The secret lives of vegetables-Butternut Squash and Applesauce Muffins

I wanted to share a recipe today that is one of my favorites. It is one of our family favorites, just in time for the fall season. These muffins come from a book, given to me by a friend, that teach us as parents to hide vegetables in our children's food. Now, as far as philosophies go, this has its pros and cons. I think its great to incorporate vegetables into everyday eating, like shredding zucchini into meatballs, pasta sauce, or hamburger, to increase our intake of vegetables. Breading foods in egg mixed with veggie puree is also a phenomenal idea, if you have the veggies on hand, etc. There are lots of ways I had honestly never thought of to incorporate fruits and vegetables. The author also encourages us as parents to offer vegetables at dinner, even if there is a hidden veggie in the meal. Its a great idea, and it really gets you thinking on how to get some of the more difficult things into your kids mouths.

That said, these muffins are ridiculously good. I make them for people, let them devour them, and then tell them there is butternut squash in them. There is also applesauce and oatmeal in the muffins, but I think butternut squash is the big surprise. Oh, they also have an oatmeal streusel topping that makes them to die for.

If you like roasted butternut squash soup, these muffins will be your best friend, because you can roast the squash for your soup and then just set aside the squash you aren't going to use for the soup and whip up a batch of these babies. They are incredibly tender, no doubt from the applesauce and butternut squash, and really, the crunchy, brown sugar and oatmeal topping is great. They also have a bit of extra fiber with the oatmeal also in the batter. This also gives the muffins a bit of chewy texture.

Roasted Butternut Squash Muffins
Topping
2/3 cup old fashioned oats
1/4 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 Tablespoons butter, melted

Batter
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup old fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup pureed butternut squash
1/2 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups. Make the topping: Stir together the oats, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. Stir in the butter.
Make the batter: combine the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a large mixing bowl and stir to mix. In a second bowl, mix the applesauce with the milk, vegetable puree, sugar, oil, and egg with a wooden spoon. Add the flour mixture slowly, stirring until just moistened. Do not over mix-the batter is supposed to be lumpy.
Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups and sprinkle with the streusel topping. Bake until the topping is lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the muffins, 18 to 20 minutes. Turn the muffins out onto a rack to cool.

Easy Morning

It feels like I haven't blogged in forever! I know it hasn't been that long, but it seems like it, and I am afraid you are going to have to put up with me being a bit wordy. I have so many things I want to write about...new recipes, old recipes, recipes I had forgotten about and recipes I really, really want to share. We have moved, and while we were getting settled into our new place we were without the Internet. So, instead of checking every body's facebook status or watching Netflix, I have been reading cookbooks and writing out recipes. I have a lot of recipes. Since we last talked I made a delicious chocolate cake, perfected my fried rice, made egg rolls, made lasagna for the first time, found all my long-lost recipes and saved them forever in cyberspace, tweaked a potato recipe, re-discovered a chicken recipe, convinced my 5-year old that he likes asparagus (FINALLY), made some amazing muffins...maybe I should stop there. I really wanted to write about this potato recipe, but I think the muffins should come first.
I really like muffins, along with just about any other food item, but I have discovered that a lot of muffin recipes are strange. The muffins are dry, horrible little things that should be given to the children to play with, not eaten with coffee to start a lovely spring day. Or, the recipe turns out ok, but calls for something I can't swap out without compromising the consistency, such as a juice or sour cream. And, I know it probably sounds funny but I usually don't have sour cream. It's not that I don't buy it, its just that it goes really fast. But, if I buy a lot we don't use it...you know how that is.

Anyway, this is another of those common items that I just can't seem to find a stand-by, basic recipe for. Until now. This is another one from the Art and Soul of Baking, a book I highly recommend. I use it weekly, if not more. Sometimes I look through this book and feel like I need to exercise.
There is a great muffin recipe in here, and you can make all sorts of substitutions. The muffins I made the other day were the suggested Lemon Raspberry. A lovely combination, and really just the tip of the iceberg. Lemon Blueberry, Poppy seed, Orange Cranberry, Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Peanut Butter....you could make anything! The recipe uses butter, and you zest the lemon and infuse the melted butter with the zest. This allows the flavor to permeate all the batter, and you could get creative with the raspberry. I happened to have some frozen raspberries in my freezer, but I would think you could drop a bit of raspberry or blackberry jam into each muffin cup and swirl it with the batter, or just leave it as a jellied center. Dried cranberries, fresh cranberries, blueberries or any other fruit you like (think: dried apricot, dark chocolate and coconut...hmm...) I don't see why you couldn't mash up a banana or two and add that to the batter with a hand full of chopped walnuts. This is that recipe. Its the only muffin recipe I will ever use. I will make all my modifications on this one. I really love it. There is even a little bit about a streusel topping you can add (can?) so this is definitely a keeper.


Lemon Raspberry Muffins with Streusel Topping

For the muffins:
2 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
3/4 stick butter
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
2/3 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 half-pint basket raspberries, or 1 1/4 cups frozen (do not thaw)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 and position an oven rack in the center. Line a muffin tin and lightly spray the top with cooking spray. Place the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk to blend thoroughly. Melt the butter in a medium glass dish in the microwave and add the lemon zest. Add the buttermilk and let the mixture sit for 1 or 2 minutes, or until the mixture is tepid. Add the eggs and vanilla, and whisk until well blended.
Pour the butter mixture into the dry ingredients and stir gently. Mix only until there are no more streaks of flour or pools of liquid and the batter looks fairly smooth. Gently fold in the raspberries.
Divide the batter evenly between prepared muffin cups.

For the streusel:
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped almonds
1/4 cup unbleached flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons melted butter

Combine in a bowl and sprinkle over muffin batter.
Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until inserted cake tester comes out clean. Transfer muffin tin to a rack and allow to cool for 5 minutes before lifting the muffins out. Transfer to a rack to finish cooling. Serve warm or hot.

Grandma's Cornbread

Do you ever go looking through a cookbook for some commonplace item, say, cake, and there is no such recipe. There is some crazy 'birthday cake' that has rum and candied fruit in it, or a lemon cake that contains the entire rind (pith included) of a lemon?

It was at this juncture of my cooking I decided I would pursue not just the unusual, but the ordinary. I don't understand why there are not cookbooks with ordinary, everyday recipes. Those classics that you want to try at home or oatmeal raisin cookies that turn out perfect every time. Whether its roast chicken, brownies, lemon curd, crepes, or homemade pasta, its pretty darn hard to find those recipes. You have such an abundance of variations on those recipes, like lemon-poppy seed crepes with creme fraiche, but no plain crepes.

You get what I'm saying...right? So, this is one of those recipes. The recipes that 'everyone' has...everyone but us. The recipes that the higher food powers have decided 'everyone' already knows how to make...cornbread. There is something so nostalgic and comforting about cornbread. It can be plain, or jazzed up a bit. It suits many meals, and for some reason, it makes people smile when you put it on the table. It is unassuming and simple, yet we love it. With plain butter, or sweet, with chili or bbq chicken, as muffins or squares, it is welcome.

This recipe is my moms, and she got it from her mom. I love it. It is the perfect combination of light and toothsome. It isn't so light you think of cake, nor is it dense. Its just perfect.

Now, of course I changed a few things about the recipe. For one, it calls for powdered milk, which I have noticed pops up quite a bit in recipes from Grandma. I traded the water and powdered milk for milk. It also calls for shortening, which I swapped out for butter. I have something against shortening in baked goods. I just don't like it. You might, but I don't. Softened butter works great, but you could also use melted butter. Of course, I can't leave well enough alone, so I have listed a few variations you might like: you can add 1 cup cheddar cheese by itself, or in addition to canned chilis or bacon, or all three. You could also use bacon grease instead of butter....I know bacon somehow makes its way into most of my posts, but you gotta love the stuff...

Grandmas Cornbread
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/4 cup (1/2 a stick) butter, softened or melted.

Preheat oven to 425. Butter a 9-inch square baking dish or pie dish. Combine ingredients in a bowl. Whisk until there are no lumps. Pour into baking dish. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
For muffins, bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Serve warm with lots of butter...

Muffins and bread

Breads that have squash in them are probably my favorite. I love pumpkin bread, butternut squash muffins are to die for, and zucchini bread is heaven! If you bake at all you have probably already figured out that baked goods that have pureed fruits or vegetables are unbelievably moist and have an added depth of flavor. Banana breads, applesauce muffins, sweet potato pancakes....the list goes on and on.
If you love zucchini bread, raise your hand! I know I do. And if you have never had it, and think, 'I don't like zucchini' your missing out! The only time I remember having zucchini bread was at a coffee shop where I worked as a teenager. I wouldn't try it at first, then, one day, I was very hungry. My usual cranberry-orange bread was gone, and one of my coworkers convinced me that I would really like it. So, I tried it. It was amazing! Moist and rich with just a hint of cinnamon. Mmmm, Mmmm!
I often asked people if they had the recipe. I also searched through cookbooks and had no luck. I found a few recipes on the Internet, but you know how that is. You just don't want to exert the effort for something when you are unsure of the outcome.
Then one day, I found a recipe for Zucchini Nut Muffins in a magazine. It was actually an advertisement for washed raw cane sugar. I adapted the recipe a little bit, and made the muffins. It goes together in the usual way, combine dry ingredients, then the moist ones separately and fold together. There is quite a bit of beating with the eggs, undoubtedly the reason for the breads wonderful texture. I add nuts if I have them, but we have little people who don't like walnuts in their bakery goods, so I tend to stay away from them. The same can be said for the sultanas. I am not particularly fond of raisins (see: Raindrops on roses...) and again, even though my little men eat raisins, they don't want them in their bread!

The beaten sugar and eggs create a lovely crunchy topping for the muffins. I tested them out soon after reading the article and we absolutely loved them! My only complaint is it makes quite a few and they become hard after just a day, which usually happens with freshly baked, preservative-free goodies.
Just recently I decided to just change the recipe a little further and make a loaf instead of muffins. It came out a beautiful dark brown and it was so moist and delicious. Whenever I make this I try to bake it the night before to eat for breakfast the next morning. What usually happens is everybody smells it cooking and by the time my sister, husband and little boys have a piece, its mostly gone. I no longer have a problem with staleness.

I love a warm slice soaked with butter, sitting next to my coffee...divine.



Zucchini Walnut Bread

3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark is fine)
4 eggs, room temperature
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated, unpeeled zucchini
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup sultanas (golden raisins) (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, then set aside. Combine sugars and eggs in a large mixing bowl and beat at medium speed for 2 minutes. Gradually add oil, beating constantly 2-3 minutes. Add zucchini and vanilla and blend well. Stir in walnuts and raisins, if using. Fold in sifted dry ingredients just until batter is evenly moistened-be careful not to over mix. Spoon batter into 2 greased, non-stick loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour. Top will be a very rich, dark brown. Let stand 10 minutes, then turn out on a rack to cool.

If using a stand mixer: I just start with the eggs and sugar, and add the oil as directed. Then I follow with the dry ingredients (I don't premix them) and end with the walnuts and raisins. It turns out fine that way also.

Muffins: Preheat oven to 350. Spoon prepared batter into greased, non-stick muffin pans. Bake 25 minutes, or until tops are lightly browned. Makes about 24 muffins.

If you find yourself with an abundance of zucchini, I like to grate mine and freeze it for later use. I have seen no change in the result of the bread.