Sometimes you just have to make it work

In the spirit of my friend's Make It Work Mondays, I spent today making it work. I've been tired, a bit under the weather, and a bit down for a while now, and today I was just going to be happy, darn it.

This is a great goal, but not the best plan for a New Hire Monday at work, because those days mean an early start, lots of things going wrong, and me putting out fires and never getting enough done. But I persevered and made my Monday work, and brought smiles to people's faces, and had a smile on my face for at least a portion of the work day. And you know what the best part of getting to work an hour early? Getting to leave an hour early!

So I get home early, excited to get started on some delicious dinner prep and maybe even take in a yoga class! I decide, yes, this is the day to sign up for a free week at the hot yoga place next door, Sol Yoga. I take a quick trip to Trader Joe's for a few dinner ingredients, and then get home to prep the savory bread pudding I will make. Only to find out that the bread cubes I prepped have gone moldy. After a closer examination I determined that only about a quarter were bad, so I made it work with the majority that were still good. Of course, all the picking through each and every bread cube took some time, so I didn't get any other prep for dinner done before I headed to yoga.

Which was crazy packed, and my first day, but I squeezed in, and proceeded to have a wonderful workout and did a lot of deep breathing and deep thinking. And a LOT of sweating. Maybe you didn't need to know that.

I return home to finish making dinner, make some adjustments to the recipe to account for the smaller amount of bread cubes, and discover that my dill has been eaten by some sort of bugs. At this point I am thinking that maybe the universe does not want me to make Savory Asparagus Bread Pudding, but I will not be stopped. I use instead a dill mix seasoning (looks like bugs don't like lemon, garlic and jalepano with their dill), and make it work. (Note: click through to the blog to read the recipe and see the pretty photos. Her food blog is one of my favorites, you should definitely check it out)

Now that it's out of the oven, I think I'll enjoy my (very late) dinner and finish out my Monday feeling pretty good. How was your Monday? Did you make it work for you?

Book Review: Angels & Demons

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I have to say I'm not impressed with Brown's work. I remember reading the Da Vinci Code when it came out and everyone was gaga for it, and I unimpressed then too. I had heard this one was better, but no.

Although the plot moves right along and is engaging, I found myself laughing at the writing most of the time. The first bit that clued me in to the bad writing was the description of the protagonist, along with the revelation of his nickname. Come on, really?

Another unintentionally laughable moment:"He never suspected that later that night, in a country hundreds of miles away, the information would save his life."

And my favorite ridiculous statement:"The marble cushioned his fall with all the grace of cold steel."

Seriously? This was a NYT best-seller? I give it two stars because it had some redeeming moments (the scene with Vittoria and her adoptive father discussing girls doing math was the best moment of the whole book) and it certainly was a fast read. But for guilty-pleasure reading I liked the Twilight series better - she does better cliff-hanger chapter endings and she appeals to the 13 year old girl in me. You should skip this one, really.

View all my reviews >>

Breakfast for Dinner

Of all the meals during the day, breakfast is my favorite. I could literally eat breakfast at every meal and be quite happy. I restrain myself most of the time, but tonight I felt like it was a breakfast night, mainly because the ingredients were there and I was feeling pretty lazy.

After an early work day, followed by cleaning the bathroom and kitchen, and messing about with our fussy vacuum cleaner, I was not feeling very inspired or full of zest to create a challenging meal. I examined the fridge, the pantry, the freezer, and found my inspiration in a half package of Soyrizo that I had frozen for a later meal. Well, the later meal is now, it turns out. I had eggs, and baby potatoes and onion, and that meant I had breakfast for dinner.

Soyrizo and eggs are just delicious, and quite easy. Soyrizo also is so much better for you than Chorizo, and tastes very very very (very very) similar. I can't really distinguish the difference except for noticing less grease, but I'm sure my Chicana friends would disagree. :) However, it suits my mostly veggie needs, and tastes darn good. Cooked up with scrambled eggs, it's a great source of protein and packed with flavor.

The roasted oven potato recipe I got from Vegan with a Vengeance, by the same woman who brought us the best cookbook ever, Vegan Cupcakes take over the World. VwaV is a fun little cookbook, with all sorts of great ideas, but it seems like some of the recipes have not been tested or proofed as well as they should have been. I feel the same about her other cookbook, Veganomicon. Just do a sanity check before actually starting any of the recipes to make sure that all the bits are there, is all I'm saying.

Anyway, my new favorite breakfast potato recipe is this one, and it's quite easy and so delicious. Give it a shot next time you're serving brunch, or just want to have delicious potatoes for dinner! My favorite bits are the crispy crispy onions - yum!

Herb-Roasted Potatoes

from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

serves about 4

3 lbs small red potatoes, halved lengthwise

1 medium onion, quartered and sliced 1/2 in. thick

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tsp coarse sea salt

Fresh ground black pepper

4 tsp rosemary, fresh, chopped

4 tsp thyme, fresh, chopped

Preheat oven to 450. Place the potatoes and onions on a rimmed baking sheet, sprinkle with oil and salt and pepper, toss to coat. Roast for 35 minutes. Remove from oven, sprinkle with the herbs, and toss to coat again. Roast about 20 minutes longer, until brown and tender.

For this evening's rendition I used baby red and yellow gold potatoes, and only thyme since I was out of fresh rosemary. In the past I've used just large yellow gold potatoes chopped up into chunks about 1 1/2 in or thereabouts, same with larger red potatoes. It's a very forgiving recipe, and scales very well either up or down (I just make enough for J and I for dinner/breakfast).

And now with a tummy full of breakfast, I wind down for the evening and get ready for bed. Seems a bit backwards, somehow, yet also so very comforting.

A Pleasant Weekend

There hasn't been near enough blogging going on here, and I apologize for the lack of updates. For some reason January was a pretty blah month for me, and I'm hoping that I've turned the corner to a better mind-set. I've certainly been exercising more this week, and that is helping quite a bit. I also got some sun today, at our local farmer's market.

Flowers from the market

J and I love the market, and it's every Sunday year round here in La Jolla. Today we picked up some baby potatoes, golden beats, apples, dried apricots, fresh pasta, and ate some delicious veggie chili and a cheese tamale. I also picked up some beautiful flowers, from my favorite flower vendor. I feel very lucky that I live someplace where I can buy local fruits and veggies, get some sunlight, and take in the wonderful weather almost every week. I know a lot of the country is under several inches (feet?) of snow right now, and that may very well be me next year (who knows where the winds will take us); but I am very happy with where we are right now, and am trying to live in the moment and appreciate what we've got.

Cali appreciates the flowers from the market...

but not the flash I had to use to capture this before she pulled the greenery right out of the vase.

The Magic Scone Recipe

I love making scones. I've been making scones for years, and the recipe I use is really just a starting point to whatever flavors or ideas I've been wanting to try out. On New Year's Day I baked almond-apricot scones. I figure if I wanted to set a good start to the year to take it in a positive direction, I couldn't do much better than baking scones.

Apricot-Almond Scones

3 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

5 tsp baking baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cardamom

1/2 cup butter, cold

1 egg

1/4 to 1/2 cup milk

1 tsp almond extract

about 1/4 cup slivered or sliced almonds

about 1/4 cup chopped dried apricots

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a baking sheet (I use the wax paper that I take off the stick of butter I am using)

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, spice). Feel free to use brown sugar, or other spices. I found that 1/2 tsp of cardamom was not enough, and I would use more next time.

Cut in butter, either with one of those handy pastry cutter widgets, or two knives.

Beat the egg and 1/4 cup milk in a small bowl with the almond extract. Stir this into flour mixture until moistened. Add more milk a little at a time until the dough holds together well, but is not too wet. Add the almonds and apricots and knead into the dough while in the bowl.

Now you'll want to knead the dough just a bit on a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough in half, and press or roll each half into a circle that is about 1/2 inch thick. Cut each circle into 6 wedges. Put the wedges on your prepped baking sheet, and sprinkle with turbinado sugar (you may have to press the sugar a bit into the top to get it to stick).

Bake about 15 minutes, until they are golden brown and the smell is driving you mad. Enjoy with butter, jam, clotted cream or just a glass of milk.

A Pampered Evening

I've been meaning to post again. In fact, I've been meaning to post two or three more recipes that I've made recently. But for one reason or another I haven't. Tonight was another opportunity, and yet today was not a great day, and by the time I got home I was raging hungry, which meant I was grumpy, which meant that my plans to make a delicious gourmet vegan meal went out the window. J went to get us Chipotle instead, our stand-by take-out meal.

Food definitely helped, but the combination of work disappointment, grumpy-brain and PMS did not succumb to the tasty guacamole. So I felt it only right that a little pampering was in order.

The ingredients: a hot bath with yummy smelling LUSH products, several cookies and a cup of milk, and an oft-read book. Steep one hour, then put on PJs and relax in bed.

What's your recipe for a pampered evening?

2009 Year in Review - Books

According to Goodreads (which is a great site that you should join, by the by) I read 42 books in 2009.

Of those 42 books, 23 of them were a first time read for me. 5 were graphic novels/comic volumes. I read several complete series last year: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Earthsea Cycle, and yes, Twilight. I also read two of the three Millennium books (the third hasn't come out yet).

It seems like less reading than I thought I did, but I don't count how many Manga series I devoured like so many delicious candy cane jo-jo's. Let's just say that it was a lot.

That being said, I do want to read more books this year that I haven't actually read before. The problem with that plan is... which books? I want to read books that are good, so I'm not going to pick up a book and read it if it hasn't been recommended to me. So, know any good ones?

A Delightful Salad for Dinner

One of my goals this year is to try to make one new recipe each week, in the hopes of not only finding some new favorites for our household, but also to really expand my tastes and skills, learn new techniques and combinations, and get introduced to food stuffs that I don't normally use.

My mother gave me a few issues of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, and I have been looking through them and earmarking several recipes I'd like to try. Her Arugula Salad with Sweet Potatoes and Feta from the November 2009 issue caught my eye. And when we went to the farmer's market on Sunday we found the most beautiful arugula bunches, so of course we got one. I already had some sweet potatoes in the pantry, and instead of feta I decided to use the creamy blue cheese that we had leftover from our cheese-filled New Year's Eve celebration. I added the walnuts because we just bought a half pound of lovely local walnuts from the farmer's market, and I thought they would be a great addition. The dressing originally called for fresh orange juice and orange zest, but with no oranges in the house I just made do with what we had already, and it turned out to be a delightful combination.



Adapted from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, November 2009

Arugula Salad with Sweet Potatoes

Peel and cut about 1 pound sweet potatoes into 1 1/2 inch chunks. I used about 3 medium potatoes for two of us. Toss them with some olive oil, put onto a rimmed baking sheet. Season with fresh ground pepper and salt to taste. Bake at 450 for about 20 minutes until tenter and browned a bit. Let cool while prepping the rest of the salad.

Prep two plates with washed and trimmed arugula. Chop up about 1/4 cup walnuts, and less than 1/4 cup creamy blue cheese. Of course, use as much or as little of either as you like.

In a medium bowl whisk together 2 tbps olive oil, 1tbsp lemon juice, and 1 tbsp apple juice (I recommend organic unfiltered). Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the potatoes to the dressing and mix to coat. Spoon onto each salad, spoon remaining dressing from bowl onto salad, and top with nuts and cheese.

White Rabbit!

For the past few years I have picked up the habit of saying White Rabbit to my friends on the first of the month. I'm not consistent about it (what *am* I consistent about?) but it's something that I like to do. It's my way of wishing my loved ones a good and lucky month.

Reading the wikipedia article on the superstition is quite interesting, as there are many many variations and origins of this habit. Check it out if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_rabbit

And White Rabbit to you, on this first day of this first month of 2010!

What a chore.

Of all the household chores, there is one I dread above all others.

I don't mind dishes, laundry is really not a problem. I don't even mind cleaning the toilet.

It's the bath. I HATE cleaning the bathtub.

Maybe because it's large. And generally requires a lot of scrubbing. And you tend to get wet while cleaning it. For whatever reason, I hate cleaning the bathtub. I hate cleaning the bathtub even more than I hate vacuuming, and that's saying something.

Tonight I cleaned the bathtub. This week I've been doing a little cleaning up each night - last night I did the toilet and bathroom sink, but just didn't have the energy to do the tub as well. Tonight was cat litter boxes, and the dreaded tub.

I must say, however, that since I switched to cleaning with all natural products, it's a much better experience. You remember those horrible toxic fumes that come from using harsh chemical cleaners? None for me, thanks. I like to breathe while I work vigorously on scrubbing the soap scum off the faucet. How can I scrub so effectively without all those crazy chemicals? Baking soda. It's a miracle cleaner. Also, white vinegar. With those two ingredients you can pretty much keep your house sparkling clean and sanitized for very little cash. And the best part about them (other than keeping toxic evilness out of our ground-water) is the fact that you don't pass out from the fumes!

Best. Cupcake. Ever.

The title of my blog refers to cupcakes, and I have yet to post anything about cupcakes! Muffins, yes, but not yet cupcakes. Well, goodness, let's remedy that right now.



Last Thursday night I baked two dozen cupcakes. And made homemade frosting for them as well. Granted, I did not frost them right then, but it was still quite a long night. I made them for a little get together with the girls from work - I figured chocolate cupcakes are always a welcome contribution to any gathering.

And these cupcakes are literally the best cupcakes ever. Whenever I want to make cupcakes, I want to make these. They are the perfect combination of chocolatey, cakey, moist, and tender. Add to that the fluffy vanilla buttercream frosting, and they instantly transport you to cupcake heaven. These cupcakes had a supporting role in our wedding, and everyone was enchanted by them.

And the best part is the disbelief on your guests' faces when you announce (after they have eaten one or two or three) that they are vegan. No dairy products at all, not even in the buttercream frosting. "Amazing!" they exclaim. "Astounding!" they cry forth. "These are healthy?" they ask, reaching for yet another. No, no they are not healthy. Vegan does not exactly mean healthy. These cupcakes still contain sugar, and some fat. I think they are better for you than regular ones, but one cannot be fooled into thinking they are health food.

The recipe for these most amazing and delicious cupcakes comes from the book "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Everyone who has ever cared about cupcakes should own this delightful little book, and should buy several copies to give out to people they care about. Not only is the book a smaller format than a regular giant cookbook (entirely appropriate for a cookbook detailing recipes for the cutest of all cakes), it's filled with pretty pictures, tips, tricks, and snappy writing.

I'm including the recipe below because I originally found it online, tried it out, and of course that prompted me to immediately long for the book. I'm hoping you'll feel the same way, and run out and buy that cute little book immediately.



Basic (Vegan) Chocolate Cupcake

1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
¾ cup granulated sugar
⅓ cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract, chocolate extract, or more vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
⅓ cup cocoa powder, Dutch-processed or regular
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
Vegan Fluffy Buttercream Frosting

Preheat oven to 350°F and line a muffin pan with paper or foil liners.

Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and other extract, if using, to the soy milk mixture and beat until foamy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until no large lumps remain (a few tiny lumps are OK).

Pour into liners, filling 3/4 of the way. Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Vegan Fluffy Buttercream Frosting

½ cup nonhydrogenated shortening
½ cup nonhydrogenated margarine, we use Earth Balance
3 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted if clumpy
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
¼ cup plain soy milk or soy creamer

Beat the shortening and margarine together until well combined and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat for about 3 more minutes. (Holly's note: I find that adding the sugar in half cup increments works SO MUCH BETTER than trying to add all the sugar at once)

Add the vanilla and soy milk, and beat for another 5 to 7 minutes until fluffy.

Holly's Monday Night Chicken Salad Sammiches

Start by taking the chicken out of the fridge. You know, leftover from when you made roasted chicken on Saturday night. Yeah that one. The one you should have dealt with on Sunday but were "too busy" napping to get around to.

So, take that out, and pull all the rest of the meat from the bones. Put the bones in the freezer for chicken soup later, because you're certainly not making chicken stock right now. Put half of the chicken meat in the freezer too, so that you can use it for soup once you're done cooking the carcass for stock. Now chop the rest of the chicken.

Chop a stalk of celery and dump it on top of the chicken. Throw the rest of the celery away as it appears to be perhaps growing something un-celery like.

Add some dried cranberries because they are really good in chicken salad. Also add some chopped pecans because you saw them in the freezer when you put the chicken bits in there and you thought they might be a good crunchy compliment to the cranberries.

Put a spoonful of mayo on top, and some mustard. Season with some curry powder. Stir it up. Taste it, and use more curry powder. Maaaaaaybe a little more than that. Hmmm. Add more mustard, that will give it more tang. Eh, good enough at this point, you *are* hungry you know.



Now toast some potato bread slices, and wash a few romaine lettuce leaves. On one slice of toast spread a little mayo and mustard, but not too much. Put the lettuce on that side. On the other slice of bread spread the chicken salad. Put sammich together, and cut each in half for ease of snarfling. (notice that snarfling does not anger the spell check gods like your original version of the word "spoonfull" does) Serve with baby carrots, and some music. The Decemberists are a good compliment to this meal, or perhaps even Ben Folds Five.

A Delicious Day

This was definitely a food and friends kind of weekend. Please ignore the fact that I mentioned I can't say no to social engagements in my last post. *ahem* But we're not going to talk about that! We're going to talk about food.

We had a couple of friends from LA area staying in San Diego this weekend, and invited them over for dinner on Saturday night. For some reason I felt like planning a large meal, with many steps. And I totally cooked the hell out of it, and it came out wonderfully, and I was not even stressed. How did I accomplish this great feat? Planning, my friends. Careful planning. And a good healthy dose of not caring too much if dinner ended up being late.

First thing in the morning I made some bread dough. I had found this recipe online and had been wanting to try it, so I figured today would be a good day for that. The recipe makes several loafs worth of bread dough, then you keep the unused portions in the fridge for up to two weeks, pulling out a hunk and baking it when you need it. I thought this sounded like a wonderful way to have fresh bread pretty much whenever you want, so I was totally itching to try it. Here's the link to the article about the bread:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Bread-In-Five-Minutes-A-Day.aspx

It's a long article, but really explains the whys and wherefores about the bread, gives you a breakdown of exactly how to handle the recipe, and then not only gives you the basic recipe but several other things you can do with it. Homemade pizza crust is on the top of my list for next time. Yum! Anyways, I followed the basic recipe, let the dough rise for a couple of hours, then put in the fridge for a few more hours. During that time I didn't really have to do anything with the bread, so I got busy doing other things, like going for a run, taking a shower, cleaning up the apartment with J, and grocery shopping.

Next step in the dinner plan was the chicken prep. Got a whole chicken to roast, cleaned it up (like you do) and set it in the roasting pan. Put a cut up half an onion and a small cut up lime inside the cavity. Washed and cut up some potatoes, and surrounded the chicken with those plus baby carrots. Drizzled the chicken and veggies in olive oil, then coated the "Simon & Garfunkel" chicken in a spice combination of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Well, I would have used parsley but it turned out I couldn't find any in my pantry, so I used marjoram instead. Then I dusted the veggies with the same spice combo, and gave everything a sprinkling of lemon pepper. Then I put the roasting pan into the fridge to wait until I was ready to cook it.

At that point, time to start the bread. I pulled out a couple of grapefruit sized balls of dough to make two loaves. The dough is really wet. I mean, really really wet. You must use a LOT of flour to coat your hands to get this to work. I placed the balls onto a wood cutting board coated in flour to rest for 45 minutes. At that point, on to the next part of dinner, which involved dates. Specifically, pitting several dates. 24, I think I pitted. It didn't actually take as long as I thought it would, which was nice.

Oh, another thing I had been doing all day long was cleaning up after myself as I went. This is a handy trick that I have only started doing in the last couple of years. But it means you don't have a huge amount of dishes piled up in your sink and making things difficult in the kitchen. And with our kitchen, that's a problem. I am currently in the smallest kitchen I have ever been in, and it's hard to maneuver when there are dirty dishes everywhere. But what's nice about doing dishes as you go is that not only does it save you space, it also doesn't really take that much time to handle just a few dishes. It takes a lot longer to handle them all at once in the end when you're tired and sad. So don't let that be you!

At this point the oven is preheated, there is a hot baking stone in the center rack, there is a boiler pan in the bottom for the cup of water, and the bread has rested and is ready to bake. I popped it in, put a cup of hot water in the pan below, and closed the oven door. Half hour later I had DElicious homemade bread. Of course, during that time I was not wasting time, but instead making a little cheese plate to go with the fresh bread. Bread comes out, chicken goes in, pan comes out and gets washed and tinfoiled, and switched to bacon wrapped date duty! This is just as easy as it sounds. Take pitted dates, wrap them in bacon. Secure them with toothpicks or skewers. Bake on a foil lined pan for about 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees. I drizzled a touch of honey over them once I pulled them from the oven, and they were seriously amazing. And guests will be quite impressed.

Whilst the chicken was still doing its thing in the oven, I grated up some zucchini for the Magic Zucchini recipe. I would post it here, but it's from friends of ours and I'll have to ask permission for it first. I let the zucchini drain while gabbing and hanging out, and then started cooking it so it woud be done with the chicken. And the voila, roast chicken, root veggies, and magic zucchini were all served to delighted guests, and the world was saved once more by good food and smart preparation.

The Resolution Post

I'm not a big fan of the New Year's Resolution. It seems a bit hollow to me - most people don't keep them longer than a month or so, and then are back to whatever bad habit they were trying to break in the first place. I feel like if you're going to want to improve your life, why wait until the first of the year? Why not make an effort to change every day? Or every week? Or even month?

Yet I can understand the urge. It feels like a milestone, like a new beginning. Out with the old, in with the new! And the beginning of a year really is a great opportunity to look back on the previous one, and see where you've come from, and think about where you want to go.

Last year I didn't make any resolutions, but I did have a couple of goals in mind for 2008. My goals were to have more free time, and less stuff. I think I did a pretty good job on the less stuff front - I didn't accumulate too much over the year, and I did a good job of getting rid of a lot. More free time worked for a while, but it's very hard for me to say NO to social engagements. I love my friends, and love planning things. So I could definitely do better in that department.

This year I'd like to be healthier. I think that encompasses a lot without being as strict as setting an actual resolution. I know I need to be working on my two previous goals - and I think both of those things would make me a (mentally) healthier and happier person. I need to exercise more, and I need to eat better. I want to create less waste, and take better care of the earth. Most importantly, I want to take better care of myself, in a variety of ways.

But this is a lifelong process, not one that should only last a few months, or even just a year. I feel like we should resolve to not make resolutions anymore, but gradual lifestyle changes. Doesn't sound as snappy, however. I probably need to put some marketing spin on it to actually catch on.

One of Those People

Last week I had a hankering for some homemade chicken soup. I had some veggies in the crisper that were decidedly not crisp, which means they were perfect for stock flavoring. So I dug into my freezer for the chicken carcass I'd been saving for making stock, and threw it in a pot with lots of water, some limp carrots, celery, and green onions. And just to be different I threw in a hunk of fresh peeled fresh ginger. You know, since it was there. Added some seasonings and garlic, and simmered for a long long time. Tasted the broth - way too spicy! Too much pepper and ginger!

I didn't want to toss it immediately, so i just pulled all the solids out of it, picked the bones clean and put the meat back in the broth. Dumped it all into a bowl and stuck it in the fridge for inspiration to strike, all the while hoping that the fridge would mellow out the flavors rather than intensify them.

Fast forward two days, when I feel like I really need to either do something with the stock, or let it go entirely. I figured, what the heck, I'll try it. Time to pull the stock out, skim off all the fat, and return to the stove. I started heating it up and hoping for the best. I added one cup of veggie broth, to hopefully mellow it out even further. It was tasting good, so I started making chicken soup. Now, I've always wanted to be one of Those People who can work without a recipe. Chicken soup can't be hard, I thought. I'll just add some veggies and noodles and go!

So I did!

First I added a couple stalks of celery, chopped up. Then carrots, then a yellow bell pepper. Added the noodles, and when they were almost done I added a couple of green onions and some chopped fresh spinach. And voila, I had tasty and homemade chicken soup!



Looks like I am, in fact, one of Those People.

A very muffin New Year!

So they say that the way you spend your New Year's Day will determine your course for the year.

If so, then that means in 2009 I will be fiscally responsible, surrounded by loved ones, snuggled by cats, and I will bake a lot of tasty treats. I think that would be a great year!

To start the year off right, I made Banana Nut Muffins. This recipe is basically the Banana Walnut Muffin recipe from the Williams-Sonoma Muffins cookbook, with minor variations. Strangely, it makes only 10 muffins. But as my friend Helena said, "These are the best banana nut muffins I have ever had!" Which is high praise indeed.



Banana Nut Muffins
1 ½ cups flour
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup nuts, coarsely chopped (I used pecans for this batch, but walnuts are also tasty)
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (My secret ingredient!)
½ cup oil (The original recipe called for walnut, which I never have. I use canola, or grapeseed, which is a lovely light tasting oil great for baking)
1 egg
1 ¼ cups bananas (2-3), mashed
3 tablespoons buttermilk (Who has 3 tbsp of buttermilk just laying about? I do not. Use sour cream, or plain yogurt, or milk with lemon juice)

Preheat oven to 375. Grease 10 standard muffin cups, fill unused cups one-third full with water to prevent warping. (I use a baking stone muffin pan, which is the best thing ever. No need to fill the empty cups with water if you use a stone, but greasing the others is absolutely necessary.)

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Secret ingredient also goes here. (I have recently fioud that sifting makes everything so much better. Especially if one is using baking soda or baking powder that may be a little old and clumpy. Sifting is your friend, you should really try it.) Stir in the sugar and nuts.

In another bowl, whisk together oil, egg, mashed bananas and buttermilk until blended. (You can add a teaspoon or so of vanilla here if you like. Yum!)

Combine wet and dry ingredients and beat well until evenly combined and creamy.

Spoon batter into each muffin cup, filling it level with the rim of the cup.

Bake until golden, dry, and springy to the touch, 20-25 minutes. A toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Unmold the muffins. Serve them warm or at room temperature, with butter.



Perhaps a muffin tradition is born? We'll find out next year!