Blackberry Muffins

Right about this time of year all the random groups of bushes in Eugene start sprouting blackberries. It's awesome! In fact, yesterday on my walk with Luna at Elijah Bristow State Park, there was probably a good half mile of blackberry brambles all along the path. I've made blackberry muffins a couple of times, but yesterday's batch was so great. The people at work are raving about them.

Ingredients:

5 Tbsp butter

1 Cup of Sugar

1 1/3 c flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1/2 tsp of Pumpkin Pie spice

1 tsp (or more) of cinnamon

2 tsp of vanilla

1 c of milk

1/2 c (or more, I didn't measure) of chocolate chips (totally optional)

1 1/2 c (or more, again I didn't measure) of whole blackberries. If you use frozen blackberries, you'll want to let them thaw and then rinse them off.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

line 12 piece muffin pan with cups or grease the pan

Cream butter and sugar

add baking powder, salt, and spices, milk and mix some more

add egg and 2/3 c of flour, mixing gently just until blended.

fold in the remaining flour, chocolate chips and blackberries

Pour batter into muffin cups, leaving a tad bit of room.

Bake for 25 minutes

Remove from oven and let the muffins sit in the pan for 5 minutes or so before removing.

enjoy!

These are the only pictures I have, and I had to take them with my camera phone (my digital camera broke). Sorry for the poor quality!

yummy brunch

I usually don't enjoy breakfast; the thought of food early in the morning is sort of revolting to me. But when I sleep in until 11:45, I wake up ready for a meal that is the size of lunch, but the flavor of breakfast. Today I wanted home fries and eggs with interesting ingredients. It turned out to be an amazing brunch, and I look forward to making it again in the future.

ingredients
2 eggs (the picture shows 3, but that's too many)
smoked gouda cheese
crimini mushrooms
spinach
1 tbsp of butter
1 large red potato
1/4 white or yellow onion
2-3 tbsp of canola oil
salt
pepper
kiwi
breakfast juice (I went with R.W. Knudsen Simply Nutritious Morning Blend)

Start with the homefries first:
Put the canola oil in a castiron (or other kind of) skillet on high
Peel and slice the potato, slice the onion

Gently place the potato slices in the skillet, they should sizzle, then cover with the onions and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover with lid and lower heat to medium.
Let that cook for ten minutes, or until underside of potatoes is brown.



While that cooks, cut your mushrooms and gouda cheese into the amount you'd like in your egg mix. Then beat the eggs in a bowl with a little milk, like you would for scrambled eggs. Pour yourself a little juice while you wait on the potatoes.


Once the underside of the potatoes is brown, flip them gently. Cover again, and let cook for 10 minutes. While this cooks, put the mushrooms in a smaller skillet with the butter. Then add all of the spinach (a lot goes a short way). Add the eggs and cheese. Stir periodically like you would scrambled eggs.







Before the eggs are done, remove the potatoes from the skillet, place on an ovensafe plate with a paper towel and stick in a 250 degree oven. This will dry them out a bit, which is desirable.







When the eggs are done, scoop some onto your plate and load up with potatoes. Enjoy! I sure did.

Asparagus and Tomato - Food of the Gods

Asparagus and tomatoes, or rather the lack thereof, are two more reasons to hate Winter. I guess if I was being optimistic about it, I'd say they are two reasons to LOVE Summer. But the lack of awesome tomatoes and asparagus in the wintertime is annoying, to say the least.

However yesterday I got some amazing picks of these fruits and vegetables, and I decided to make a couple of REALLY easy salads with them. They were SO delicious. I will have them again today.

For the asparagus salad, you'll need:

5-6 stalks of awesome asparagus

lemon

feta cheese

lemon pepper

Blance the asparagus and cut the stalks into thirds. Sprinkle lemon juice and feta on top while throwing some lemon pepper on there too. Done.

Tomato salad

2 vine-ripe tomatoes cut to your liking

Italian dressing of some kind (I use Newman's Family recipe)

oregano

lemon pepper

parsley

salt

mozzarella

croutons

Combine all the ingredients (except the croutons) in a bowl and refrigerate for an hour or so. Add croutons to the salad just before eating.

Delectable and surprisingly filling, these are both tasty treats sure to please your friends. yumtime!

Chicken Crapiccata

Having a cooking blog isn't just about sharing successes. It is also important to share failures. Not only does it keep a person humble, but it's a great way to spread the misery of a terrible meal. Perhaps someone can offer some advice on how to enhance this mongol-food of a meal.

Granted, I have never really liked Chicken Piccata. I've received it by accident at a restaurant (honestly, I wanted Jamaican Chicken), and I've had it at a restaurant where I used to work. Both times I was neither impressed or satiated. In fact, I was very put off by the meal. Evidently all of this had slipped my mind as I got excited about making a "white wine and lemon sauce."

Ingredients:
4 chicken tenders
rosemary, sage and thyme
lemon pepper
1 large lemon (1/2 c lemon juice and 1 Tbsp lemon zest)
1/2 c Chardonnay
1/2 c chicken broth
olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
spaghetti
parsley
oregano
flour

Cut slits on each side of the tenders, lightly dash some lemon pepper on both sides of the tenders and place in a small tupperware dish with olive oil, lemon zest, some thyme, rosemary and sage. Put a little bit of lemon juice in there as well. Cut up one clove of garlic and scatter that in there too. Let the chicken marinate for at least an hour.


After the chicken has marinated, pour the contents of the tupperware into a saucepan. Add a little bit of oil if necessary until the surface of the saucepan is covered with oil. Turn the heat on med-high and let the chicken cook evenly.

While the chicken is cooking, put some spaghetti on to boil. Combine the wine, lemon juice, and chicken broth in a container, adding the parsley and oregano. After the chicken is done cooking, remove it from the saucepan. Add the chopped up 2 cloves of garlic to the remaining olive oil (shouldn't be very much, but drain it if it is).

After letting that simmer on medium for a short while, scatter a couple of Tbsps of flour onto the saucepan, letting it absorb the oil. Then slowly pour the lemon juice/wine/chicken broth mixture in, turning the heat up to high. Stir continuously until a thick sauce forms. At some point during this you'll want to drain the spaghetti.

Once the sauce forms, pour it over the chicken and spaghetti.

It's a pretty easy recipe, and maybe that is part of the problem. Perhaps I left out some extremely vital step to making this tasty. The worst part was the sauce, hands down. The best part was the awesomely marinated chicken. So I just scraped the sauce off of the chicken and ate that. The pasta was too far gone.

I dare encourage you to make this dish and tweak it somehow. Let me know how it goes for you. Or don't tweak it all and see how you like it. Maybe I just don't like chicken piccata. It wouldn't be the first time.

A Yummy Meal

Baked chicken, pasta salad, and a peanut butter/honey/banana dessert.

Baked chicken:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1 shallot sliced

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

Fat free Italian dressing

pepper

garlic powder

oregano

Preheat the oven to 350. Arrange the chicken breasts in a cooking dish, so that there is not a lot of extra room (preferrably a smaller cooking dish). Lightly cover each side of the breasts with pepper, oregano and garlic powder. Place the sliced shallot and garlic on top of each breast, and then drizzle with the dressing. While it shouldn't completely submerge the chicken breasts, it should pretty well cover them.

Place in oven for 15 minutes, then flip the chicken breasts over. Cook for 15 more minutes or until cooked through.

Pasta Salad (I got this from my roommate, and it's SO good...and will last for several days!)

A little less than a pound of multicolor twirly pasta

2-3 cups of fresh spinach leaves

3/4 can of black olives, drained and sliced

3/4 of a red bell pepper, cut into pieces

some feta cheese, cut up

very thinly sliced red onion

olive oil/vinegar salad dressing

cherry tomatoes, halved

Boil pasta to al dente, then drain. Add all of the other ingredients and two (maybe 3) capfuls of the salad dressing. Done.

Dessert (pay close attention here)

1 small banana

some peanut butter

some honey

1 slice of toast

Smash the banana, add the peanut butter and honey. Mix. Smear on top of toast. Eat.

This meal was positively delicious, incorporating different flavors and textures. Luckily I have enough to last me three more meals. The total cost was about..$18 (including organic ingredients). For four healthy, nutritious meals that's not bad at all. And it's really easy to make. I hope you try this out!

My Favorite Pasta

This dish my favorite pasta dish, and I learned it from my mother. I rarely make it, because it IS fattening (cream, butter...need I say more), but it's SO delicious. My favorite part about it is definitely the sherry.

I typically make enough pasta/cream sauce for one serving, but enough chicken for two. That way, I can use the leftover chicken for the next day's lunch. The cream sauce, as most cream sauces, is not especially fantastic leftover. Edible and tasty for sure, but the consistency is not right. Even so, this rich pasta leaves me so full, I often have enough leftover anyway.


Ingredients:

5-6 chicken tenders (or 2 chicken breasts cut into tender-sized pieces)
1/4 c sliced mushrooms
1 shallot
1/2 c grated parmesan cheese
italian bread crumbs
olive oil
1-2 Tbsp of butter
heavy whipping cream
linguine or angelhair pasta
garlic
.....and SHERRY


1. Put however much linguine you want on to boil. Heat some olive oil in a large skillet, and in a separate skillet put the mushrooms and butter on to heat, sauteeing the mushrooms.


2. Add sliced garlic to the olive oil, add the sliced shallot to the mushrooms.


3. Bread the chicken tenders in the bread crumbs and place them in the olive oil to cook. Once they are brown on one side, turn them over. Once that side is brown as well, lower the heat and cook for about 5 minutes on each side.


4. Pour in some heavy whipping cream to the mushrooms and shallot. Imagine how much sauce you want to eat at the end (1/2 c should be good...) and add 1/4 c more. That's how much cream you should pour in. Stir this continuously.

5. As the chicken is near being done, slowly add parmesan cheese to the cream sauce. I really have no special measurement here. To taste, to consistency, whatever. Cook this down a little bit. About now you'll be able to drain the linguine.

6. Add 1 Tbsp (at least!) of sherry to the cream sauce. After that, depending on how much sherry I need in my life, I add by the tsp, stirring and tasting each time.

Stir again one last time. Hopefully it has reached a thicker consistency. If not, continue to cook it on low heat. But watch it, or it will become too thick. Pour on top of the linguine and add 2-3 chicken tenders on top. Sprinkle the top with a bit of parmesan cheese, and voila!

Enjoy!

Fast and Easy Apple Crisp

Today at work I held my granny smith apple in my hand and stared at it. I really wanted some apple flavor, but I didn't feel like just eating a plain apple. Still not quite sure how to solve this dilemma, I stuffed it in my bag and headed home early (snow today!).

After I woke up from my nap, I still wanted the apple. I meandered into the kitchen.... saw my roommate's oatmeal sitting out. Apple crisp! Of course! But I only had two apples (a honeycrisp and the granny smith). I decided to make a "mini crisp." My roommate and I had them after our dinner, and we both enjoyed them thoroughly.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

To make this seriously fast, easy and delicious crisp, you'll need:
3 ramekins
2 apples, peeled and sliced
2 Tbsp of granulated sugar (originally I had 3 Tbsp, but I thought it was a bit sweet)
3 Tbsp of brown sugar (packed or unpacked, who cares)
1 packet of instant oatmeal (I just happened to have maple and brown sugar flavor on hand) OR 4 Tbsp of instant oatmeal
2 1/2 Tbsp of melted butter
pumpkin spice
cinnamon
1/4 c water

After peeling and slicing the apples, place the pieces in the the ramekins, filling them almost to the top.

Combine the granulated sugar and 1 Tbsp of flour with 2 shakes of pumpkin spice and 2 shakes of cinnamon. Sprinkle this evenly over the apples.

Combine the melted butter, the rest of the flour, oatmeal, and the brown sugar in another bowl. It should make a paste-like substance. Spread this evenly over the apple slices.

Pour the water evenly in the three ramekins, place the ramekins on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes.

Enjoy a la mode or a la nude (no ice cream).

Special thanks to my sous chef/hoover vacuum, Luna!