Strawberry - Blueberry Muffins | Recipe

 

The other day Fluxxdog and I got to talking about muffins and how, early in our relationship, I used to make peach muffins for him to take to work to eat for lunch. I had found a recipe for blueberry-peach muffins and asked him if he'd like to give it a try. Well, unfortunately, this is not the season for peaches. Luckily Veonoss found strawberries for us to try. Originally I was tempted to use the blueberry-peach muffin recipe and just replace "peaches" with "strawberries". Then I found a recipe specifically for blueberry-strawberry muffins and decided to give it a shot.

Unlike a lot of recipes I'm used to, this one calls for veggie oil instead of butter. It also uses a significant amount flour. After I had mixed in most of the dry ingredients, I started to worry about this recipe as the "batter" was looking more like "dough" and had a stickier consistency than I like.

Even after adding the fruit, I wasn't getting the consistency that I thought I would need for muffins. I started looking at the comments of the recipe and saw that a lot of people needed to do variations on the recipe to get it how they wanted. One person added an extra egg, another replaced the sugar with brown sugar, etc. However, there were enough people saying the recipe was fine on its own that I decided to keep going. 

After I added the strawberry jam and kept mixing it for several more minutes, the batter started to look and feel more like actual batter.

I was still very nervous about how the muffins would turn out. I was tempted to look up a cinnamon roll icing recipe to add if they weren't tasty or sweet enough. Fortunately, though, the recipe held up. Fluxxdog, Veonoss and I were able to make a good breakfast out of these. They tasted even better with coffee. So, I think I'll go ahead and add this recipe to the list of keepers. Next time I'll see about replacing the strawberry jam with blueberry and see what happens.

Apple Pie | Recipe

Today's post is going to be my attempt to recreate my Great-Grandma B's apple pie recipe. This is partially in preparation for Thanksgiving and Christmas when I am the main baker. Fortunately I have some of Grandma B's own tools to help me out! Starting with the rolling mat that she used every time she made pie crusts.

First step is to mix up the ingredients for the pie crust: 2c. flour, 1 tsp. salt, 3/4c. plus a little more lard/shortening (room temp). 1/4c. cold water. Then it needs to be rolled out. I'm actually using the same marble rolling pin that Grandma B used. And yes, it is quite heavy.

So, it's a good thing I'm getting some practice in because I've completely lost my instinct for proper water to flour ratios to keep the crust together without letting it get sticky. If you use too much flour, trying to keep it from sticking to stuff, it'll dry out and become weak. If you try to add moisture to it, it'll become very sticky and you won't be able to roll it out or get it from the mat to the pie pan.

As it is, I'm kinda running low on patience, so I'm just gonna piece together the bottom crust from what I rolled out. Use a bit of water here and there, and you can't tell.

Next up, slice up 4-6 apples (I'm going with granny smith) and mix them up with 1/2c. white sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. nutmeg, 1/3c. flour until all the apple slices are covered. Then put them in the pie pan.

Next comes the top crust. I can't get away with piecing it together as much as I could the bottom crust, but I think I did an okay job for being so out of practice.

Then I bake the pie at 400degrees for 1 hour (or until brown & bubbly).

It doesn't look nearly as nice as Grandma B's, but the taste is spot on. It's a bit tart for Fluxxdog, but Veonoss absolutely loves it and I'm very happy with how it tastes. Still need to work on the crusts, though. 

Chili Cheese Dog Pizza

The other day Fluxxdog and I were discussing meals for the weekend. I mentioned that I would like to make homemade pizza again as it had been a while. I originally thought about making a barbecue chicken pizza. Somehow that thought got transformed into trying something new: Chili Cheese Dog Pizza. Fluxxdog was quite happy to give it a try.

I've made homemade pizza several times before. The dough takes a long time to make, but it is worth it to go for the made-from-scratch stuff over the store-bought generic crusts. The first thing is to heat up milk until it bubbles, then add butter, sugar and cold water. When it cools, I pour it into a bowl with egg and yeast. Then I add some flour and let it sit for 20 minutes.

After this, I add more flour, baking soda, and baking powder. 

It looks like a monster, yes. But then I spend a few minutes kneading the dough, making it look a bit more refined.

Then I cover the dough in veggie oil and line up the sides of the bowl with it as well. I've learned to let the dough rise in the oven on the lowest setting. I also put in a pan of water to keep the dough from drying out.

After an hour, the dough has risen. A lot.

So I get out my two smaller cookie sheets, cover them in parchment paper and spread out some of the dough to make the crusts. I let them bake for a little bit to make them solid enough to add the ingredients. These first two little pizzas will get the Hot Dog Chili. 

While the crusts were baking I decided to dice the first set of sausage hot dogs instead of slicing them. These got added to these first two smaller pizzas.

Gotta admit, as good as the final product looks, they smell even better.

The third pizza will be baked on the bigger cookie sheet. Instead of two smaller pizzas, the last of the dough will be used for an average sized pizza. This time I'm using a regular chili (not the soupy homemade stuff) and I'm slicing the sausages instead of dicing them.

I decided to try to have a little fun with the placement of the toppings for this pizza:

But the final product still looks good:

After the pizzas were made, Fluxxdog tried a slice, walked up to me and said "It's tasty. And it's messy. I like it!" Veonoss also told me that he really liked the flavor. Though we can all agree, next time, just dice the sausage. It works better. As for the sauce, I think I prefer to work with the non-hot dog style chili, but ultimately it still tastes good.

So, all in all, I declare this experiment a success. I encourage you to try it out for yourself. The only drawbacks are that it does take a long time to make and, for me, still tastes "just okay". I'll give this recipe of mine 3.5 hoots and get to work tweaking the recipe to up that to a 4.

                 Hoot!Hoot!

                     Hoo