The fourth day snow bound and I have been baking away. Took another hiatus from the soup challenge as we are eating leftover chicken soup and leftover Hoppin’ John. Here are a few new things I found to try out while I have been confined:
- An awesome chocolate chip muffin from Pink Apron Baker. I modified it and added half chocolate chips and half dried cherries and topped them off with some sanding sugar.
- More muffins from In Katrina’s Kitchen. This one is a banana streusel muffin. I had some really gnarly looking bananas in the freezer that really needed using. This crumb topping is awesome.
- A hearty breakfast from Liv Life. She inspired me to buy some quinoa on my last trip to Whole Foods (plus all the recent buzz about quinoa sparked my interest.) It was definitely a filling breakfast.
- I also baked the Blueberry-Macadamia Crumble from Liv Life as well. I halved the recipe and used hazelnuts instead (with a touch of nutmeg). We get our frozen berries and cherries from Bithel Farms. For more recipes for these great frozen berries see Blueberry Muffins in a Jiffy and Dark Sweet Cherry Pie.
(Unfortunately, I forgot to add the brown sugar to the crumble. But, with a little sweet cream, it was more than edible. This makes me think you could maybe use less brown sugar in the topping, especially if you have really sweet berries.)
- Absolutely, this is the best Italian Flat Bread from The Cilantropist. I had some fire roasted tomatoes (in almost a flake form) that I threw in as well. The possibilities are endless with this recipe.
- Authentic Ciabatta from What’s Cookin’. I have always wanted to try Ciabatta so I am giving this recipe a shot. It is a long process so it is great for snow days. So far, I have created the sponge (and let it set overnight), and I am on my second 2-hour rise.
As my husband was finally able to get out to work, I sent the muffins with him to the office. So, I think I will make some blueberry muffins today and add the streusel topping from the banana muffin recipe.
I’m off to bake some more. (The sun isn’t even out today and we are getting prepared for more snow on Sunday!)
You may want to check out more foodie reads at Cook the Books, an online foodie book club that selects a book every other month, and then we blog up our thoughts about the book and cook up something inspired by our reading. Next we are reading Ann Vanderhoof’s “An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude”, so feel free to join in the fun. There’s no membership requirements other than blogging up something about the relevant book, so check it out: http://cookthebooksclub.wordpress.com/
Thank you. I will check it out! Sounds interesting.
Wow! Don’t those banana muffins just pop up nicely!? I’m so happy you made them. Thanks! 🙂 You have been quite the baker…I guess I’d almost be out of flour too!! Gasp!
I gave you a shout out on my blog. Thanks for making my recipe! 🙂