From our Blog

Showing posts with label Greek Yogurt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Greek Yogurt. Show all posts

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Day 39 - Blueberry Muffins

     So I climb into bed last night and I'm lying there for about 10 minutes when I feel something crawl across my nose.  I SAT UP IN BED SO FAST!!!!!  I'm brushing my nose, rubbling my hands all over my face.  I'm running my fingers through my hair, then I'm doing wide sweeps of the covers and of my pillow.  All of this is going on in the dark mind you because the light switch next to bedroom door was off, so I couldn't turn the light on my nightstand on.  I was freaking out!  And I was making so much noise rustling the covers I'm extremely surprised my husband didn't say anything.  I race to the light switch, turn on the light and then closely examine the pillow, covers, floor and surrounding area because there is NO way that bugger is crawling on me again!  Nothing.  I didn't see a thing.  For all I know, I probably smeared him on my pillow, but I'm sure I would've felt that.  I was so eeeked out and jittery!!  You have to understand that I'm really not afraid of bugs, snakes or spiders.  I was the one at the vet clinic everyone came to to extinguish the little critters because no one else wanted to do it, except the doctor.  So, I really am not bothered by them WHEN I CAN SEE THEM AND DON'T FEEL THEM CRAWLING ON ME!!  Ooohh, chills just thinking about it.  I finally calmed myself down, turned off the light and climbed back into bed.  Every single one of my senses was on high alert, especially all those nerve endings on my skin.  I'm lying there wondering if I should go into another unoccupied bedroom and then I started thinking about the mouse we had in our old house. 
     Back in Rhode Island, I was sitting at the kitchen table with the kids and there was a package of Keebler Peanut Butter Sticks on the counter.  The mouse came out from behind the oven and ran over to the cookies, took one out and tried to squeeze back behind the oven, but had the cookie positioned the wrong way - like carrying a log through a door, he had it the long way instead of the end going through first.  He figured it out though.  It was pretty remarkable to see him reposition himself so that he could finally fit and take his prized possession with him.  Usually, people scream and jump on to chairs when they see a mouse, but I was entertained. However, I was really disgusted with the fact that he ran on the counter and contaminated a newly opened bag of really good cookies.
     So, yeah, this was something I thought about while lying there in bed, too.  Little creepy crawly things that really don't bother me.  What really does bother me are things that fly and come into my home.  Again, back in Rhode Island we had a chimney and on occasion birds would fly down and then be stuck in the house trying to escape.  That really frightened me because they're scared, they're flying around and they're so doggone unpredictable.  Ha ha I haven't even gotten to today's recipe yet, but this is a story I have to share.  Our daughters were about 5 and 3 years old at the time and shared a bedroom.  Our son was an infant, and I had put him down to bed and was reading the girls their nightly bedtime story.  This night will forever be stuck in my head.  The book we were reading was  Emma at the Beach.  It's about a good, little witch named, Emma, and her friends, a cat, an owl, and a bat.  We're sitting on one of their beds, one of them on either side of me when I notice something black about the size of a small shoe on the floor that I hadn't noticed before.  I thought it was a pair of pants one of the girls had thrown on the floor.  I continued reading and the thing started to move.  Interesting.  What the...?  Then it started to fly!  It was a BAT, circling around in the bedroom!  OH MY GOSH!!!!!  I'm screaming.  My daughters are screaming.  I was FREAKING OUT!!!  All I could think about were stories where the bat gets stuck in a girl's hair and has rabies and bites her in the neck.  EEEEWWWW!!  So the three of us are screaming.  My husband's downstairs and I'm thinking why the heck (ok, hell) hasn't he come up yet with all this noise?  Light bulb goes on in my head:  I'll stand up, get the bat to follow me out of the room and the girls will be fine.  Ok, I stand up, open their door, look for the bat, run out of the room and slam the door behind me.  PHEW!  I hated doing that, but we're all ok, and every thing's fine.  Wait, the girls are still screaming.  Where's the bat?  OH MY GOD!!!!  They're in their room with the door shut and the bat is STILL flying around!!  WHAT KIND OF A MOTHER AM I???!!!  OH MY GOSH, I HAVE TO GO BACK IN THERE!!!  So, I stood there in the hall, yelling for my husband, who came running up the stairs, and then took a VERY deep breath and quickly opened the door to get the girls out of their room.  What a night!  Our neighbors ended up coming over because we knew their boys would be interested in seeing it.  We eventually caught it in a hamper and took it outside to release it, but it will forever live in our memories.  So ironic that we were reading a story that had a bat in it.
     Last night, after climbing into bed the second time, a couple minutes later I thought I felt something touching my leg.  Again, I'm on even higher alert and wondering if I'll be able to fall asleep.  Finally, exhaustion just took over and the lovely Mr. Sandman paid me a visit.  Yes, you can bet I washed our bedsheets this morning.  All this previous chit chat had no relevance to today's recipe, but was something I wanted to share.
     Blueberry Muffins was the recipe for today.  They came from Alton Brown at http://www.foodnetwork.com/
Here's the link, since I can't post the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/blueberry-muffins-recipe/reviews/index.html.  It called for cake flour, but I didn't have any, so I used regular.  And I also used Greek yogurt for the 1 cup of plain yogurt.

The sugar, egg, oil, and yogurt combined.

 Ready for baking!

Complete yummy goodness...

     I have to say that these were the most delicious blueberry muffins I have ever made.  Ok, to be honest, I've never made blueberry muffins from scratch, they've always been from those store bought mixes.  Not any more!  These are definitely the way to go!  They were so good!  The tops were nicely browned and a little chewy and crunchy and the inside was so moist.  MMMMMmmmmmmm......deliciousness!  The only problem I had was that even though I greased the muffin tins, they still stuck when I went to turn them out and about a quarter of the tops came off.  Next time, muffin cups.  This is where I'm going to gain most of my weight, eating the scraps of the goods that won't hold together.  A bit here, a piece there, it will all end up on my hips creating, are you ready, it just seems so appropriate with today's post, a MUFFIN TOP!  Sorry, hard for me to hold back on that one.  Also, they didn't rise up, they were more like flat muffins.  Maybe that was because I didn't use cake flour.  I didn't care though, those little bits and pieces were still delicious.  My rolling pin rating:  on a scale of 1-4 rolling pins with 4 being the best, Alton's Blueberry Muffins scored a 3½!
     Happy baking!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Day 28 - Flu-Fighter Cookies

  Yes, a recipe that took me by surprise.  I was searching for a cookie recipe on the http://www.foodnetwork.com/ website and saw a delicious looking recipe that I'll definitely be trying, but when I was scrolling down the page this one caught my eye.  I had never heard of a cookie named the Flu-Fighter Cookie.  The thought of it just really doesn't sound too appetizing; which is why my teenage daughter probably turned her nose up at them and wouldn't give them a try besides the fact that they contain nuts (not that she's allergic, she just doesn't like to eat them).  The name sounded so unappetizing to me and yet at the same time, was so very much intriguing!  And it is completely filled with ingredients.  It's like someone took a pantry and spice cupboard and dumped it all in a bowl - really bizarre.  There are 18 different things in this one cookie!  And soooo many different flavors! I can't post the recipe, but I can give you the link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/flu-fighter-cookies-recipe/index.html (I still haven't figured out how to link words to websites yet.  It's on my list of things to do, so please bear with me.)  I am going to list the ingredients for you though, you ready?
flour
baking powder
baking soda
salt
ground cinnamon
freshly grated nutmeg
pinch of ground cloves
unsalted butter
dark brown sugar (I went to two different grocery stores for different things today and forgot it each time.  I had some light brown sugar at home, so I just used that.)
eggs
molasses
Greek yogurt (I always have that in my fridge)
freshly grated ginger
grated lemon zest
old-fashioned oats
golden raisins
dried cranberries
chopped toasted walnuts
See?  That's quite a list, isn't it?  They're so much in them that I was concerned about how they would taste, but then I'm thinking the Food Network isn't going to put crappy recipes up on their site and it's so different that I'm just going to have to try it.  Besides, people around these here parts have been quite sick with the flu and whatever else is going around, so maybe these will help to boost people's immune systems.  I know I'm going to be eating them for a while.  Heck, they're healthy, too (ok, at least they appear to be - it says each cookie has a calorie count of 174).  Any excuse I have to eat a cookie, I'm all over it and again, if you read my weigh-in post today, I didn't gain any weight this week.  I'm ok.
     The ingredients:  oats, flour, brown sugar, butter, baking powder, baking soda, cloves, salt, cinnamon, and, eggs.

Golden raisins, toasted walnuts, dried cranberries. molasses, and Greek yogurt.

 Lemon zest, grated ginger (behind it is ginger juice), and grated nutmeg.

After grating the nutmeg, (grating those lil' buggers is hard!  It was rolling around in my fingers and wouldn't stay still.  I need to get me one of those microplane graters) something which I had never done before, I sliced it to make sure I was grating the proper part.  I had no idea.  It smelled good as I was grating, so I figured I was doing something right.  I couldn't buy just one piece, had to buy a jar of nine for $7.9something, and four of which are stuck in the bottom of the bottle.  How the heck am I going to get those out of there and when am I going to use the rest of it?  Guess we'll be making more things with nutmeg in them.  It doesn't expire until sometime in 2014, so we're good.  The smell reminded me of some rice pudding I used to eat, so there's one idea.
I thought the inside of the nutmeg was cool:

My sous chef, Charlie.  He kept watching the mixer, but really he's waiting for me to feed him because, you know, the world revolves around the cat.

The flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves combined.

 The butter and brown sugar creamed.

The second egg added to the butter and brown sugar.

The molasses, lemon zest and ginger added to mixture.

The flour mixture added to previous ingredients.  Hanging off the blender are the fibers from the ginger.  I was really thinking this wasn't going to be a good part of the cookie and would be stringy.

Oats,  ½ of each of the cranberries, walnuts and raisins added.


Ready for the oven.

Baked and ready to be eaten.

     The aroma that filled the house while these were in the oven was wonderful!  It smelled like gingerbread.  I have to say I wasn't looking forward to trying these and was thinking that they were not going to be eaten.  But, wow!  For a cookie with so much in it, it's like a taste party in your mouth!  Unbelievable.  It's gingery, with a taste of cinnamon; a touch of lemon and I'm not tasting that ginger stringy-stuff I thought I would; crunchy from the nuts and chewy because of the raisins and cranberries; and it has just the right amount of sweetness!  These probably are the healthiest tasting cookies I have ever had.  It's a good cookie to send in a care package to your college student who is stressed, doesn't eat well or get enough sleep and is around a lot of sick people, especially this time of year.  You can bet I'll be sending some of these out to my daughter.
     The rating for Flu-Fighter Cookies: 3½ rolling pins.
     So, here's to your immune systems, happy baking!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Day 21 - Chile Cheese Casserole

     I didn't see that woman's car today at school during drop-off, but you can be sure that I was looking!  I had to do a lot of talking to myself this morning while I was working my way through the parking lot, so I wouldn't become frazzled.  It worked.  I came out unscathed.
     The 21st recipe is Chile Cheese Casserole from the Food Network website.  No recipe, but here is the link:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/chile-cheese-casserole-recipe/index.html
     I was needing to bake something today that would use up the egg whites I had leftover from making the Créme Brulée yesterday.  I love the Food Network site because in their search field you can type in any ingredient and recipes will come up containing it.  So, I typed in "6 egg whites" and voila:  Chile Cheese Casserole.  It was either that or omelets and those wouldn't work 'cause they aren't baked.  My initial thought was that this dish would be too eggy for a dinner and would be best suited for breakfast; maybe I should add some cooked chicken to it.  But we had chicken last night for dinner and I try not to repeat things two nights in a row.  As it was baking, my daughter said that it smelled really good, so I was excited to try it, as was she.  Here are the pictures of the process:

     Chile Cheese Casserole
     The ingredients.

The diced green chiles and cilantro added to the mixture of eggs, egg whites, chili powder, and pepper.


The crushed tortilla chips in the bottom of the baking dish and the final mixture with the cheeses added to it.


After being poured into the pan.


In the dish with the additional layer of tortilla chips.


End of initial baking time before the additional cheese was added.


Out of the oven.


Ready for dinner.


The recipe suggested serving it with sour cream and green salsa verde.  I did neither and served it with Greek yogurt and regular jarred salsa.  Nobody even knew the difference.  The same daughter who told me it smelled good while it was baking took two bites and didn't eat the rest.  My husband and son said it was ok, finished it or nearly finished, but never went back for seconds which is a nightly occurrence around here.  I really didn't like it.  Yes, it was extremely eggy, but it did call for 6 egg whites and an additional 4 eggs.  It wasn't as spicy as I expected though and I have to say that the yogurt and salsa on top made it better.  My recommendation if you're looking for a way to use up those egg whites from the créme brulée you made the day before, make omelets for breakfast or some meringue cookies.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part.  Right after dinner my husband took me to a movie. Upon walking into the house, I was overcome by the smell of dirty diapers.  It was horrible!  Yes, it was the remaining smell from dinner.  I need to burn a candle.  Just something to think about if you're looking to try this one.  Or, you could make it on a night when you're having company you're not particularly thrilled to see.
     My rating for the Chile Cheese Casserole:  1 rolling pin.
     Happy baking!

Category 5

Category 6

Category 7

 
Copyright © 2014 vintageandbaking.blogspot.com