Gettin' my Pumpkin Fix

My husband doesn't like pumpkin, so when the leaves start turning and the wind starts blowing here in Seattle, I start fiending for a little pumpkin fix.



Thankfully, the bakeries & coffee shops in my building embrace seasonal flavors with gusto, so I have lots of options this month. So far I've indulged in a Mini Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake and a Pumpkin Walnut Muffin from Specialty's, and a Pumpkin Scone from Starbuck's. I'm sure there's also a pumpkin latte in my future (even though I don't usually drink coffee - my pumpkin need is that strong). And I've spotted some pumpkin looking items in the case at Tully's that might require some of my attention soon.



UPDATE: Today I made use of a gift card to enjoy a Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin at Starbuck's, and the nice woman who served me warmed it up so the cream cheese was just a tiny bit melty and the whole muffin just melted in my mouth. I highly recommend it.

The Return of Breakfast Muffins

Dan & I strayed from our weekly routine of making muffins to take for breakfast, and have been relying on yogurt, granola and oatmeal (for the most part) instead.

Then last week, Dan & I made a batch of muffins using the last of the blueberries my Mom gave us from her garden last year, which Dan took to his work to share with his staff. That, plus the start of the Columbia City Farmers Market, seemed to be the catalysts we needed, because this week we dove back in and made Rhubarb Oat Muffins using some great rhubarb stalks we bought from Rockridge Orchards.

Since it's been awhile, I'll repost our tried & true, super flexible muffin recipe:

Honey Oat & Fruit Muffins
3 cups all purpose flour (you can replace up to half with whole wheat flour)
1 Tbspn baking powder
1 tspn salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tspn Flax Seed Powder*
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup milk
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
2 cups fruits, berries and/or nuts, cut into small pieces if necessary
1/4 cup rolled oats

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and flax powder in a bowl, mixing well using a whisk. Add 1/2 cup brown sugar and whisk again to blend until uniformly colored. Melt butter in a glass bowl or measuring cup, by microwaving for 30 seconds, then 20 seconds, then 10 seconds, until fully melted. (Don't try to hurry this step, or you'll end up with the butter exploding.) Add honey to melted butter and whisk well to combine. Whisk together milk and eggs. Add honey/butter to milk/egg mixture, whisking well. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture just until almost all the flour is moistened. Fold in fruit very lightly, until the fruit is distributed. Ladle batter into a well-greased muffin tin (each of the 12 depressions will be filled to just more than full). Sprinkle rolled oats over the top. Bake for 20 minutes. Makes a dozen muffins.

* If you can't find flax seed powder (which is in the recipe as a fat-free binder), just add an extra egg.

Dan's Molasses Berry Muffins

With the holidays and moving, Q4 of 2009 was not a banner quarter for buying local or keeping up on our breakfast muffins. Although we still need to adjust to our new house in terms of hitting the farmer's market, Dan got us back on track this week by taking the reigns of the muffin making.

Finding we were short on honey, he used both honey and molasses to sweeten the muffins, which turned out great. They're rich and flavorful, almost like gingerbread, but with bursts of mixed berries (foraged and bought during the summer and frozen in batches).

It feels good to be back on track as we start 2010.

Breakfast with the Neighbors

This morning we got up bright & early, whipped up some locally foraged huckleberry mini muffins, and headed to our new favorite breakfast spot - our neighbors house across the street.

For 2 years now, Jonathan & Suzanne and Dan & I have been meaning to get together for drinks, dinner, or something... but life tends to get in the way, especially when you've got two little ones - Eleanore (almost 4) and Katie (solidly 2). Jonathan & I work just a couple blocks from one another, and now that the Light Rail is running our schedules have begun to collide - riding home together and even walking the 3 miles in together. It was on one of those shared trips that I revealed we're leaving the neighborhood soon, having bought a house in Seward Park, and that became an additional motivation for us to finally set a date and get together. Jonathan & Suzanne graciously hosted us for a Sunday breakfast at their place.

Along with some bacon flown in from his home state, Jonathan served up eggs, orange juice, coffee & tea, and some amazing cinnamon rolls. It was such a wonderful time to get to know them a little better, eat together, and enjoy such great food, and I hope our move won't hinder us from continuing to hang out.

Frugal Fridays: Breakfast Muffins

Due to an erratic schedule this week (house hunting kinda throws one's routines off), I didn't find time to track down a lunch deal this week. So instead, I've decided to quantify the frugality of the choice Dan & I have made for keeping our breakfasts ultra-cheap.

Each week, we bake up a batch of 1 dozen large fruit muffins, which we eat throughout the week for breakfast. I've never added up the cost of a muffin, but thought it would be interesting to discover how much we're actually spending. I used prices I found on Amazon Fresh for the various ingredients, which will of course vary based on all sorts of factors, but probably not by a lot.

3 cups of flour ($0.57)
1/2 cup brown sugar ($0.60)
1 tspn salt ($0.01)
1 tbspn baking powder ($0.10)
1 tbspn flax powder ($0.02)
1/2 cup honey ($1.82)
2 eggs ($0.46)
1 cup milk ($0.13)
1 stick butter ($0.83)
2 cups fruit ($0-5, depending on season and fruit choice)

So if you do what I do and pick blackberries from overgrown lots, canes coming over your fence from the neighbor's yard, or from along the road, you can easily get a couple cups of berries for free - putting the cost per muffin at just $0.38.

If you go for organic berries during an off season, you might pay upwards of $5 for around 2 cups - making your cost per muffin skyrocket to a whopping $0.80 (is my sarcasm coming through okay?)



Berries tend to be pricier (except the free ones), whereas a couple apples, peaches, bananas, or other larger fruit will be cheaper and is all you need to get a good 2 cups. And of course, you can mix and match to create apple-huckleberry muffins, or black & blueberry muffins, or apple-plum muffins. And frozen fruits and berries are often even cheaper. Another trick is to always buy extra fruit when it's in season in your area, and toss it in the freezer. Then you can have delicious muffins throughout the winter, with flavors that remind you of summertime - without paying the costs (both economic and ecological) of buying imported fruits from the Southern Hemisphere.



Besides the flexibility to change out the fruits and berries used, you can also replace up to half the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour. You can also use 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, maple syrup, or molasses in place of the honey - each of which lends different flavors to the muffins. The flax powder can be replaced with an extra egg, if preferred. You can sprinkle some oats or even granola on top of the muffins, to add a little texture and fiber.



And you can press chunks of fruit or berries into the center of the muffins, after distributing the batter, to get a little fruit burst in the center of the muffin.



We've made everything from decidedly un-local coconut-poi muffins to rhubarb-raspberry muffins made from fruit bought at our local farmers market. We made poha berry muffins while in Hawaii, and recently made 4-berry muffins using blackberries & raspberries from our yard, and blueberries & huckleberries from my Mom's garden. We've used bananas, passion fruit juice, peaches, apricots, pluots, plums, apples, chocolate chips, strawberries, cranberries, and even tossed in macadamia nuts or walnuts once in awhile.

The recipe below makes 12 large muffins - perfect for breakfast. But you can stretch it to 2 dozen if you make smaller muffins (and cook them a little less time). And you can stretch it even farther if you make mini-muffins, which should bake for just 10 minutes instead of the full 20.

Fruit/Berry Muffins

3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 Tbspn baking powder
1 tspn Flax Seed Powder/Meal
1 tspn salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 stick of butter, melted
1/2 cup honey
2 cups chopped fruit or berries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix flour, brown sugar, baking powder, flax powder, and salt in a large bowl and stir until well blended. Gently beat milk and eggs together in a medium bowl. Combine melted butter and honey, then pour into milk/egg mixture, whisking constantly. Fold wet mixture into dry mixture just until almost all dry mixture has become moistened, being careful not to over mix. Fold in fruit very lightly, just until the dry and wet mixtures blend and the fruit is distributed. Spoon or ladle into a well-greased muffin tin (each will be filled to the top. Bake for 20 minutes. Makes one dozen large muffins.

(If using a drier fruit, such as apples, you might also want to add up to 1/4 cup of water to the batter.)

(Frugal Fridays is a weekly series dedicated to (normallY) finding Seattle lunch spots where you can walk in with a $5 bill and walk out with a fulfilling, preferably healthy, lunch. If you have suggestions of places in the Seattle area with a great lunch for under $5 after tax, post a comment - I'd love the help.)

Four Berry Breakfast Muffins

Thanks to my parents and their big backyard full of red huckleberries and blueberries, to my neighbor's towering blackberry bush that grows into our yard, and to our cute little raspberry bush trying to make it through the summer heat - this week's breakfast muffins feature four kinds of berries.



And thanks to the new Light Rail, I got into work early, and was able to leave early, and my commute was cut in half... making it easy for me to come home and bake up our breakfast muffins before Dan even made it home from work.

Rasberry Blackberry Muffins

Using raspberries from our garden, and blackberries from the freezer (foraged last year), I made up some tasty muffins for our breakfasts this week. Although I've tried all sorts of fruits (and other oddities) in our breakfast muffins, berries really do seem to produce the best results, and these were no exception.

Hawai'i Day Ten: Muffins, Huli Huli, and Sushi

After waking at 5 am, getting dressed, and walking down to the water to watch the sunrise - only to realize it was so overcast all the way to the horizon that we wouldn't be seeing the sunrise and were just getting drenched, we went back to bed.

When I got back up at 8, I had a poha berry banana muffin, and can report that they turned out great. Though I only used one banana in the batter, it's definitely noticable, and punctuated by the tart sweet poha berries.



For a quick, light lunch before our massages at Kalani, we each had a little 'slider' of char sui pork and avocado on a sweet roll.



My massage was great - 2 hours long - and I highly recommend Michael Ceraso, who has been my massage therapist all three times we've visited, and is amazing. This time, he used a 'Thai soup' of turmeric, lemongrass, and other herbs and spices that he had steaming in a rice cooker, which he used on my back. It felt and smelled great.



So by the time we were done with our massages, we were both pretty hungry. I was actually craving sushi (and Thai food) during my massage, so we ran back by the house and grabbed the reusable grocery bags we bought at Island Naturals in Pahoa - including an awesome insulated one that zips shut. Island Naturals is a pretty sizable natural food store with a ton of vegetarian and vegan food, and has been around longer than Malama Market. When I was in the area years ago (about the time I met Dan) with our friend Gary, he and I bought all our food there. They have a great deli of fresh, pre-made food, including really amazing desserts that Dan & I ogled today.



But I digress. We made our way to Malama Market and picked up stuff to make some ahi and surimi (fake crab) sushi, some beer, and the stuff we need to make some kalua pork at home - because I just can't get enough of it. We also bought a pre-cooked huli huli chicken to nosh on while the rice cooked for the sushi, because we were just that hungry.



Once home, we dug into the huli huli chicken and got the rice cooking. Huli is the Hawaiian word for "turn" for "flip", thus huli huli chicken is a rotisserie style chicken with a sweet coating. After we each had a little chicken to tide us over, I got to work making the sushi.



I made three rolls using combinations of the following ingredients: ahi tuna, surimi, avocado, cucumber, toasted sesame seeds, wasabi mayo, macadamia nuts, and hot sauce. I even pulled off making an inside-out roll coated in sesame seeds, which I'd failed at my last attempt. After the delicious rolls Anna & Jason made for the last Memento meal, I was inspired to try again - and was much more successful. Still a little lopsided, but they held together long enough to eat them.



(Dan's writing all about our trip over at our other blog, The Dans In Hawai`i, so I'll just stick to writing what I know: food.)

Hawai'i Day Nine: Father's Day Crepes, Poha Berries, and Pizza

Sundays in Pahoa are Farmers Market day - with a HUGE one popping up along the highway. It features farm grown fruits and veggies (mostly), lots of plants, flea market fare, and a lot of ready to eat foods. After stocking up on berries and fruits and veggies and roots, we took my parents advice and searched out 'the crepe place'.

One year ago, on Father's day last year, my parents and sister stopped at the Maku'u Farmers Market outside Pahoa on their way into Hilo for our wedding. Like everywhere he goes, my Dad found fast friends and a new 'Auntie' amidst the vendors. He has a way about him that is so open and joyful that people gravitate toward him and easily open up and talk with him. It's something I really admire about him - a gift that seems to come so easily to him, and is something I have to work at more than I'd like. He's so easy to talk to, and makes those around him laugh and smile instantly.

While at the market last year, for breakfast, they had crepes that they still rave about to this day. When I called this morning to wish my Dad a happy Father's Day, my folks urged us to get a crepe while at the market. How could I refuse my Dad's suggestion on Father's Day?



So we found the crepe place: a stand run by a soft-spoken woman who makes crepes at record speed, stuffed full of savory or sweet delights. Although the Greek was strongly suggested, we opted for a Polish sausage crepe, which also had cheese, spinach, tomatoes, and a cream sauce inside. It was as delicious as my folks said. So the next time you're in Pahoa on a Sunday, take my Dad's advice and get a crepe at the farmers market. And grab one of the $1 lemonades to wash it down. You'll be glad you did. (Just don't try to take a picture of one - because they give off an angelic glow, at least in the noonday sun).



One of the items we picked up at the market were Poha Berries - also known as Cape Gooseberries. Oddly enough, they're a relative of the tomatillo, and also grow inside a papery pod. They have a sweet/sour taste, with a definite hint of tomato flavor, too, like a sweet/sour cherry tomato. They're spherical, golden in color, and about 1/2 to 1 inch in diameter. When I saw them, I knew just what I wanted to do with them: make breakfast muffins, of course.



It's been a week without my precious breakfast muffins, and I can't go any longer. So when we got home from the market (we also stopped at Malama for some flour and baking powder and other provisions), I got to work making a batch of breakfast muffins featuring poha berries and banana.



Poha berries are traditionally used for jams, in salads, and as a glaze for pork... but I figure if it's a berry, it should be pretty good in a muffin. We'll find out tomorrow morning if they're any good.



Dan's been craving pizza, so for dinner I made one featuring locally grown red onion, garlic, and peppers, plus some prosciutto.



It definitely hit the spot, and kept us satiated while we watched a marathon of Man vs. Food on Travel Channel. One of the episodes was about the 12 egg omelet at Beth's Cafe in Seattle, and when the host said something about putting the EAT in SEATTLE (with those words on the screen), it suddenly hit me that SEATTLE and LET'S EAT are anagrams. Why I never realized this, and why the Bite of Seattle isn't called Let's Eat Seattle, I don't know... but I feel compelled to do something creative with this new found knowledge. Just not sure what yet.



After dinner, we chowed on a few of the 2 lbs of lychee we bought at the market today. It was Dan's first lychee experience, and seemed a good one.



They're a peculiar little fruit, encased in a hard, bumpy red shell that, when opened, reveals a fruit about the size and texture of an eyeball, that tastes like a peeled grape. Like dragonfruit, it's a mild flavor, and would make a good palette cleanser.



(Dan's writing all about our trip over at our other blog, The Dans In Hawai`i, so I'll just stick to writing what I know: food.)

Black Rhuberry Muffins

This week's breakfast muffins are rhubarb-blackberry, using some of the last of the rhubarb we bought and froze, and some blackberries foraged last year.

I can't wait for fresh raspberries and blackberries from our garden!

Peach Passion Muffins

For this week's breakfast muffins, I reduced down about a cup of passion fruit juice in a saucepan, then added a slurry of water and cornstarch to turn it into a gel. I made the muffin batter (sans honey and water) and spooned half the batter into the muffin tin. Then I poured in the passion fruit gel, topped it with the rest of the batter, and then pushed some chopped peaches into the top.

The result is a little odd texturally - the muffins are a little dry, and the gel is a little gooey. If I try this again, I think I'll still make the batter and gel separately, but then fold them together to try to get the gel swirled through the batter before putting it in the muffin tin.

Raspberry/Blackberry Muffins

This week's breakfast muffins feature raspberries, plus blackberries I foraged in the neighborhood last Summer.

Raspberry Peach Muffins

This week's breakfast muffins are raspberry peach. I mixed about a cup of frozen raspberries we got at the market a few weeks ago into the batter, letting them break up into small pieces so that the batter became speckled with pink. I filled the muffin tin up, then I cut peach slices (also frozen, from Remlinger farms) in half, and stuffed half of a peach slice into the center of each muffin tin before baking. The result are raspberry muffins with a peach center.

I also made a small batch of mini-muffins, each with a raspberry in the center, which I took over to Jonathan, Susan and the girls when I returned their plate.



For breakfast this morning, since the muffins weren't made yet, we had one of Dan's Hawaiian specialties: a fried egg over steamed rice, topped with shoyu and Sriracha. Salty, spicy, sticky and filling.

R & R Muffins

This week's breakfast muffins feature a cup of frozen raspberries, and a cup of chopped fresh rhubarb.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

This week's breakfast muffins are Apple Cinnamon, using Fuji apples from Tiny's Organic, and about a tablespoon of cinnamon. I topped each one with a couple thin slices of apple, and dusted them with cinnamon.

Rhubarb Plum Muffins

For this week's breakfast muffins, we used some of the leftover rhubarb from last week, and combined it with some leftover plums from last season.