Bassets Love Blueberries

Most of the time I spend in the kitchen is solitary. I tend to think of myself as a one man wolf pack... sans the Galifianakis beard. In my head, a recipe is something I take step by step, and when even one person joins the cake walk, I end up fumbling their directions (and mine), trying to keep them occupied and entertained. Sometimes, I'm lucky enough to have company who's content just to listen as I crack eggs and lame jokes, and often give half-assed explanations as to what I'm doing. I'm like a half baked cooking show host. Even though with more complex recipes I'm at my best alone with some good music, some things I can't do all by my beardless lonesome.

For example, last Friday, my friend Steph volunteered to help me shoot my first official Bite Club video! So without further ado, I give you the crushing bad news that I came unprepared, brought a spatula to a gun fight, and bailed on shooting it.

Steph and I have known each other since 6th grade, so we've been friends for half of our lives. I was in her wedding party this past May, and she and her husband Philip live less than 10 minutes from my parents' house. Since I never get to see her when I'm in Montreal, I was thrilled to pack up my supplies and traipse over, crash landing in her kitchen to bake up today's muffins. They're a healthy bite for breakfast, packed with island flavours of coconut and macadamia nut, exploding with fresh blueberry. DIG IT.

It was a cool and rainy day outside. Inside, I mixed and folded while trying not to trip over Hazel, the basset hound, who wandered lost around the kitchen, trying to give us her sad puppy eyes in exchange for muffin batter. Steph snapped pictures. We drank Lemon Cream tea and talked about wedding photos, Neil Patrick Harris and singing things from Moulin Rouge. The sort of easy chatter you miss with people when you live cities or provinces away from each other. Food bringing us together-- is there anything it CAN'T do?

Blueberry Macadamia Coconut Muffins

Makes 12 muffins. Om nom.
Adapted from Fitness Magazine

Ingredients

Muffins
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut, shredded
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 large egg
1 large egg white
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 tbsp applesauce
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp macadamia nuts, chopped
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Topping
2 tbsp all purpose flour
2 tbsp macadamia nuts, chopped,
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp canola oil

1. To make the topping, combine the all purpose flour, chopped nuts and brown sugar in a small bowl. Drizzle the oil over top and whisk all of the ingredients together. Set aside.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spray a standard muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together both flours, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg, egg white, buttermilk, applesauce and vanilla.

5. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir with a spatula until only just combined. Fold in the blueberries and the macadamia nuts.

6. Divide the batter evenly until the 12 muffin tins, then top with the topping, gently pressing it into the batter. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

I Am Jack's Step by Step Photos

1.  Gather up all of your ingredients. (I packaged mine up neatly since this is Bite Club going mobile.) Dry ingredients, wet ingredients, blueberries & nuts, coconut topping. In a small bowl, combine the ingredients for the topping and mix until combined. Preheat your oven to 400 hundred degrees.

2.   Whisk together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat together the wet ingredients, then make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir until JUST combined. (Over beating muffin batter is inhumane and also produces tough muffins.)

3. Fold in the blueberries and the 3 tablespoons of blueberries. 

4. Spoon them into 12 waiting muffin tins, lined and sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, unless you like eating paper for breakfast. 

5.  Spoon topping onto the batter, pressing it down gently with the back of the spoon. 

6. Pop these into the oven for 18-20 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean! (Hey look, it's me! Hallo internet!)

7. Remove from oven, and let cool for 10 minutes in the tray, then remove and cool if you can resist trying them for that long. Serve with tea and enjoy!

Steph went coocoo for coconut (macadamiablueberry) muffins!

And Hazel was upset and muffinless, because everyone knows from our dear Roald Dahl that beagles bassets love blueberries. There there, Hazel.

Crunch Time

This recipe is so simple that there's not much to say about it.

There's no real story to attach to it. I've never been to a co-op in Portland where they ate this on the daily and I've never gotten lost on a mountainside with a bag of granola as my only food source. I was browsing for recipes, I saw this, bookmarked it, and then I made it. That's it. I didn't have to wrestle plaid clad lumberjacks for it, nothing. Although, I WOULD wrestle rabid lumberjacks for this granola, because that is the depth of my love for peanut butter. My kitchen smells like heaven right now.

This recipe great because it's quicker than most granola recipes- less than 15 minutes total baking time. It's crunchy, not overly sweet and pretty wholesome. I'd try serving it with yogurt or milk and fresh fruit. (I just ate mine with some sliced strawberries and some milk and ooh baby, it was a fine world.) However, if you just eat it, ravenous, handful by handful out of the container, I won't judge.

This shtuff is ALSO vegan, if that's what you're into, you hippie.

Peanut Butter Maple Granola

Adapted from The Sweet {Tooth} Life 

Ingredients

1/3 cup peanut butter (I used all natural)
1/4 cup real maple syrup
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chopped pecans (or a nut of your choice)
2 cups oats

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. 

2. In a medium sauce pan over medium-low heat, melt together the peanut butter and the maple syrup, whisking to combine. Add in the cinnamon and vanilla, stirring until evenly distributed.

3.  Now, add the pecans and the oats, stirring until the mixture is evenly coated.

4. Spread the mixture in a thin, even layer on the baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes, then allow to cool completely. Enjoy!


I Am Jack's Step by Step Photos.

1.  Combine the peanut butter and maple syrup in a saucepan. When melted, add the cinnamon, vanilla and whisk.

2. Mix in the oats and pecans, ensuring they're evenly coated by the mixture. Spread on a baking sheet lined with parchment.

3. Bake at 325 degrees for 12-15 minutes, enjoy peanut butter aromatherapy as the smell fills the kitchen. Remove from oven, let cool on the sheet and store for as long as you can before you eat all of it. Seriously.

Holy Crepe!

I woke up on the stupid side of the bed yesterday, the one where you get mad for no reason at the smallest stuff. The customer at work who asked for no foam on their latte (without saying please, wtf, lady), the fact that the metro was so crowded, the old woman moving at a glacial pace who  got stuck behind on the walk home, were all things that normally wouldn't phase me, but yesterday, they did. I know that when it gets to I point where I'm annoyed at old ladies for being old ladies, that I need to do two things: check myself, take a minute or two to collect why I'm freaking out over nothing-- and also, cook. Cooking makes me feel better about all the things, all the time. The sense of accomplishment, reward, and harmony in the kitchen is nearly perpetual.

I concluded a few things: I'm in the middle of post-stress stress- I handed in a paper worth 25% of my mark yesterday, and while I'm happy to have it out of my hands, I got all worked up writing it and now I'm left gun shy over waiting for the mark. I'm sick of winter-- Montréal got buried underneath about a foot of snow this week, on the first day of Spring, just when I thought we were turning a corner. I'm also homesick. I'm heading home next week for the Easter long weekend, and the fact that I know I'm GOING at all is making me chomp at the bit to get there, to see my family and friends. And all of these things brought me to... crepes.

Crepes always remind me of my Babcia, because the only time I ate them as a kid was when we went to visit her in Tinyboringtown, Ontario. Warm homey feelings of nostalgia, plus pride in using her recipe just snugs me right in the 'feelgoods.' From my Russian grandmother, to my mother to me, to you, friends: these crepes are great because you can eat them sweet or savoury, and they're simple. Anything that's simply good in my books is GREAT. I dressed mine up for dinner with caramelized onions, sauteed mushrooms, broccoli florets and cheddar cheese. DELICIOUS. You'll see.

A few things to note: this recipe is an exercise in patience and practice, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again and eat the mistakes because damnit, they will be delicious anyway. Two things are key: butter and timing. I tried to make these awhile back, and I greased the pan with olive oil which didn't work so well. A well buttered pan is your weapon of choice here. Also, I know crepes are thin, tiny pancakes so you think they need nanoseconds to cook, but DON'T flip them until the edges are browning! Just like real pancakes or teenagers, they will come away from the pan easily when they're ready to be flipped. Don't pressure them!

Caramelized Onions

Ingredients

2 cooking onions, chopped into strips
1 tbsp butter
salt

1. Melt butter in a large frying pan, then add the chopped onions.

 

2. Cook them on medium-low heat. Stir them once in awhile but let them do their own thing, for 30-45 minutes until they're a dark, caramel brown. (I added in the sliced mushrooms just before the onions were done and sauteed them all in the same pan, because multiple dishes are for suckers.) Salt the onions to your taste!

Basic Crepe Recipe

Makes about large 6-8 crepes.

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/4 tsp baking powder

1. Whisk together all of the ingredients. Refrigerate for at least an hour. (I try and make my batter 24 hours in advance, then let it sit in the fridge. The batter needs to rest to make good crepes!)

2. Butter a large frying pan and keep it over medium-low heat. I found the best way to pour the batter into the hot pan was to make a circle around the edge of the pan with the batter, then to tilt it until it spread to cover the entire bottom.

3. When the top of the crepe is no longer shiny and the edges are brown, slide a spatula beneath it, gently easing it away from the pan. Flip that motha', and the other side will cook for about 30 seconds..

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This takes some practice, as you can see from the picture below this caption, sometimes crap happens when you're cooking crepe, and it will create a frustrated sensation in your cranium, but trust, you can do it! I did, and I did a happy dance when I finally achieved my dream of carby perfection. I am being literal about that dancing thing, too.

 

4. Now you have a tasty pile of crepes to do whatever you please with. As I said, these would be great with maple syrup,  or slathered with Nutella and crammed full of raspberries, but, as this post will demonstrate, this is a dinnertime food, too.

5. I sprinkled a handful of shredded old cheddar, broccoli and the caramelized onions and mushrooms mixtures on one crepe....

 

...Rolled it up, and put it back in the frying pan to melt the cheese.

 

Then I ate it so fast, I barely had time to snap pictures of it, let alone garnish the plate, let alone ANYTHING.