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)

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Certainly I hope you’ve visited your local Costco and purchased some of the fabulous in-season peaches. They’re fabulous. That’s all I can say. Outstanding. I allowed them to ripen a bit out on my kitchen counter (about 4 days), and made this delicious peach cobbler with 8 of the 12. If you like cobblers, you’ll enjoy this one too.

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In with writing posts about recipes, I thought I’d share some photos and information about some of my favorite kitchen utensils. The ones that I’ve learned to love and treasure. Some bloggers now have a sidebar filled with mini-photos of their favorite utensils. I suppose I could do that too, but so many of you read my blog through an RSS reader and you’d never even see the sidebar anyway. I won’t make this an everyday thing – that would get really boring. I’ve already taken photos of all of the treasures, so I’ll put them in now and then.

This actually is my newest purchase. I already have the regular single citrus presses in orange (for oranges), yellow (for lemons) and green (for limes). And they work fine, but the paint has begun to chip off. Very unattractive, and perhaps not all that healthy since juices could grow bacteria in the crevices. So when I saw this one at the cooking school Cherrie and I visit all the time, I grabbed it up. It is available at Williams-Sonoma for $19.95. It’s not yet available at Amazon; sorry! What’s nice about this new press is that it works for both lemons AND limes. And maybe small oranges. It has gradations in the bottom (see the circles in the bottom part?) so it will work with any small citrus. Now I’ll be able to get rid of the other three I own and just use this one. I might keep the orange squeezer, though, because this new press wouldn’t take a large Naval orange.

A year ago: Grilled Rib Lamb Chops with Herb Rub
Two years ago: Flank Steak with Orange Marinade
Three years ago: Roasted Poblano Asiago Soup (oh, a real winner)

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Julia Child did know a thing or two about baking and cooking. She went to the Cordon Bleu school in Paris, after all. And if you remember from the movie, Julie and Julia, she wasn’t exactly a shoe-in in the beginning. Not only because she was over six feet tall, but a woman. And an American besides! Who spoke little or no French. Grudgingly, though, the chefs and instructors came to know her and respect her. Then she took on the challenge of writing a cookbook, and another, and another. But most of her dishes are complex. Requiring many steps, lots of pots and pans, cooling, chilling, stirring, sautéing. You know what I mean, I’m sure.

After a Julia Child retrospective cooking class with Phillis Carey a couple of weeks ago, my friend Cherrie and I lamented that we didn’t think we’d make any of the dishes. They’re all too much work. But I did tell you that I’d share this recipe, just because the tart was very good. But good enough to make it? For me, no. For you – well, I don’t know.
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A year ago: Charred Eggplant Salad
Two years ago: New Potato Salad with Chipotle Vinaigrette
Three years ago: Bacon and Tomato Dunk (a dip)

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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

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From the reader’s end of this blog, you probably think I prepare massive meals every night of the week, just about. That I spend every afternoon slaving in the kitchen, poring over recipes, with my DH making endless trips to the grocery store. Really, that’s not true at all. There are days when I have nothing – absolutely nothing – to write about. I go through spells (usually no more than 3-5 days) when I just don’t feel like making anything new. I don’t feel like researching recipes. Or standing in front of my island chopping, mincing, stirring, assembling. Stirring a pot, sautéing something, digging in my cupboards to find obscure herbs, frying, boiling, steaming, mashing garlic, brewing tea. And I truly do have days when I don’t feel like cooking at all! Can you believe that?

Fortunately, those spells don’t last very long, and I’m back to the drawing boards, standing at my island chopping, mincing, creating. If you want to know about the other things (that are already ON my blog) that have been served at my house lately, read on.

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Last weekend we had a 3-hour choir rehearsal on Saturday morning. And that night we planned an impromptu dinner for family and friends. No planning went into it, really, other than I defrosted a big piece of salmon. My dear DH went grocery shopping for me while I started in on making some sides. I’m going to write up a separate post about those. Almost all of them were things I’ve made before, and knew were easy to throw together. My friend Cherrie brought an appetizer and a side dish too, which really helped. I could have just served ice cream for dessert (store bought – I didn’t think I had time to make some) but luckily I found one dessert recipe in my to-try file that I thought would be easy and good. We still have a few Meyer lemons on our trees here, so making lemon pudding seemed like a perfect fit.

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I’m on a food quest – a mission, if you will. To find out how to make perfect Thai iced tea. It took me a couple of weeks of periodic research online (finding various recipes, with use of various kinds of milk, hearing about the different kinds of Thai tea to buy, visiting several Asian markets trying to find it) before I finally just went to my local Thai restaurant and asked them if they’d sell me their tea. Sure they would. For $7.00 for the bag you’ll see in the photo down below. The kind owner was trying to tell me how much of the tea mix to use, but I couldn’t understand him well enough to know what he was saying. How much tea to water? I couldn’t understand. The bag does have a recipe on it (in English!), but I think it would be way too strong. I don’t want to stay up all night with all the caffeine. So I resorted to just trying it, guessing on the quantity. Read the rest of this entry »

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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.
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Yes, I can hear it already . . . spaghetti sauce and meatballs . . . how terribly bo-rrr-ing, you say? And don’t we all have such a recipe? I suppose, but not THIS one. It’s an oldie but goodie for me. I’ve been making this version of spaghetti sauce and meatballs since about 1966. And before I lose you, let me just say that what makes this version a bit unique is the fresh celery leaves and the freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano IN the meatballs. That’s not common, I know it’s not.

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