Pumpkin Muffins with Milk Chocolate Chips and Sliced Almonds

Nope, Halloween is not right around the corner, but I had a can of pumpkin to use up. (I never got around to making that Pumpkin Tiramisu last Thanksgiving. And it looks like that same Pumpkin Tiramisu won't get made this Thanksgiving either.) Since my baking is going to come to a screeching halt next week and since I need to stock my freezer with breakfast goodies for the next few weeks until I move, I decided to make some muffins this afternoon. Along with the can of pumpkin, I had a partial bag of both milk chocolate chips and sliced almonds that needed to be used up, so I just pulled all of the usual baking ingredients (flour, sugar, etc.) out of the pantry and whipped up these muffins. You can adjust the spices to your liking, but I like anything with pumpkin to have an obvious "spiced" taste, so I just dumped in a teaspoon of this and a half teaspoon of that until I got the taste I wanted. These baked into very dense, very moist muffins. I liked the creaminess and the more-subtle-than-semisweet-or-bittersweet flavor that the milk chocolate chips gave to these muffins, and the toasted almonds added a subtle crunch and nutty flavor. These are delicious and very filling.

Pumpkin Muffins with Milk Chocolate Chips and Sliced Almonds

1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used Penzey’s Vietnamese Cinnamon)
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted and cooled

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin generously with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

In large mixing bowl, sift together dry ingredients (flour through nutmeg); set aside. In another large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, vanilla extract, pumpkin and butter. Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients just until combined. Fold in chips and almonds.

Divide batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Let stand in muffin tin for 2-3 minutes before removing to wire rack. Eat warm or let cool completely before serving or storing in an airtight container.

Makes 12 muffins.

Mindy's notes: Adjust the spices to your preferences. If you prefer, you can use canola oil in place of the butter. You can probably leave out the milk, too, but I just happened to have a very small amount in the fridge that I wanted to use up.

 

Sad and Stressed

That's my boy Kurt today. Sad because his Red Wings suck (I mean, lost). Stressed because he's closing on his townhouse on Friday and driving/moving out to Arizona next week.

(Hey, Atlanta...where's everybody going???)

Since I was on a baking spree in the kitchen today, I figured, "Why not bake a batch of cookies for both Chris and Kurt?" (See the recipe for the cookies I baked for Chris in the previous post.)

(Sorry for all of the cookie recipes with chocolate chips, coconut and almonds recently. I didn't realize how much of these three ingredients I had in my pantry and need to use up before my move to Vancouver in five weeks. FIVE WEEKS!!! Yikes...and Yippee!!!)

Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Coconut Cookies

Adapted from Epicurious - Gourmet, August 2001

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups packaged finely shredded unsweetened coconut
2 cups semisweet chocolate chunks (I used chocolate chips)
3/4 cup almonds with skins, toasted, cooled, and chopped

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Beat together butter and sugars in a bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until fluffy. Add eggs and beat until just blended, then beat in vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Add flour and mix at low speed until just blended. Stir in oats, coconut, chocolate, and almonds.

Arrange 1/4-cup mounds of cookie dough about 3 inches apart on 2 lightly buttered large baking sheets (about 8 cookies per sheet), then gently pat down each mound to about 1/2 inch thick. Bake in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching position and rotating pans halfway through baking, until golden, 15 to 18 minutes total.

Cool cookies on sheets 1 minute, then transfer with a spatula to racks to cool completely. Make more cookies in same manner.

Makes about 24 large cookies.

 

Mindy can cook, too!!!

I am pretty sure I was born to bake. As a matter of fact, I consider it my favorite hobby. (I wish I could say I prefer exercising to baking, but...)

As long as I have friends and family to bake for, I'm quite happy in the kitchen making a mess measuring, sifting and mixing. However, sometimes I even like to cook. (Really, it's true.) Cooking for one is a challenge, though, since so many recipes yield such large amounts of food. I prefer baking simply because I can try numerous recipes of cookies, brownies, muffins, etc. and always have somebody willing to eat it. I'm pretty sure that nobody would appreciate my dinner leftovers the way they do a heaping plate of freshly baked cookies.

Anyway...

Recently in Paris, I ate a lot of roasted chicken and haricot verts (okay, I ate frites, too), and I was craving something similar today. Since I didn't leave my apartment at all today and still am in the same nightgown I woke up in over 11 hours ago, I figured I didn't have the "I'm too busy to cook" excuse tonight. Alas, I cooked Almond-Crusted Chicken Fingers from Eating Well and Sautéed Green Beans from Robin Miller (yes, the woman with the cheesy theme song and creepy eyes). Although my dinner tonight was frites-less and not as charming as eating in the late evening at a St. Germain des Pres bistro, it was nonetheless c'est magnifique.

Almond-Crusted Chicken Fingers

Source: Eating Well

Canola oil cooking spray
½ cup sliced almonds
¼ cup whole-wheat flour
1 ½ teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon dry mustard
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 ½ teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 egg whites
1 pound chicken tenders

Preheat oven to 475°F. Set a wire rack on a foil-lined baking sheet and coat with cooking spray.

Place almonds, flour, paprika, garlic powder, dry mustard, salt and pepper in a food processor; process until the almonds are finely chopped and the paprika is mixed throughout, about 1 minute. With the motor running, drizzle in oil; process until combined. Transfer the mixture to a shallow dish.

Whisk egg whites in a second shallow dish. Add chicken tenders and turn to coat. Transfer each tender to the almond mixture; turn to coat evenly. (Discard any remaining egg white and almond mixture.) Place the tenders on the prepared rack and coat with cooking spray; turn and spray the other side. (This is a little bit messy.)

(At this point, I let the chicken tenders sit for 15 minutes before baking so the coating would set and not come off after baking.)

Bake the chicken fingers until golden brown, crispy and no longer pink in the center, 20 to 25 minutes.

Makes 4 servings.

Sautéed Green Beans

Source: Adapted from Robin Miller/Food Network

2 cups green beans, trimmed
1 tablespoon salted butter
1/4 cup sliced almonds
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a skillet, sauté the green beans in butter until tender-crisp. Season with salt and black pepper, to taste. Before serving, add the almonds to the skillet and heat through until the almonds are toasted.

Makes 4 servings.

 

Nanaimo Bars

It's Victoria Day up in Canada, and I figured today would be a good day to post the Nanaimo Bars I made for my brother over the weekend. (And what exactly is Victoria Day, you ask? Yeah, I don't know either. Let's all learn something new today and read about it here.)

With so many recipes for Nanaimo Bars out there to choose from, which recipe did I decide to make? The one from the City of Nanaimo website, of course. The recipe is here.

This recipe is very good. However, I would suggest reducing the amount of graham wafer crumbs, almonds and coconut in the base, though. (I had a lot of the mixture leftover since I didn't want a super-thick base.) If I were to make these again, I would definitely use 1/4 cup less of each of those ingredients. Make sure you use European butter (e.g., Plugra or Lurpak) in this recipe...the butter taste is very prominent. Use quality chocolate, too. Using good ingredients is key to really bring out the flavor of these bars. Cut these bars small, too, as they are really sweet and rich.

I will be visiting Nanaimo in October (or at least taking a ferry there from Vancouver to get elsewhere on Vancouver Island), so I may be inspired to make another batch of Nanaimo Bars come fall. (There's a peanut butter version I really want to try, too, so stay tuned.)

 
















I was in a hurry to meet Mike for lunch, so I only snapped one (bad) picture, but you get the idea of what they look like:

 

Chocolate, Coconut & Almond Cookies

These BIG chocolate chips are well-suited to be baked into a batch of BIG cookies. They really live up to the “smoother, meltier” hype that the package promises, too. I adapted a basic cookie dough recipe and added in the chocolate chips by ¼ cups until the dough had just the right amount of chips...not too few and not too many. A heaping ¾ cup of these super cookie chips was the perfect amount. For good measure (and in a continuing effort to clean out my pantry), I also added a heaping ½ cup of shredded sweetened coconut and a heaping ½ cup of sliced almonds (after I toasted them, of course). The end result was a plate full of BIG, thick and delicious a la Almond Joy cookies. These toothsome cookies have just the right amount of chocolate in them, they're moist and chewy from the sweetened coconut and the toasted almonds add a subtle crunch. Definitely a well-rounded cookie that ranks among the best of all the batches of cookies I have ever made. They’re so good, I made another batch this morning just for me (and me only). Kurt liked these so much that he asked me to email the recipe to him so he could send it to his mom up in Michigan. Since I didn't stay up all last night trying to think of a more clever name for these cookies, I just named them after the three main ingredients. (Genius, I know.)

Chocolate, Coconut & Almond Cookies

1 cup plus 2 T. all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 T. granulated sugar
1 large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup (heaping) Guittard Semisweet Chocolate Super Cookie Chips
½ cup (heaping) sweetened flaked coconut
½ cup (heaping) sliced almonds, toasted and cooled

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, cream together butter and the sugars on medium-high speed of an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla extract; mix well. Beat in flour mixture. By hand, fold in chocolate chips, coconut and almonds.

Form dough into large mounds (about 1/4 cup in size) and place 2 inches apart onto greased baking sheets. Bake cookies in middle of oven 11-13 minutes, or until golden. Cool cookies on baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to racks to cool completely.

Cookies keep in an airtight container for 5 days.

Yield: Makes 12 (very) BIG cookies (or 24 regular-sized cookies).

Note: You can use regular semisweet chocolate chips in place of the Super Cookie Chips.

 
 
 

Curried Turkey and Barley Casserole

I made this casserole this afternoon since I had time on my hands and since I was looking for anything else to do but ride my stationary bike or start cleaning out cabinets and packing boxes. Also, I wanted to use my casserole dish one last time before it makes its way to Goodwill next week (I'm donating a box of my cookware and bakeware before my move next month). From start to finish, this casserole takes almost two hours to prep, cook on the stovetop and finish baking in the oven, but the end result is worth the time involved. This is the best casserole I have made in a long time. The chewy barley, the flavorful curry powder (I used Penzey's Tandoori), the creamy sour cream and the boozy bite of the dry sherry make this casserole a real winner. Actually, I think a splash of dry sherry makes ANYTHING taste better...and this casserole is proof of that. The yield says four servings, but I'd say it more like six.

Curried Turkey and Barley Casserole

Source: Adapted from www.barleyfoods.org

1 cup pearl barley
3 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cups cooked and cubed turkey
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons dry white wine or dry sherry
Salt and pepper, to taste

In medium saucepan with lid, bring chicken broth to a boil. Add pearl barley and return to boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook 45 minutes or until barley is tender and liquid is absorbed. Melt butter in skillet. Add curry powder and onion. Sauté until onion is translucent, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add onion mixture to cooked barley. Mix in turkey, almonds, sour cream and white wine. Season with salt and pepper and turn mixture into oiled 2-quart casserole or baking dish. Cover and bake 45 minutes in 350° F oven. Remove cover and bake 5 minutes longer.

Makes 4 servings.

Note: I used shredded rotisserie chicken instead of turkey.

Lemon Crumble Bars

My neighbor downstairs, Chris, is moving out at the end of the month, and I told him I was going to bake him something once a week until he moves. I did confess to him that it's not just because I think he's a swell guy, but also because I have a pantry full of baking stuff I need to use up. Since it is now the 8th of May and I want to keep my promise to him, I started perusing the pantry this morning trying to figure out what to do with all the different flavored baking chips, chocolate bars, cocoa, nuts and extracts I have on hand. Nothing jumped out at me (thank God!!!) until I spotted a jar of lemon curd I bought last October in London at Fortnum & Mason. OMG...how could I have forgotten about this? I was so excited last year to go to F&M to buy some as I have many fond breakfast memories of crumpets and toast topped with melted salted butter and spoonfuls of thick, tangy Fortnum & Mason lemon curd. Not just lemon curd, but Fortnum & Mason lemon curd. I don't know how it got lost in the shuffle in my pantry, and I’m a little sad it hasn’t been consumed before now. Anyway, the time has come. Lucky for Chris, the “best before” date on the lemon curd is 10-May-07. Lucky for me, there is more than half of the jar left. Guess what I’ll be eating on my toast for breakfast for the next few days?

I'll report back on my critique of these later. They're baked, cooled and cut into bars, but I haven't tried them yet.

Update: These are fantastic and true to their name. They are lemony, crumbly and delicious. The crumbly brown sugar base dough has a nice flavor and adds just the right amount of sweetness to contrast the tart, chewy lemon curd filling. The almonds toast into crunchy goodness on top while baking. I'm glad I gave these away because I probably could have polished them off quickly. Chris liked them a lot, too. He thanked me in person, and he even called the next day to say, "Thank you again. You're a great baker". That made my day.

Lemon Crumble Bars

Source: Good Housekeeping 2002 Annual Recipes

A quick brown-sugar dough is made in the food processor and spread with some lemon curd and almonds for delicious, crumbly treats.

Makes 24 bars

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut up
1/4 cup whole natural almonds, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup jarred lemon curd
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh lemon peel

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In food processor, with knife blade attached, blend flour, sugar, and baking soda until mixed. Add butter and pulse just until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Transfer 1/2 cup dough to small bowl and stir in almonds; reserve.

Press remaining dough firmly onto bottom of ungreased 9” by 9” metal baking pan. In another small bowl, mix lemon curd and lemon peel; spread mixture over dough up to 1/4 inch from edges. Crumble reserved dough over curd.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until browned. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into 8 strips, then cut each strip crosswise into 3 bars.

Notes: I lined my baking pan with foil so these would be easy to remove from the pan. Use a long, serrated knife to cut these. Cut bars slowly and carefully.