A week or so ago when we had a lot of houseguests to feed for breakfast  two mornings in a row, I made the Mimi’s Cafe Buttermilk Spice Muffins, and I also made these. Old fashioned bran muffins. Both muffins got gobbled down with happy smiles on everyone’s faces. Now, I’ve tried a variety of different recipes for bran muffins over the years – some recipes that contain whole bran, whole wheat and probably other kinds of unusual flours or grains. These muffins don’t qualify for that type at all. These are the kind containing raisin bran cereal (I only use Kellogg’s brand Raisin Bran for these), some canola oil, some added golden raisins, sugar, baking soda, flour and buttermilk. The cereal gets mushed up with some boiling water first. Once that cools you add everything to a big bowl that goes into the refrigerator. Any time within a week just scoop out some more and bake. With the last batch of four I made the other day I added some nuts to the batter, and I sprinkled some finely chopped walnuts on top too.

I do think these are my favorite bran muffins and I’ve been making these since about the late 1960’s. When bran muffins kind of became a popular item – when people started paying attention to fiber. But it wasn’t called fiber then, it was just called health food. We were told that eating sugar-sweetened bran muffins would make us healthy. It was also when we were told that substituting margarine (yuk!) or vegetable oil for butter was also going to make just about everything we ate healthier.

You can cut down on the sugar if you’d like, but not by much. These are easy. And they’re just perfect breakfast comfort food. I’ve tried some other brands of raisin bran. They’re okay, but not right. I’ve tried it with All-Bran, and they’re way too heavy on the bran for me. Not because of what it does to my digestive system but because it’s too strong on the bran flavor. So I learned a long time ago to trust Kellogg’s on this one. If your box of Kellogg’s doesn’t have enough raisins in it (or they’ve sunk to the bottom of the package), that’s fine – just add some more. I almost always have some golden raisins on hand in my pantry, so I add some more of those. If you like cinnamon, add just a little bit – about 1/2 teaspoon to the dry ingredients. These muffins aren’t in the least bit gourmet. They’re quick, and downright tasty. They’d also make a great item for a holiday morning when you’ve got lots of other things cooking . . . if you have the batter already prepared, you just have to spoon it into the cups and bake. Easy.
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A year ago: Review of Placerville’s Heyday Cafe
Two years Ago: Israeli Couscous Salad with Tomato
Three years ago: Panna Cotta with Strawberries

Oh, I do like that photograph! Just the right amount of blur, and the muffin front and offset from the center. Did you know that, in the art world, it’s a no-no to ever place your object/subject in the center? It’s always supposed to be off center. Even portraits. And usually you should have some kind of angle/triangle in your picture too (see the muffin tin edge on the right?). So I set this picture up with that in mind. With the crumbs still sitting there on the side. I didn’t pose the crumbs – they were just there when I extracted that one muffin. Dave and I promptly ate the muffin.

Back years ago, when my DH and I were still career folks, we used to leave early some workday mornings, in separate cars, and stop for breakfast at Mimi’s Cafe, a restaurant that’s right on the route we both took to work. And mostly we ordered their crock of oatmeal that came with a little bitty bowl of brown sugar and another of raisins, plus a pitcher of milk. We’d do this at least once a week, sometimes twice. And when you order some breakfasts at Mimi’s, you also get a choice of juice and/or a muffin. And they have a couple of muffins on their menu, but this buttermilk spice one was the one I always ordered. Heaven’s knows how many calories are in one of theirs (they’re much bigger than the one above). It always came with a huge, wide falling-off-the-edges top, smothered in those nutty cinnamony crumbs. Once in a great while I’d buy a few of them and take them to the office to share. They’ve always been a big favorite.

So it was with great glee a year or so ago that I read over at Culinary Concoctions by Peabody (one of my favorite blogs) that the recipe is online at Mimi’s website. I was astounded! Really? Yes. I promptly copied it over into my recipe software, thinking for sure they’d take that sucker down momentarily – that they’d been way too hasty giving away that famous recipe. Surprise – it’s still there! Meanwhile, I’ve looked at the recipe many times but never had the reason to make them.

I’d considered just running down to Mimi’s and buying them, but my recollection was that the price was considerable, even 15 years ago. So since I had the recipe, and I needed a bunch of muffins for a breakfast we had for a big group of houseguests, why not make them myself. Totally easy. It’s just an ordinary muffin batter, and ordinary ingredients in the topping. But put them together and they’re a wow in my book.

There you can see the batter in the paper cups. The topping mixture is in the center (sugar, walnuts, cinnamon and a drizzle of buttermilk to hold it together). On the right are the muffins ready to pop in the oven. The only caution I read was that you must put the muffins in the oven immediately after you add the topping – otherwise the topping sinks down into the batter. You definitely don’t want that to happen.

So even if you don’t have a Mimi’s in your neighborhood, you can try these wonderful muffins yourself! I definitely DO recommend them. Eat them right away, or freeze them. They will keep for a day, but I’d suggest you freeze them instead.
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A year ago: Madeira Onions (made from sweet Noonday onions from Noonday, Texas)
Two years ago: Pork Tenderloin with Mango Sambal (sambal is like a salsa)
Three years ago: Pesto Pea (and Spinach) Salad (an Ina Garten recipe)

Have you heard about the new Cooking Channel? It’s run by Michael Smith and is a sister channel to the Food Network. Among some new chefs it also shows some older foodie TV series. Like Julia & Company and Nigella Lawson when she was much younger. So I’ve set up my Tivo to record Julia and Nigella both. And in the first recorded show that I watched of Julia she was creating a baked creamed corn and scoffed at the work required to scrape the kernels off 12 ears of corn. I nearly laughed out loud since I was just writing up another post and was scoffing, myself, at most of Julia’s recipes. And the time it takes to make one of her recipes – like Beef Bourguignon, for instance. So why she would not scrape 12 ears of corn, I don’t understand!

A week or so ago my friend Cherrie and I went to a cooking class about more of Julia Child’s recipes. Phillis Carey did the cooking, and made four dishes at the class. These crepes, a pork roast, quenelles and a lemon soufflé tart. To tell you the honest truth, I’m not sure I’d make even one of them. They’re just too darned much work. And although I like pork roast, I didn’t think Julia’s recipe was all that great. And the shrimp quenelles – oh my goodness! You know what they are, right? Little French kind of oval-shaped dumplings. They are nothing short of a labor of love. And they were just okay, served with a very rich chive beurre blanc sauce, but would I make them? No. The lemon soufflé tart was good. Very good, actually. But the different steps, the different pans and bowls required, the mountain of dishes deter me from even thinking about making it. I will give you the recipe for it, in case you’d like to make it.

The only one of the four dishes that I really liked was the crepes gateau. But oh, are they a ton of work. Maybe Cherrie and I will pool our resources, divide up the labor and make it once for our husbands. Cherrie and I both thought the spinach overpowered the mushrooms, so we thought we might use twice as much mushroom filling as spinach. But whichever, Phillis told us it’s a first course. Not like a main course. I think we’d have to make it a main – no way would I want to make something else other than a green salad, perhaps, to go with it. With an appetizer maybe and dessert, it would have to be a complete meal. It also would make a lovely brunch dish, I think. For that matter, just look at the calorie count – nearly 1000 calories for a wedge!

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One year ago: White Gazpacho Soup
Two years ago: Asparagus – everything you ever wanted to know

Years ago, in the 1960’s, at a pancake restaurant in Denver, I had my first Dutch Baby. I was in awe of it. They served it in individual medium-sized black cast iron pans, a serving for one or two. It came out crusty brown, with lemon juice and powdered sugar sprinkled over it. I’ve never forgotten it. And yet, all these years have gone by and I’d never made one. They’re not difficult in the least. In fact, they’re very easy. With some breakfast sausage, they were a complete breakfast for the two grandkids we have visiting.

This particular recipe came from over at 5 Second Rule, a blog I so enjoy, written by Cheryl Sternman Rule. She’s a food writer by profession, and writes for any number of food magazines. I love her posts – she injects just the right amount of humor. And the recipes I’ve tried have been fabulous. Anyway, here’s another success. It was fun to make.

A 10-inch cast iron pan is heated up in a 350° oven (you put it in there while the oven is coming up to temp). Meanwhile, the batter is whizzed up in the blender (eggs, milk, flour, salt). Once the oven and pan are hot you plop in a half a cube of butter and allow it to melt in the oven (it doesn’t take long, and you don’t want it to burn). Then you pour the batter in, shut the door and no peeking for 25-30 minutes. At which time the batter has inched and curved its way up the sides to make a moist, spongy popover type eggy shell. If the center rises during baking, it will fall once it comes out of the oven. You can use maple syrup (probably our grandkids’ first choice) but the traditional Dutch way is with fresh squeezed lemon juice and powdered sugar. Since that’s the way I was first served it, that’s the way I like it. Big time.

This recipe is for a 10-inch cast iron pan. Mine was 9-inch, so the Dutch Baby had a thicker center/base and it didn’t rise up the sides as much as I’d anticipated. I think that’s because there was too much batter for the surface of the pan – so my advice is to use the right sized pan and/or adjust the amount of batter you make to the pan you have. Next time, for a 9-inch pan, I might cut the recipe down by 25% (using 3 eggs). And I think I should have let it bake another 5 minutes to get a more golden brown color to it and more of the crusty edges. Do use fresh lemon juice (that bottled stuff is caca in my view), and liberally sprinkle the powdered sugar all over it just before it’s served. Slice in large wedges and watch it be devoured.

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A year ago: Chicken Breasts Caribbean
Two years ago: Chocolate Ribbon Dessert
Three years ago: Tex-Mex Jicama Salad

Last weekend our daughter Sara and her family were with us for an overnight, sandwiched in between the numerous softball league games our granddaughter Sabrina was in. But they made it to our house for dinner, overnight and breakfast the next morning. Getting up early, I came downstairs, tiptoeing past the downstairs guest room only to find Sara sitting out in our patio reading a magazine. She’d risen early because our grandson had wiggled his way into bed with Sara and John at about 5 am, kind of pushing Sara out of bed. Sara and I had a nice, quiet visit over some hot tea before the family got up.

Anyway, Sara was telling me about the favorite sticky buns she makes regularly at home, using Bridgeford frozen bread dough. I said, well, I have a 1-pound package of Trader Joe’s raw pizza dough. Did she think that might work? She thought about it and said why not? So, with both of us working at it (me mostly taking notes as I watched her), we managed to find all the necessary ingredients in my kitchen pantry. This version is so easy. What’s different about these is the addition of heavy cream in the bottom (that becomes the top if you invert the whole thing after baking). I hunted all over the internet and didn’t find a single recipe using this method.

To tell you the truth, sticky buns aren’t something I crave. I know they’re loaded with sugar and probably full of fat, and the resulting calories have a direct conduit from my mouth to my hips. Besides, with Dave a diabetic, he shouldn’t have any of these (he didn’t, I did). So thankfully, I’ve been able to resist every single one of those mall bakeries who hawk sticky buns like they’re nothing but the equivalent of a couple of cookies.

But Sara’s version was so darned easy. And they were ever-so tasty. We didn’t frost them – that seemed over the top, we thought. They had plenty of sugar in them as it was.

Sara didn’t have the recipe with her, but she thought she could remember it by heart. She makes them often enough she doesn’t even use a recipe anymore. She thinks the recipe came from a Better Homes & Gardens magazine from 1989. It’s not on the magazine’s website (probably because it’s from too long ago).

First of all, try to allow time for the dough to rise some. We didn’t have the luxury of that, so they only rose for about 15 minutes before we had to put them in the oven. And do put this in an 8×8 pan, not a 9×9 (as I did). Plus, it’s possible that the Bridgeford bread dough may be more quantity . . . we didn’t know. In either case, they didn’t really fill up the 9×9 pan quite enough. But it didn’t matter one bit to the taste!

In the bottom of the pan you mix whipping cream and brown sugar, then sprinkle the whole pecans over it. The dough is rolled or spread out into a rectangle (guessed at about 10×14), it’s brushed with most of a half a cube of melted butter, then sprinkled with a mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon. You roll it up, try to seal the edges a bit, then cut into 12 equal pieces and they’re gently laid in on top of that creamy pecan stuff. Cover and allow to rise if you can, then bake for 25-30 minutes. I ended up turning on the broiler for just a few minutes to brown the top. And so very good. With a bunch of hungry mouths to feed, the 12 little buns were gone in a flash. Thanks, daughter!

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A year ago: Chocolate Pudding (Dorie Greenspan’s)
Two years ago: Rosemary Pork Loin

As part of the lore of baking, I had always heard or read that once you combine the baking leavening agent (baking powder or baking soda) with any wet ingredients, you’ve got to bake it right away. Because the leavening will do its thing and die otherwise. Well, there’s something wrong with that reasoning, because this recipe, for a make-ahead coffee cake – WITH both baking powder and baking soda contained in it, can sit overnight in the refrigerator and in the morning it bakes and rises just fine. How come? I don’t know. Maybe somebody with more of a cooking chemistry background can answer the question!

Over the years that my DH has been in his men’s Bible study group, whenever it’s his turn to host, I scramble to find something that will work. Usually I have to bake something the day before and Dave reheats it in the oven for a short time in the morning, or I’ve gotten up at some really unreasonable hour in order to prepare and bake something so it’s ready to serve by 6:45 am. But neither option has been ideal. So when I saw this recipe online recently I knew I’d make this the next time Dave hosts the group.

This makes two 9-inch (round or 8-inch square ones) pans of coffeecake. You can halve it, as I did, but the other option is to freeze one of them in batter form (up to a month) and just add 10 minutes to the baking time when you bake it from a frozen state. I mean, is that easy, or what?

Leave it to the folks at Cook’s Illustrated (aka America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Country) to develop a make-ahead bakery item that works. I subscribe to an email from Cook’s Illustrated (although I don’t pay for an online subscription, just the magazine) and it was sent out with one of them, and the recipe was available then. Not now. I printed it out back then, but did find it online at another site also. But, back to how the make-ahead part works. I pulled out my favorite reference book On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee. It says that using cream of tartar releases 2/3 of its leavening power within 2 minutes of mixing. But if the acid (whatever it is in the batter that provides acid – like buttermilk, yogurt, brown sugar, molasses, fruit juices, vinegar and even chocolate) is not very soluble (so that would likely be yogurt, brown sugar, molasses – not the more liquid of the acids), then it can be held for awhile and only when it’s baked does the leavening begin to work.  Baking powder, on the other hand, is called “double-acting” because it does have some part of it that activates when you mix the batter together, but the other part doesn’t release until it’s in the oven. The book also says that in the restaurant business there is a type of baking powder that contains slow-release acids just so the leavening action doesn’t dissipate while the batter sits, before it’s baked. I’ll have to look at Surfas, the mostly pro cookware and foodstuffs store in Los Angeles, to see if they carry such a thing. Probably in 10 pound boxes. Uhm, no thank you.

So, back to this coffee cake. It was simple enough to prepare, really. I made half a recipe because my freezer is full to the brim. I found the batter to be stiffer than expected, so had a hard time spreading it. In the picture at left – the dough layer in the left-hand photo – you can see where I had to use my fingers to kind of spread it out. On the right side shows the nut streusel on the top. I ended up using my finger to kind of chop off  little globs of batter all over. Then I dampened my fingers with water and spread it out (the water helps the batter from sticking to your fingers). Then you spread the non-nut streusel in the middle. Then the other half of the batter goes on top. I did the same thing with dampened fingers to spread it out. Then the nut enhanced streusel goes on the top and it’s refrigerated. My DH got up at 5:30 so he could bake this. He just had to take the foil cover off the top of the cake pan and pop it in the oven for 45 minutes. It does need to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving. One interesting note about the streusel – the recipe has you make the sugar-flour-cinnamon combo and divide it in half. Half of it gets nuts, which goes on the top only. The info says that in their testing of this recipe they found that the steam the nuts produced in the oven made the batter/dough around them soggy. Interesting, I thought.

And the taste – really good! There are crusty parts on it (from the streusel), which made for good taste contrast. Next time I think I’ll add some cocoa powder in with the streusel – just because I like it. The cinnamon was subtle and I think it could be pumped up a bit. The cake rose perfectly in the oven – amazing! It didn’t look like it was in any way stunted because of overnight refrigeration. Yes, I’d make this again if only because of the ease of it!

A year ago: Leek & Turnip Puree
Two years ago: Shiitake-Crusted Chicken

Maybe you don’t need another breakfast idea. Maybe you always – every day – make time for a balanced breakfast, so if so, you don’t need to read this post. Most mornings we eat the same breakfast. But on an occasional morning Dave is out and I don’t usually feel like “cooking,” so if I have the ingredients, here’s what I make:

What’s in there? Diced up peeled apple, cottage cheese, some sweetener (I use Splenda but you can use sugar or honey, or nothing at all), some chopped walnuts (or any kind of nut, but walnuts are my favorite) and a little sprinkle of cinnamon. That’s it. Simple. Takes about 5 minutes to make it, and about 5 or more minutes to eat it. I’m getting some protein (cottage cheese and nuts), some dairy (cottage cheese) and some fruit. It’s good on fiber, low on carbs (the apples provide both), and quite satisfying. The idea came from a former employee, Nancy, who used to eat this at her desk first thing in the morning. She’d make it at home, then start working at her desk and would dip into her bowl nearby. I don’t make it often, but it’s certainly easy.

So, I was filing the other day. Filing recipes. You see, running a food blog gives the writer/owner free license to save infinitely more recipes than she ever did before. My stack of to-try recipes continues to explode, and if I don’t keep on top of it it would be out of control in a matter of a few months. At least I have a system. About 2 years ago I started a new regime – a recipe just HAS to jump out at me telling me it needs to be prepared. If it doesn’t yell at me that way, it doesn’t get clipped, copied or saved. I go through all the cooking magazines with scissors, pen and Scotch tape near me. If a recipe makes the cut, it’s clipped right then and put into the to-try pile. And the magazine goes out in the trash bin right away. The only exception to that rule is around holiday time when I might want to look at the magazine for ideas.

But, it’s only every couple of months that I get around to putting all those saved recipes into some binders I keep here in my kitchen. I save recipes from food blogs too. Lots of them, actually. This cooking community of food bloggers is a veritable treasure trove. And one learns that if you like one blogger’s recipes, you may like many from that blogger. I subscribe to Cook’s Illustrated, and one thing I really like is reading the commentary by the food developer about how he/she came to the final result. Like less salt, omit the sugar. Bake 5 minutes less. You know what I mean. And I like to read the final descriptive phrase about every recipe. If there’s not one – like “gee, this was a sensational dish at my dinner table,” “the final result was just perfect,” or “I’ll be making this again and again,” then I may go right on past.

Therefore, I’ve learned that I really like a lot of the recipes blogged by Cheryl Sternman Rule, over at 5 Second Rule. Cheryl is a food pro, and a very interesting and entertaining writer too. I always enjoy her stories. (I also admire her photography, but that’s another story.) So when I read this particular story last year I immediately saved the recipe. It went into the to-try file. So wouldn’t you know it, I was filing and this recipe just popped up in my hands and said “fix me today.”

What appealed to me about this recipe was that although these are pancakes, they’re composed mostly of protein (eggs and cottage cheese). The batter contains next to no binder (flour), so it’s a higher protein meal than a carb one. And the story, about how Cheryl came by this recipe (from a family acquaintance who attended her wedding, but it was passed on to Cheryl’s mother-in-law who prepared them often) just made these pancakes all the more endearing to me. They’re an Eastern European invention, called siriniki.

So, here’s the gist: you whip egg whites to stiff peaks with some cream of tartar, then set it aside. Then you mix the egg yolks, full-fat cottage cheese, a pinch of salt and a tiny bit of flour, then you combine the two. Carefully, since you don’t want to deflate the soft, tender stiff peaked-egg whites. Then you gently scoop small amounts of batter out on a nonstick skillet, slightly elongating each glob (you don’t want them to be too thick or they won’t cook properly) and cook them for 2-3 minutes per side. Then serve immediately with maple syrup.

You don’t have to use any butter in the nonstick pan. You don’t need any butter on the finished pancakes either. They’re perfect just as they are, but add some real honest-to-goodness maple syrup and you’ll be transported. Cheryl calls these Cottage Cheese Pancakes, but I added the souffle part because these pancakes are ever-so light in texture. They rise quite a bit, actually, but they’re SO tender. These are a must-fix. So there’s my analysis. And if you read my blog regularly, then you can take my word for it. These are worth making, even though you’ll use more than a few bowls and things in the making. Well worth the effort. We had them for lunch, actually, but ideally they’d make a delightful family breakfast anytime.

Aren’t these cute? I bought a new silicone pan the other day – I probably should have placed something in the picture so you could see the relative size of these little guys. They’re small – about 1-inch square. A little bigger than bite-sized. These are lemon and ginger mini-muffins. With a tart lemon glaze on top. The recipe is from an old Bon Appetit, but is credited to the Baldpate Inn in Estes Park, Colorado. I made a couple of changes to the recipe – I added some minced crystallized ginger to the batter and I added the lemon glaze on top. An easy recipe, really. A mixer is not needed, as everything is stirred up by  hand. They’re good. Maybe not sensational, but tasty. My only caution is to not overwork the batter – you know how muffin batters are – they don’t like to be over-handled. Just mix it up until the streaks of flour have disappeared. You can make these in regular muffin tins (in a paper liner) too – that’s how the original recipe makes them.

A year ago: Turkey Meatballs
Two years ago: Gingerbread Pudding Cake

Does that look yummy, or what? It’s so pretty. Extra flavorful. Easy to make, although you must concoct three different mixtures – the cake batter, the pumpkin and dried cranberry middle and the nut streusel for the top. They’re layered in a springform pan and that’s all there is to it.

Reading Canela y Comino’s blog, she raved – with lots of superlatives – in the write-up about this coffeecake. Since pumpkin in just about anything is “my cup of tea,” there was no question I’d be making it. My DH was having his Bible study guys here, so it was a perfect occasion to make it. Festive for the holidays.

The cake batter is a normal type – this one contains buttermilk (I used whole-milk yogurt because that’s what I had on hand). The recipe calls for pumpkin pie spice. I don’t keep that combo in my spice pantry, so just added my own mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves, in descending quantities. If you make your own as I did, do note that there is pumpkin pie spice in both the cake batter and the streusel.

The pumpkin was Libby’s canned. And I used walnuts in the streusel, just because I didn’t have any pecans on hand.  I didn’t take photos of all the different processes (but if you go to Gretchen’s blog, she has photos of every step). The pumpkin layer, although not all that much quantity, really (it starts with a cup of canned pumpkin), does give you almost a pumpkin-pie type consistency. But it’s thin as you can see in the photo above and right. You place half the cake batter on the bottom, the pumpkin in the middle, blobs of the cake batter on top of that (which must be carefully spread out to the edges) then the nut streusel generously sprinkled on top. The recipe indicated the cake should be baked for about 60-65 minutes. I did 60, poked my cake tester in it in several places. What I didn’t do was poke the tester right in the center. Once the cake cooled, I discovered it was still doughy in the middle, so it likely should have baked another 10 minutes. The other option would be to bake this in a bundt pan for about 50-55 minutes (my guess on time).

So, if you’ve still got some pumpkin lurking in your pantry, this is a winner. Try it! Gretchen says the recipe came from a cookbook (magazine maybe?), Holiday Baking, 2009.

A year ago: Panettone bread
Two years ago: Salmon with Maple Syrup and Thyme