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Posts with tag muffins

'Cooking With Pumpkins and Squash' - Cookbook Spotlight


cooking with pumpkins and squash
Photo: Amazon.com.
'Cooking With Pumpkins and Squash'
By Brian Glover
Photography by Peter Cassidy
Ryland Peteres & Small -- 2008
Buy it on Amazon

Despite early fall's T-shirt weather and last-summer's-hurrah barbecues, Brian Glover's "Cooking With Pumpkins and Squash" beckoned. Although it largely consists of hot autumn colors and warming recipes, this exquisite cold-weather cookbook could not sit one week in the kitchen before we cracked.

We blame Glover's seductive prose: "Some flavors stand out as having a real affinity with squashes and pumpkins of all shapes and sizes; their nutty sweetness works well with salty tastes such as goat cheese, feta and olives..." His understanding of squash's potential as an adaptable base -- to be spiked with other bold ingredients and not merely to be devoured on its own -- intrigued us.

Though many niche cookbooks devoted to a particular ingredient can be characterized as too centric toward their subject, "Cooking With Pumpkins and Squash" reveals refreshingly complex recipes with unexpected flavors. "Light bites" recipes like Grilled Zucchini, Halloumi and Fava Beans with Tomato and Mint Dressing expertly showcase and complement the light, springy flavor of summer squash, while heartier entrées like the Pumpkin Risotto with Pancetta and Sage suit the rich, silky texture of pumpkin and butternut squash.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Continue reading 'Cooking With Pumpkins and Squash' - Cookbook Spotlight

Tip of the Day - Use Yogurt in Desserts

Find out how to use yogurt as a healthy alternative to high fat ingredients when baking.

Continue reading Tip of the Day - Use Yogurt in Desserts

Savory Quick Breads From the Blogs

jalapeno whole wheat muffins
Since the colder weather finally settled in, I've been making at least one pot of soup or stew a week. However, I often feel like a bowl of steaming, brothy goodness isn't complete without a bit of bread or a couple of crackers to go along with it. Some weeks I buy a multi-grain baguette at the farmers market but sometimes I like to make my own rolls or biscuits.

I've had my eyes open for new quick bread options lately and there are two that struck my fancy today. I haven't actually made either yet, but I've printed out both recipes and they are destined for the "Must Make" stack in my kitchen. The first is the recipe for Jalapeno Whole Wheat Scones from from A Smart Mouth. I don't have all those exotic flours on hand, but I've been looking for an excuse to buy buckwheat flour and this may be reason enough. The other is the recipe for Cornmeal and Bacon Muffins that Erin (of Erin Cooks!) made over the weekend. She says she wasn't quite happy with the texture of these, but I find that the drier, crumbly breads go quite nicely with soup, so these might still be salvageable yet.

Make Weekend Breakfasts Easier - Tip of the Day

By the time you lug yourself out of bed at 11 a.m. on a Sunday, do you really want to spend another 30 minutes prepping brunch before you start cooking? Try using make-ahead brunch recipes for an even more relaxing weekend morning.

Continue reading Make Weekend Breakfasts Easier - Tip of the Day

Tidbits: Doughnut muffin

The perfect marriage of pastry- meet the donut muffin.
I love when life tosses a little bit of unexpected happiness. Walking around my local farmers' market, I spotted from a distance a sugary concoction that sparked an interest. I asked the question, he answered, and I wondered if life would ever be the same.

Meet the doughnut muffin: part delectable doughnut, part soft, cake-y muffin tossed around in cinnamon sugar. Beyond filling (but not too heavy), I split this with my trusty side-kick and felt the level of comfort rising. New to block - Brownie Points located in Summit, NJ - turned out this perfect marriage of everything gone right in the pastry world along with many others.

Visit them at the Summit Farmers' Market every Sunday until Christmas or at their store: 3 Beechwood Road (908) 464-2253

The Toronto Star in 60 seconds, part one: Muffin Mania to crab cakes

Muffin Mania Ladies
  • Muffin Mania has returned -- after doing well in the '80s, Martha Prange has republished her grandmother's muffin cookbook.
  • A review of the long-awaited new Toronto bagel shop, Bagel World ... although it's more about the babka than the bagels.
  • Those super-cute mini cows are making waves in Ontario, but restricted from metropolitan Toronto life.
  • Wild idea: Instead of dieting, just change your eating habits a little. Eat, Drink and Be Gorgeous: A Nutritionist's Guide to Living Well While Living It Up offers that and foodie sex tips too?
  • Wines: Toasting summer with tasty whites and getting red for fall.
  • Recipes: Crab cakes.
  • Slashfood Ate (8): Feeling blueberry

    On the Fourth, I went with my parents and my boyfriend to pick blueberries, and we came home with 20 lbs. of them. Apparently, we're not the only ones with blueberries on the brain, since the food blogs have been teeming lately with lovely blueberry delights (even this one, see?). Here are a few of my favorites posts -- those that are in the running for using up the remaining 8 lbs. of blueberries in my refrigerator:

    blueberry gelato
    from Coconut & Lime

    blueberry frozen yogurt from Jumbo Empanadas

    creamy lemon and blueberry bars from Cookie Madness

    blueberry and pineapple clafoutis
    from Tartelette

    blueberry bran muffins from Cook Quick Easy Recipes

    Something Blueberry
    -- a blog dedicated to the fruit

    berry almond crumble from Simply Recipes

    avocado and blueberry fruit salad
    from A Weight Lifted

    Ideas for my pounds of blueberries? Please share.

    Tip of the Day: Don't let your muffin tin burn

    Do you find your empty muffin wells burning when you make a few muffins? Here's how to keep that from happening.

    Continue reading Tip of the Day: Don't let your muffin tin burn

    Tip of the Day: Don't Let Your Chocolate Chips Sink

    chocolate chip muffins
    I'm a chronic muffin baker, and I love adding whatever I have in the kitchen into the mix -- chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruits, seeds, marshmallows, oats, really anything. The problem with adding extra ingredients to muffins, however, is that they frequently sink. It's not so bad with seeds and other light additions, but it become very annoying with chocolate chips and heavier ingredients.

    There are tons of suggestions about preventing chocolate chips from sinking, but some are definitely more useful than others. Firstly, you can try coating chocolate chips in flour before folding them into your mixture. I've found this to be moderately helpful, but I've read accounts of people who call it completely useless. You can also make sure that your batter is thick enough to suspend chocolate chips -- the thinner the batter, the more likely they are to sink. If you stand by your thin batter however, try using smaller, lighter chips, or reserving half of the chips to sprinkle on top after you've spooned the batter into the muffin cups.

    The problem isn't limited to muffins, so feel free to try these tips with anything that you are baking. And though these are some of my favorite methods for suspending chips and other ingredients, I'm sure there are others out there, so please share any that work for you!

    Vegan Etsy opens up a whole new world of baked goods

    vegan baked goods

    Surely you already know of Etsy, the ebay for the crafty and craft-loving alike. But perhaps you've yet to hear of Vegan Etsy, the blog of a group of Etsy users whose online shops consist solely of vegan items.

    The blog primarily features fun interviews with Etsy shop owners, whose products consist of about half baked goods and half vegan accessories (which are just as fun to peruse). There are also plenty of links to the shops, where you can buy vegan goodies to your heart's content. A sampling: blueberry muffins, lemony-glazed raspberry turnovers, pumpkin spice cupcakes...is your mouth watering yet?

    In addition to being an awesome place to find new buyers and sellers, you can pick up some great tips from the Vegan Etsy crowd, like new recipes, helpful vegan websites, and gorgeous flickr pages. You can't really go wrong.

    Apple Walnut Muffins from a much-maligned book

    apple walnut muffins
    More than once, I've been caught saying nasty things about my 1997 edition of the Joy of Cooking. It's not that there's anything inherently bad about that volume, I just happened to grow up with one printed in the early seventies (white dust jacket, turquoise fabric cover) and love that one totally because it is so deeply familiar to me. However, last night I had to swallow all my heartless words, because the '97 version came through for me big time.

    Last week I went apple picking. Scott and I picked a full bushel of apples. I've made apple sauce, apple crisp, apples with yogurt, eaten about 15 out of hand and still the box of apples doesn't seem to be visibly reducing. So I went looking for a recipe for a baked good that uses apples. I was hoping for a quick bread or muffin recipe that was low in fat, used several apples and tasted good. And I found it. The muffins came out light, tender and amazingly delicious (ate two as soon as they were cool enough to touch). This one is getting copied down and is going in the file. The recipe is after the jump.

    Continue reading Apple Walnut Muffins from a much-maligned book

    Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

    Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
    Speaking of pumpkin-based baked goods, another one of my favorite recipes for this time of year is for Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffin. It's true that you can make these puppies any time of year with canned pumpkin puree, and that's a good option for when you start craving them in March. But there's no better time of year than now to whip up a batch of these puppies with freshly roasted pumpkin. The recipe is after the jump.

    Continue reading Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

    Mussels and Maine Lobster: The Boston Globe in 60 seconds

    peaches

    Blogs and Beer Can Chicken: The Boston Globe in 60 seconds

    Food Porn: Rocky Mountain Muffins

    Few and far between are the people who don't love the tops of muffins, especially the tops that rise ski-high above the rim of the muffin pan. It's difficult to explain why, but the tops seem to just be better than the rest. Unfortunately, sky-high tops are also a bit tricky to achieve and most homemade muffins seem to come out flatter than commercial ones. Not to worry, however, because Riana from For The Love of Baking compiled a great "to-do" list of tips for achieving the perfect, high-rising muffin top. Her Rocky Mountain Muffins, pictured above, would certainly tower over most homemade muffins.

    The recipe she used can be found here, along a long list of all the combinations of ingredients that can be mixed into the muffins to customize them.

    Next Page >

    Tip of the Day

    December may have peppermint bark, but have you thought to incorporate the taste of autumn into white chocolate with a rich pumpkin swirl?

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