i made this evening, let me recommend that you check out heather's recipe for pumpkin muffins.  that's them in the photo there, and they are delicious.  i can't say enough about these simple treats - light, fluffy, moist, tasty as can be, and easy, easy, easy to make.  i learned today that grace makes pumpkin muffins as a breakfast treat on thanksgiving morning, it's a tradition in her family.  well i'm borrowing her tradition this year; i'll be making these again on thursday morning, enjoying them warm with a bit of butter as we peel and boil potatoes, truss the turkey, and give thanks.  and i'll be adding this recipe to my file, for sure!

the kitchen

finally, the new kitchen.  which, my children point out, is not so new anymore.  there's still work to be done - something to hang over the fireplace, a handful of switch plates, another hole in the countertop.  but it's pretty much finished, and i'm feeling like i've pretty much settled in to my new surroundings.

 

really, it's glorious.  the cabinet space is plentiful and everything has its place.

the colors and the surfaces make the space a pleasure to be in.  the flow of the room is so much better and we're not banging into each other and the cabinets all of the time anymore.  there are five burners on the stove.  five!  there were two before.  it's a joy.  and do you see the library stool in the first photo?  it means that the kids can reach everything (which i would have thought was terrible two years ago, but which is perfect right now) to set the table and cook alongside me.  it's a wonder and a joy.

except for one teensy little - yet very big - thing.  the lighting in the kitchen isn't great.  i mean, it's alright for cooking and eating and living, but not so for photographing.  not at all for photographing, in fact.  (isn't that the most important lighting function in a kitchen?  photography?)  the natural light in the room is less than it was when every single surface was white, and the overhead light is so bright in spots that the glare makes it impossible to take photographs.  (and you know that the kitchen is my favorite place to take photographs.)  i'll adjust, i know i will.  but for now, i'm focusing on the cooking and the baking and enjoying this new space.

the whole house is a work in progress (read: there is no furniture).  though the empty living/dining room is an excellent spot for racing cars and building blocks and setting up elaborate knight wars in the meantime.  and we'll get to it eventually.  but we mostly hang out in the kitchen anyway.  so for now, we just sit in here and cook and eat and color and play, and look around and marvel.  this is our house.  

rolling

i made tortillas and beans for dinner last night.  i've become so enamored with homemade tortillas that i can't bring myself to buy them at the store anymore, which is both good and bad.  it's good because, of course, homemade is better, healthier, all around.  but it's bad because i don't always have the time to make my own, or the inclination to cover the entire kitchen - counter tops, floors, everything - with flour.  but last night i did, and i'm so glad.  and today there will be quesadillas for lunch.

as an aside, while i was cooking the beans, after i had soaked them and sauteed the onion and the garlic, and just as i was about to pour the broth over the pot of yumminess, i realized that i was out of cumin.  luckily there was only one child at home with me at the time, and he acquiesced to going with me to the market down the street.  the beans were delicious, in the end, and they'll be in the quesadillas at lunch today, too.

but while i was rolling (and rolling and rolling) the tortillas yesterday afternoon, i realized that i have, um, five rolling pins.  which seems excessive, even for someone who does a lot of rolling.  there is the marble rolling pin we got as a wedding gift that i have never (ever) used, and which weighs about two hundred pounds.  there is the old wooden rolling pin with handles that i adopted when we packed up my grandmother's apartment, what seems like many moons ago.  there is the straight pin i bought for myself several years ago, needing one without handles.  and, there are still two more.  

there is the tiny rolling pin i bought for the kids, but which turns out to be the very, very best for rolling tortillas.  it's lightweight, easily maneuverable, you can see it in the first photo; i've grown quite attached to it.  and there is the most special rolling pin of all (also in the first photo) - the extra-long, straight, and well-loved rolling pin that belonged to my great-grandmother.  it lived with my aunt for many, many years, and when she passed away two years ago, the rolling pin came to live with me.

i think i'll get rid of the others - the marble pin and the straight pin i bought for myself - find them new homes where they will find use and bring enjoyment, while i roll and roll and feel grateful for the history and the future and the possibilities i hold in my hands - and for tortillas and beans.  yum.

coconut cupcakes are yummy

today is my mother's birthday. and also her mother's birthday.

can you imagine!? my mother was born on her mother's 23rd birthday. what a gift.

coconut cake is their favorite. (convenient that they have the same favorite, isn't it?) i've been making the same coconut cake recipe for a few years now, and though i love the cake, i wasn't crazy about the seven-minute-frosting. so today i tried something new: a coconut-cream cheese frosting. it's a bit thinner than i had imagined - not thin enough to be a glaze, but a wee bit thinner than a traditional frosting - but it's creamy and shiny and absolutely delicious. d.e.l.i.c.i.o.u.s.

i'll tell you how i made it. but only if you promise not to say a single word about my arteries. it's frosting, after all. and it's two birthdays rolled into one. ok? ok.

coconut-cream cheese frosting - makes more than enough to frost 18 cupcakes
(adapted from this recipe)

1 8-ounce block of cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1.5-2 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth.
add all but 1/2 cup of the confectioners sugar and beat until smooth.
add the coconut milk and vanilla and the remaining confectioners sugar.
beat until smooth. (there's a pattern here, you see?)
frost the cupcakes, trying not to eat as much of the frosting as i did along the way.
and enjoy.

happy birthday mom and gramz. i'm proud (and also feeling pretty lucky) to be your daughter and granddaughter. i'm wishing you love and joy - and most of all, peace - in the coming year.

green week, 3

so much green going on out there in this little slice of the internet! and honestly, it makes me happy to see so much green. to see so many people celebrating green. practically giddy, i tell you.

today, just these bits of green from my kitchen. a favorite mug. a little dipping bowl, presently used as a salt cellar. some cucumbers. (a certain five-year-old somebody is loving cucumbers right now, can't get enough of them.)

and links! to all of the lovely bloggers who have joined the green week fun since i posted the first list on monday. there are more of you, too, i know, who are not on this list. it's fun to find you around and about. if you'd like to be added to the list, do let me know.

jo

jade

suzanne

erin

capello

shari

leya

amy h

coastal girl

beth h

kt

shelly

chris

molly

clara

joanna

miscellany of me

happy green, everyone!

waffles and pancakes, made from scratch

in honor of mama urchin's from scratch week, i thought i'd share my recipe for waffles and pancakes. this one is a favorite around here - waffles on weekday mornings (or for a fun weekday dinner), pancakes on the weekends. and we add chocolate chips for a special treat.

we used to eat the kashi frozen waffles. until i could no longer stomach paying more than three dollars for a box of frozen waffles. for so many reasons. so two years ago i bought a waffle maker (after much hemming and hawing - to buy or not to buy, which one, etc.), and i have never looked back.

waffles (and pancakes)
adapted from the joy of cooking

in a small bowl, mix together:

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 cup wheat germ
1/8 cup ground flaxmeal

in another bowl (i use a large glass measuring cup), mix together:

2 cups plain yogurt (not non-fat)
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 beaten egg
2 tablespoons melted butter (i like to melt the butter before i do everything else so that it cools before i add it to the rest of the wet ingredients)

mix the wet ingredients into the dry until blended
allow the mixture to sit for 5 minutes (or until your waffle maker heats up)
spray waffle maker with cooking spray (i use olive oil spray)
pour 1/2 cup mixture into the waffle maker, close the lid, and wait for the green light

this recipe makes approximately 6 large waffles. my kids generally eat 3 at one meal, and i freeze the rest for another meal.

top with jelly. or peanut butter. or almond butter. somehow my kids have never caught on to waffles with syrup, but that would be yummy, too.

enjoy.