2 posts tagged “muffins”
Recipe Courtesy of Deb
Way to be obvious. But I've been spending a lot of my free time (not that I have a lot) cooking recently. I just love it. I only wish my kitchen was bigger so I could spread all my stuff around. Anyway, this weekend I made 2 recipes that turned out very very nice (that came to mind in a Borat voice). Didn't take pictures or anything but you'll get the point.
Partan Bree
A delicious, thick, creamy crab soup from Scotland: partan is the Gaelic word for crab and bree comes from brigh, which means broth. Serves 4-6
3 cups milk
1 cup rice
3 anchovy fillets
1/2 pound fresh cooked crabmeat (frozen or canned may be substituted)
3 cups chicken stock
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup heavy cream
Bring the milk almost to the boiling point in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the rice and anchovy fillets. Simmer until the rice is well done. Remove from heat and add the crabmeat.
Puree the soup in a blender or food processor. Return the pureed soup to a large saucepan and gradually stir in the stock. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the cream just before serving.
Notes: Ok, so this sounds weird but I just love seafood soups and "delicious, thick, creamy crab soup" sold me on it. I got this recipe from a book I bought this weekend entitled, Great British Cooking: A Well-Kept Secret (I know, oxymoron). But when I was in England we had lots of yummy food. They had great international restaurants there. And I really liked tea and scones, fish and chips, and cornish pasties. So I'm gonna give some of these things a go eventually. But back to this recipe. It was really yummy. It sort of tasted like "Chicken and Rice" soup which my mom makes all the time. The rice makes it filling and the anchovies didn't overpower the other flavors. Next time I'll probably put less milk in and more stock to boost the flavor (I halved the recipe so I don't know if that affected the taste).
Raspberry-Topped Lemon Muffins
Adapted from Susan Elizabeth Fallon via Bon Appétit, July 2006
Yield: 14 large or 56 miniature muffins
1 1/8 cups sugar, divided
4 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel (from two large lemons)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 1/2-pint containers (about) fresh raspberries
Preheat oven to 375°F. Line 14 standard muffin cups (or 56 minis) with paper liners. Mash 1/8 cup sugar and lemon peel in small bowl until sugar is slightly moist. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat remaining 1 cup sugar and butter in large bowl until smooth. Beat in egg. Beat in buttermilk, then vanilla and lemon sugar. Beat in flour mixture.
Divide batter among muffin cups (the 2/3-3/4 level worked well for
minis). Top each large muffin with 4 raspberries (or mini muffins with
one each). Bake muffins until lightly browned on top and tester
inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes (baking time was
on the shy side of 20 minutes for mini muffins).
Notes: I love muffins! Seriously I ate a dozen mini muffins in one sitting. OMG I'm so fat. But they're so so good. I whipped them up at high speed in the end to make them more airy. (Hence the 12 standard muffin cups plus 12 mini muffin cups - so from this recipe I only ate 2 standard muffins) Consequently, they were so light I ate that dozen without batting an eye lash. I have a dozen standard size ones left but I don't know how long those will last. This recipe is from a food blog called Smitten Kitchen.
Food blogs are great places to find recipes since these people have actually tried the recipe out and usually have pictures. This is loads better than recipe books. Even if books have pictures, they're from these professional cooks and professional food photographers. Food blogs are for real. lol. Ok, that's it. More recipe fun to come (I'm making cornish pasties in the next day or two - I've got the chuck steak in the fridge).
