Cooking for Seven

Did you know that I have some of the best in-laws ever? When my husband and I were on our honeymoon, my husband’s mother and sister planted our garden for us. Even though the deer and rabbits attacked it with abandon, we were able to glean some organic produce this year. Without my in-laws, it would have been too late to start a garden this year.

Not stopping with that, they have showered us with their own amazing produce - fresh strawberries, raspberries, green beans, garlic, and more. Plus, they taught me how to can green beans so we can savor them all winter.

Which brings me to these raspberry muffins. I had a whole gallon bucket of lovely raspberries from Reuben’s family in the fridge, and I wanted to bake something delicious with them. We were having soup for supper and I thought these would be a nice addition to the meal. And they were a success! Reuben loved them.

“How to did you get them to be caramelized on top?” he asked.

My evening was made.

Notes:

• Of course I substituted part whole wheat flour and natural sweetener. The original recipe called for lemon zest, but I didn’t have any on hand so I skipped it. It also called for pecans in the topping, but Reuben doesn’t care for nuts in baked goods so I left them out.
• I felt that the recipe did not call for enough buttermilk. I ended up adding 1/4 cup of cream or more to the batter to get it to the right consistency.
• It will seem like there’s way too much topping for the muffins, but that’s not the case. It’s just right. Trust me.

Raspberry Muffins

Printable Page | Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

For the topping:

• 1/3 cup demereara sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

For the muffin batter:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 demerara sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, beaten slightly
• 5 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 to 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 375° F. Grease or line with muffin papers 12 standard muffin cups.

2) To make topping: In a small bowl, stir together the sugar and flour. Stir in the melted butter until the mixture is crumbly. Set aside.

3) To make the muffins: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate small bowl, combine the egg, butter, vanilla, and buttermilk. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the wet ingredients. Stir just to moisten. Add the raspberries and gently fold in with a rubber spatula. Do not overmix.

4) Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Evenly distribute the topping over the batter. Bake in preheated oven until golden and springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. Place pan on a cooling rack and allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to the cooling rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature, with butter of course!

Now for the Winner!

The winner of my RiceSelect giveaway is:

Commenter #78: j.hodge who had yogurt for breakfast.

Congratulations!

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway. I have several more giveaways lined up this fall, so stay tuned!

Keep eating and cooking what you love!

Erica Lea

I love reviewing products. It’s just fun to test out new things, discover if I really like it.

Today I’m reviewing Clearly Fresh® Bags, storage bags with a 3-inch square membrane that allows your produce to breathe.

The claim: Clearly Fresh® Bags can extend the shelf life of fresh fruits and vegetables by up to 50%

The Test: To test the Clearly Fresh® Bags claim, I allowed three bananas to sit on the counter for 12 days.

I chose three bananas from the same bunch. 1) was placed on the counter without a bag. 2) was placed in a Clearly Fresh® Bag and sealed. 3) was placed in a cheap (conventional) storage bag and sealed.

The Results:

Let’s start with the cheap bag. On the outside, it looks perfectly normal. But peel back the skin and you discover a nasty, squishy mess. Plus, the tip formed all sorts of nasty mold. Ew.

Now for the Clearly Fresh® Bag. On the outside it looks much the same as the banana stored in the cheap bag, but the inside was less icky and squishy. The tip was quite mushy, but the rest of the banana was fairly good. The tip also formed all sorts of icky mold, but a bit less than banana #3.

Finally, the banana stored without a bag. To my surprise, this banana performed the best on the squishy and moldy test. It was still quite edible after 12 days. However, it attracted fruit flies like crazy. Gross.

Conclusion: The Clearly Fresh® Bag definitely kept the banana fresher than the banana stored in the conventional bag. The banana stored without a bag stayed firm and mold-free the longest, but it attracted a multitude of fruit flies. Totally gross.

What I love about this product: The generous size: substantially larger than a gallon bag. It’s so much more convenient to store large amounts of produce in a bag that’s actually big enough! Right now I’ve got three heads of broccoli in one Clearly Fresh® Bag.

Is it worth it/Would I buy it? I think it’s worth $3.99 for 10 LARGE (12” X 14”) bags. Plus, I stored the bananas longer than Clearly Fresh® recommends (9 days is their limit). If I want to store bananas for a week without generating fruit flies, I would definitely chose the Clearly Fresh® Bag.

You can purchase the bags for yourself here: {Link}

Need some banana recipes?

Banana Nut Bread

Banana Poppy Seed Bread

Creamy Coconut Fruit Salad

Banana Cake

{Grandma’s Cooking School is my chronicles of the informal cooking lessons that my Grandma graciously decided to give us girls. I have compiled a list of all the lessons so far. Enjoy!}

Apple Strudel. A thing of beauty. Sweet apples encased in a thin, flaky dough. Delicious.

We began our lesson by reading through the recipe and preparing the apples.

Next, we mixed together two kinds of dough: a quick version and a more traditional version made with yeast. Meanwhile we cooked the apple filling.

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Fascinating how much your photography can change in just 1.5 years. Way back in December of 2008 I blogged about a delicious recipe I had concocted: Fruit on the Bottom Baked Oatmeal. Here was my original header photo:

I was so proud that captured this image early on a Winter morning.

All of this to say, go and see my guest post on the Tasty Kitchen blog: Fruit on the Bottom Baked Oatmeal.

Have I told you about this cobbler? It is wonderful. Easy, fast, delicious. My dad likes it better than blueberry pie. The first time we made it he said, “You need to USE this recipe.” And so we have.

The construction of the topping was new to me: Cut the butter into the dry ingredients, then add boiling water. The result is a tender, tasty topping. And it’s so much easier than pie dough.

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