Sunny morning muffins

This is the recipe for the muffins I made on fourth of July.  I thought they were delicious and easy to make.  What's better than a great, made from scratch sunny morning muffin?  One of the best things about this recipe is that it leaves a lot of room to add fruits/grains of your choice.  Here goes..


Ingredients:

• 1 cup strawberries, chopped
• 1 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• Pinch ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 ripe banana, mashed
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 lemon, zested
• 1/2 pint blueberries
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

• In a small bowl, mix together strawberries and 2 tablespoons sugar. Let sit 15 minutes until strawberries give off juices.
• In a small bowl, mix together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the mashed banana, eggs, oil, 1 cup sugar, strawberries, and lemon zest.
• Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined. Do not over mix. Fold in blueberries and walnuts.
• Scoop batter evenly into muffin cups. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of muffin comes out with a few crumbs but not wet, about 30 minutes. Cool on a rack to room temperature. 

When I made these, I left the blueberries out of one batch and added oats instead.  Delicious!

before baking

finished product - strawberry banana oat

finished product - strawberry banana blueberry

Leftovers Frittata

Prepared by: Andrea
Serves: 6

I used the leftover salmon and potatoes from dinner last night to make a breakfast frittata.  It actually tasted pretty good!  I'm posting the ingredients I added, but really you can add anything you would like (bacon, mushrooms, peppers etc.)

Prep:

Preheat oven to 350
Add 2 tbsp olive oil to a medium skillet and then saute two minced cloves of garlic.  Add one chopped yellow onion and saute about 5 minutes until cooked.  Remove onion and add one bunch of spinach to the  oil - you can add more olive oil if needed.  Once spinach is cooked remove from pan and add another minced clove of garlic. While garlic browns mix 7 eggs, 2/3 cup cheddar (probably Parmesan would be better but we were out) salt and pepper in a bowl.  Add in cooked spinach and onions, leftover salmon (chopped) and leftover red potatoes (diced).  Whisk and then pour into skillet.  Cook on stovetop low heat for 10 minutes and transfer to oven.  Bake in oven until the top is not wet anymore - it was about 8 minutes for us.

fruit smoothies

The cold weather this year delayed the Florida strawberry harvest and resulted in an abundance of better quality fruit than is typical for Florida in late April. As a result our markets in Texas have been stocked with strawberry sales. What to do with a fridge full of berries? Make a smoothie!

We are still in the experimentation phase of smoothie making. Our early attempts involved crushed ice which we advise against - it made for a gritty and well, downright un-smooth, smoothie. Other trials involved ice cream, (which, while delectable, isn't ideal for breakfast and the fruit alone is sweet enough without adding additional sugars). Milk was the frontrunner until today, when it was surpassed by vanilla yogurt of the Dannon variety.

The recipe here featured is our current best recommendation:

Berry Banana Smoothie
prepared by: Andrea

1 banana
5-7 strawberries
6 blackberries
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

Put all ingredients in a blender and mix on puree setting about 20 seconds. We used fresh fruit today but recommend freezing fruit ahead of time to make the smoothie colder. David added 1/2 large naval orange to his smoothie (photo 3) and put the whole blender in the freezer to achieve desired temperature. I added ice cubes to mine and enjoyed immediately.

french toast

prepared by: andrea
no source that I can recall

You will need:

a thick bread - we like sourdough or ciabatta - sliced
2-3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 TBSP brown sugar
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
1/3 c milk

toppings:
powdered sugar
maple syrup
butter

Preparation:

Heat griddle over stove
Spray with Pam or melt some butter on griddle
Beat eggs in a bowl, then add remaining ingredients
Cut bread about 1/2 inch thick and soak in mixture on both sides, not too long or it will become soggy.
Place on griddle, repeat with additional slices
Flip over after about 3 minutes and brown on both sides - enjoy!

overnight waffles - mark bittman

Prepared by: Andrea 

Taken from How to Cook Everything - Mark Bittman 

The very best waffle recipe we have found.  We've taste-tested buttermilk recipes, and used good old but nothing compares to this.  For the health conscious among you, using half the butter would likely achieve similar results.

• 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast Bisquick
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups milk
• 8 TBSP (1 stick) butter, melted and cooled
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
• 2 eggs, separated

1. Before bed, combine the dry ingredients and stir in the milk, then the butter and vanilla. Cover with plastic wrap and leave on the counter.
2. Preheat the waffle iron and spray with Pam
3. Separate eggs and add yolks to batter.  
4. Beat the whites to soft peaks, and fold them into the batter.  (I use high speed for at least 5 minutes). 
5. Pour a ladleful of batter onto the waffle iron and bake for 3 to 5 minutes.  Our waffle maker has a light that goes off when they are ready.
6. Recommended to serve with real maple syrup, melted butter, and powdered sugar.