Cheesy Breakfast Muffins

Long ago and in another apartment, these muffins were inspired by Fig’s Cheese Muffins from The Pioneer Woman--but since then they’ve changed pretty drastically. We’ve played around with the cheese, added new herbs, onions, and ham or bacon, to create the most delectable breakfast-lunch-or-dinner muffin this side of the Rocky Mountains. Try to stop at just one--we dare you.

Ingredients
2 cups colby jack cheese, grated
1/2 cup each sharp cheddar and Parmesan cheese, grated
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 cup melted butter
2 strips bacon (or 2 thick slices ham)
1/4 cup onion, diced (about 1/2 small onion)
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp basil
2 good shakes garlic powder

Instructions
Preheat oven to 375°F. In a skillet, cook bacon (or fry ham). Remove bacon from skillet; let cool on paper towels. When cool, dice into small pieces. (If using ham, you may wish to dice before frying.)

Grate cheese into a medium-sized bowl. Add onion and cooled bacon. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add to cheese mixture.

Whisk together melted butter, milk, and egg. Add oregano, basil, and garlic powder. Combine liquid ingredients with dry; stir gently to combine. Spoon into greased muffin cups and bake until golden-brown, about 20-25 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

We love these muffins. You don't have to get fancy with the spices or the bacon/ham--go ahead and follow the original recipe. It is every bit as delicious.

Vegetarian Quinoa Chili

It was snowing today when I left for school, and it wasn’t much warmer when I came home for lunch and paper-writing. On such a grey day, I needed something warm and colorful--and the answer came in the form of this delicious vegetarian chili, thrown together from whatever I had on hand. It’s packed full of vegetables and protein, with two kinds of beans as well as quinoa, a South American grain that’s becoming more and more popular lately. For good reason: quinoa has tremendously high protein content (12%–18%), is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus, and is high in magnesium and iron. It’s gluten-free, too! In its natural state quinoa has a bitter coating that protects it from birds, but most quinoa sold in North America is pre-washed (you may want to rinse before using anyway, just to be sure).

I used an assortment of whatever vegetables and spices I had on hand--often adding a seasoning just because I could. I’ve starred the spices I consider essential. Pick and choose which seasonings you like, tasting frequently.

Vegetarian Quinoa Chili

Ingredients
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 - 1 1/2 cups chopped bell pepper (red, green, yellow)
1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup water
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can black beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can sweet corn
*Cumin
*Red pepper flakes
*Ground chili powder
*Ground mustard powder
*Paprika
Cinnamon
Ground ginger
Dried basil
*Ground black pepper
*Kosher salt
Celery salt
Mesquite seasoning

Instructions
in a large pot, heat a little olive oil over medium heat. Saute onions 1 - 2 minutes. Add garlic and chopped bell pepper and continue to saute until onions are soft and translucent. Meanwhile, rinse quinoa if desired. Add quinoa, 1 cup water, and 1 can diced tomatoes. Simmer about 10 minutes. Drain and rinse beans and corn; add to pot. Add seasonings as desired and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until chili has thickened and quinoa are transparent in the center, about 10 - 20 minutes.


Serve with grated cheese, small cubes of avocado, crumbled cornbread, or Fritos corn chips.

Servings: around 6.

Zucchini & Mushroom Udon Soup

In September I went back to Oregon for my sister Mandy's wedding reception. It was lovely, of course. I also made the time to jaunt up to Uwajimaya, a wonderful Asian food grocery store. It is there that I bought some difficult-to-find-in-normal-grocery-stores ingredients, and that is what made this delicious meal possible.

This recipe is modified from The Essential Asian Cookbook. The original called for pork and leeks, and I had neither. (I also lacked spring onions and shimichi togarashi, but who's counting?) Instead, I substituted zucchini and mushrooms, and the results were divine.


Zucchini & Mushroom Udon Soup

Ingredients
6 1/3 oz dried udon noodles
2 cups water
1 1/2 tsp dashi granules
1/2 small zucchini
2 large mushrooms
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 Tbsp non-alcoholic mirin

Instructions
Slice zucchini into thin strips. Slice mushrooms in large, but thin, pieces. Set aside.

Follow instructions on udon packaging to cook. Do not rinse. Drain and cover to keep warm.

Bring water and dashi to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Add zucchini and simmer for five minutes. Add mushrooms, soy sauce, and mirin and simmer for two minutes.

Divide noodles into three medium bowls. Spoon soup over noodles and serve.

I have been craving Japanese food lately, and this made my evening. Udon is readily available at most competent grocery stores. The dashi (dried fish granules) and mirin (sweetened rice wine) are harder to come by, and they are absolutely essential to this dish. The non-alcoholic mirin was especially difficult. I went through an entire display of bottles at Uwajimaya until I found one that said non-alcoholic in English.

But now I have an entire liter of the stuff, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to post many more Japanese cooking adventures in the future.

Cheddar and Apple Scones

When I read The Smitten Kitchen’s recipe for apple and cheddar scones, I knew I had to try this gorgeous fall recipe. Last month I did, with Tillamook cheddar and Gala apples. They were wonderful, but they weren’t quite perfect. So for a couple of weeks in a row I tried again, picking my favorite elements from Deb’s recipe in my quest to produce the perfect Apple and Cheddar Scones. I found it at last, with a riff off King Arthur Flour’s scones recipe. These scones are tender, flaky, and delicious, with a perfect mixture of sweet and savory.

Roasting the apples adds a little time, but it’s mostly a hands-off process--perfect for a Saturday studying at home. Peel and slice the apples on your study break, pop them into the oven while you go back to the books, and then take another quick break to assemble the scones themselves. At the end of an hour or two you’ve not only read several chapters on Church and State in American History, but you’ve got glorious scones to snack on while you study for the rest of the day!

Apple and Cheddar Scones

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into pats
2 large eggs
1/2 cup to 2/3 cup milk, or 1/2 cup milk and 2 Tbsp apple cider
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
3 Granny Smith or other sweet-tart apples, peeled and sliced thickly
1/4 tsp thyme
1 egg, beaten
Coarse raw sugar, for sprinkling

Instructions
Heat oven to 400°F. Peel, core, and slice apples and spread on parchment paper on a baking sheet. Roast for 25 - 30 minutes, until apples are starting to brown at the edges and are dry to the touch. Eat a few and let the rest cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes. (You can also do this a day or two in advance; simply seal the cooled apples in a sandwich bag or other airtight container and keep until ready to make the scones.)

Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Cut in butter using the paddle attachment of a stand mixer, a pastry blender, or two knives; alternatively, pulse ingredients in a food processor until butter chunks are no larger than pea-sized. In another bowl, combine eggs, milk, cider, roasted apple slices, cheddar cheese, and thyme. Add liquid ingredients to dry and mix until just barely combined.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and shape into a large, thick round about 1/2 inch thick. Using an overturned glass, cut out circles of dough and transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Carefully fold leftover dough together and shape into a circle; cut into quarters. (Alternatively, you can shape the dough into two circles 6” in diameter and slice into sixths. Either way you’ll get about 12 scones).

Brush tops with beaten egg and sprinkle with coarse raw sugar. Chill in refrigerator or freezer at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, heat oven to 475°F. Bake scones for about 20 - 25 minutes, until tops are firm and golden-brown. Transfer to a wire rack and cool briefly before serving. These scones are best on the day they’re baked but will keep for a few days in an airtight container.



Note: Chilling the dough is the vital step in the perfection of these scones. It will contribute to a high rise and limited spreading, meaning your scones will be tall, flaky, gorgeous--and delicious! You can even freeze the dough and just cook one or two at a time, though you’ll need to increase the cooking time to compensate.

Our Favorite Pizza

Everyone has a favorite kind of pizza. As far as the made-from-scratch-and-deliciously-crispy variety goes, this one is my favorite.

It's really easy and quick to make. Including rising time, it takes just an hour and a half until you have pizza-induced bliss.


Thin Crust Pizza
Ingredients
4 cups flour
1/3 cup olive oil
1 1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
Various toppings

Instructions
Mix water and yeast together. Set aside.

Mix flour and salt. Slowly drizzle in olive oil, stirring all the while. (This step is easier to do in a stand mixer than by hand.) Pour water and yeast mixture into the flour mixture. Stir until combined.

Coat a bowl with cooking spray. Place dough inside bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator for up to three days, if desired. If you want to use the dough the same day, keep it out the counter for an hour of two so dough can rise.

Divide dough in half. On large cookie sheets, press dough into a thin, roughly rectangular crust. Cover with your favorite toppings. Bake for 14 to 17 minutes at 500 degrees Fahrenheit, or until crust is gold brown.

Our favorite combination of toppings so far are tomato sauce, mozzarella, mushrooms, bell peppers, and red onions. (This is why it's good to have a stock of frozen, already-diced pizza toppings in the fridge.) From time to time we mix it up--you can see that in the above picture we went for freshly diced tomatoes instead of  sauce and threw in some leftover colby-jack cheese for variety's sake. We've had some very tasty success with pepperoni, olives, and other toppings.
 

Really, it's hard to go wrong with pizza. Wouldn't you agree?

Roasted Butternut Squash Bisque and Old English Oatmeal Bread

Three weeks into this blog, and we’ve already fallen down on the job. Well, partly. Audrey and I did manage to meet our Pantry Challenge goal to a certain extent: we cooked from our pantry and from the Bountiful Basket produce without buying anything more than a can of pumpkin and a bag of chocolate chips, both of which went into the pumpkin chocolate scones I made for the Law School Singles Pumpkin Palooza Bake-off. On the other hand, we didn’t eat at home nearly as much as I’d expected. On Sunday I had dinner with my sisters; Tuesday night I had dinner at a legal society function; on Wednesday and Thursday I had lunch catered by various law school functions; on Thursday I had dinner at the Pumpkin Palooza. All other meals were home-cooked but upon consulting with Audrey, I’m not sure we ever actually ate a meal together (so long as you don’t count Friday night, when we made sweet potato and parsnip fries--very tasty, but not exactly a meal). Obviously the next time we do a challenge like this, we need to do a better job of it!

To make up for last week’s failure, I have two recipes today: Roasted Butternut Squash Bisque with Carmelized Onions, and Old English Oatmeal Bread. The bread recipe is one I’ve been baking with great success for a couple of years; the soup I made up today. Both are absolutely fantastic and make a wonderful, healthy light dinner packed with fall flavor.

Roasted Butternut Squash Bisque
Ingredients
2 medium butternut squash
1 Yukon gold potato, diced
1 quart (32 oz) good chicken or vegetable broth
Olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 shake red pepper
2 tsp dried chives, plus more to garnish
Whipping cream and caramelized onions, to garnish

Instructions
Heat oven to 400°F. Lop off top and bottom of butternut squash; slice in half and scoop out seeds and stringy innards. Rub the cut surfaces with olive oil and place, cut side down, on a baking sheet lined with tin foil. Roast for 40 minutes or so, until squash is soft and pierced easily by a fork. Remove from oven and let cool until easy to handle. Scoop flesh out with a spoon and discard skins.

Meanwhile, boil potato in a little water until soft and easily pierced by a fork; drain. Combine squash, potato, and chicken (or vegetable) broth in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Pour soup into a pot and add salt, black pepper, red pepper, and chives. Heat gently over medium to medium-low heat.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with whipping cream, extra chives, and caramelized onions.

(The onions may sink, as mine did in this picture. Don't despair! They'll taste even better in the soup than on top.)



Caramelized Onions
1 medium onion
1/2 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp raw sugar
Salt

Slice onion thinly. Melt butter in a skillet over medium-low heat; add onions. Saute onions for 45-50 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle sugar and a little salt over onions when they start to brown and continue cooking over medium-low to low heat until onions are well-caramelized, with deep color and sweet flavor.



Old English Oatmeal Bread (adapted from the Williams-Sonoma Baking cookbook)
Ingredients
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats, plus extra for sprinkling
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 Tbsp dark molasses
2 - 2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp yeast
1 egg yolk, beaten mixed with 1 tsp water

Instructions
Place the oats in a large bowl or the bowl of an electric stand mixer. In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Add the milk and 3/4 cup water and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Pour over the oats and let stand until lukewarm, about 30 minutes; stir often to hasten cooling. Stir in the molasses, 1 1/2 cups of the flour, the salt, and the yeast. Gradually stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough that holds its shape.

Knead by hand or with a dough hook, adding flour as needed. Kneed by hand until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes; knead by hook until the dough is not sticking and pulls cleanly from the bowl sides, 6-7 minutes. (If I have the time, I always knead by hand; it develops the gluten better, gives a more pleasing texture, and allows me to judge the condition of the dough much more easily.)

Form the dough into a ball and place in a clean, greased bowl, turning to coat all sides. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled, 45-60 minutes.

Dust a baking sheet with flour. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and press flat. Cut in half, knead briefly, and form each half into a ball, stretching the sides down and under. Place well apart on the prepared baking sheet and flatten slightly. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise until doubled, 20-30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Uncover the loaves, brush with the egg-yolk mixture and sprinkle with oats, if desired. Using a sharp knife, make two 1/4" deep slashes on the tops of the loaves. Bake until golden brown, 25-30 minutes; the loaves should sound hollow when tapped on the bottoms. Unmold the loaves and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes two 13-oz loaves. Total preparation time: about 3 hours.

The Pantry Challenge

Only 3 weeks into the blog, and already we’ve decided to shake things up a bit! Last week Audrey and I did a pantry inventory, the results of which may be found here: October 10 pantry inventory.

Since we’re pretty well-stocked, we thought it might be fun to see how well we can live out of our pantry. We’ve got stuff in the fridge too, of course--assorted cheeses, jams, butter, 4 eggs, leftover Thai curry, tortillas, and so forth--and since we’re all in favor of fresh vegetables, Audrey signed us up for a week of a fruits-and-vegetables co-op, which we picked up on Saturday morning. I also bought a gallon of milk. And that, my friends, is going to be what we eat this week. We’ll make an exception for one eating-out each (since both of us are fairly friendly people, and occasionally get invited out for lunch), and if we go to eat at someone’s house of course we’ll cheerfully eat their food--and bring some of our own! Otherwise we’ll be eating from our pantry and fridge for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all this week. We’ll also break our usual update schedule of Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday; this week we’ll be posting every day to let you know how it goes!

For the curious, here’s the website for the co-op: Bountiful Baskets. They’ve got locations all over the Intermountain West and the Pacific Northwest. As you can see from some fairly exotic fruit offerings they’re not a local CSO (Community-Supported Agriculture) group, but they’re both cheaper, fresher, and friendlier than most local grocery stores. As they explain on their Current Offerings page:

In the conventional basket we focus our buying as follows: High Quality, Low Cost and As Local as Possible… So, how hard do we try? Pretty hard! Most bananas are from Central America or the Carribbean and are grown by a couple gargantuan conglomerate growers. We get all of our bananas from small farmers in central Mexico. This saves the co-op between $4 and $7 a box, keeps money with small farmers, and helps keep the carbon footprint small.

So, what did we get from our Bountiful Basket? Quite a lot!

Bountiful Basket booty:
1 pineapple
2 pomegranate
1 large bunch bananas
7 green apples
4 pears
1 bag red grapes
4-5 parsnips
~1 lb yams
2 romaine lettuce
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch broccoli
4 tomatoes

Cost: $19.50 first-time user (normally $16.50)

Beef, Bean, and Cheese Chimichangas

My mom makes the best chimichangas I’ve ever had--baked, not fried, filled with shredded beef and green chilies, served with chunky guacamole and sour cream on the side. These are not hers. But they’re a quick approximation on a Friday night, and they’re pretty darn tasty fresh from the oven or eaten cold for lunch the next day. They can even be frozen and then reheated--and they’re miles better, healthier, and cheaper than the frozen variety you’ll find at the grocery store.

Beef, Bean, and Cheese Chimichangas

Ingredients
1 lb extra lean ground beef
1 onion, diced
1 can diced green chilies
1 tsp cumin (plus more, to taste)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 can refried beans, heated
10 flour tortillas
1/2 cup grated colby jack cheese
butter-flavored cooking spray

Instructions
Saute onion over medium heat. Add beef, chilies, cumin, salt, and garlic; cook, stirring frequently, until beef is completely cooked. Remove from heat. Spray tortilla on both sides with cooking spray; place a dollop of refried beans in the center, then a few spoonfuls of the beef mixture. Fold into a neat packet and place seam-side down on cookie sheet. Bake at 500°F for 8-10 minutes or until golden-brown and crispy, turning halfway through. Enjoy with fresh guacamole smeared on top.





Cost
0.78 1 can refried beans
1.38 1 package tortillas
2.98 1 lb 90% lean ground beef
0.78 1 can green chilis

Total: 5.92

The onion, cheese, cooking spray, minced garlic, and seasonings all came from fridge and pantry, so I'm not sure what the added cost is--less than a dollar, I'd guess. Let's say $7 total. Since we used ginormous burrito tortillas, that made 6 chimichangas (with enough filling left over for 2 burritos). Use smaller tortillas, and you can easily get 10-14 chimichangas. It works out to about a dollar a serving...so I guess it's not actually that much cheaper than the frozen version. But it's definitely better!

Quick Mid-Week Dinner

I came home today after a stressful day of work and decided that I needed a proper meal. I certainly didn't have the energy or patience to get make anything fancy, either. Nothing in the pantry inspired me, so I turned to the freezer.

Where, lo and behold, I discovered some chicken tenders we'd frozen last week.

Now, if you haven't discovered the miraculousness that is chicken tenders, head over to your local grocery store immediately and bask in their glory. They're pretty much just a single-serving sized portion of chicken breast, and as such they are a serious blessing for singles. Normally I just buy a pack at the store, divide them into servings, and freeze them for use at my leisure. A perfect example of this is my dinner tonight.

Ingredients
2 chicken tenders
1 1/2 cups bagged salad
1/4 avocado, cut into chunks
Croutons
Salad dressing
Seasonings

Instructions
Coat chicken tenders with seasonings of choice. (We have three different grill seasonings--I used Montreal Chicken.) Cook on medium heat. When finished, given chicken a rough dice. Place salad on plate. Top with chicken, avocado, and croutons. Add a splash of salad dressing to finish it off.

No cost breakdown for this tonight--I honestly don't know the cost of anything but the salad and croutons.

I've made this salad--or variations thereof--many times before. I like it because it takes only fifteen minutes or so, and it's very easy to customize and refresh. All you need to do is switch out the seasoning or add different toppings.  It's also easy to scale up if you're feeding more people than just yourself.

Give it a try next time you're short of energy but wanting a hearty meal!

This week's groceries

This week we needed to stock back up on some staples (flour, sugar, ground pepper, and various peppers), which threw us over our $20 goal.

October 16, 2010 WinCo
1.58    5 lb flour
1.63    Spreadable margarine
1.23    2 can Progresso soup (yay coupons!)
1.98    2 lb baby carrots
2.28    1 loaf marble rye
2.43    Grapes
1.98    1 bagged salad (Dole Spring Mix)
0.99    3 green bell peppers
1.16    2 red bell peppers
0.78    1 yellow bell pepper
1.79    3 lb sugar
1.48    croutons
2.21    ground black pepper

21.52    Total



We have some fun food posts coming up on Tuesday and Thursday. Unfortunately the last week has been hectic for both me and Mary Beth, so we haven't been able to really set a meal plan, much less cook together consistently. 

We also have a special challenge for us next week, and we're very excited to tell you all about it when the time comes.