Orange and Almond Muffins

Apr 23, 2012 by

Muffins are so simple, and tasty to make. I mean, who doesn’t love a good muffin, right? I pulled out my little muffin recipe book called “100 Muffins from 1 Easy Recipe” and found another nice recipe. The last muffins I made from this book were the Easter Muffins and they were great. These were just as light and just as simple. They could easily be a quick breakfast on the go, or a snack. What I love is that there’s not too much sugar but it has a lovely citrus flavour. Really nice! The kids loved them, but they started to slow down once they hit the middle. I guess there’s no sugar in the middle! They also asked where the frosting was….

 

Orange and Almond Muffins

 

 

5.0 from 2 reviews
Orange and Almond Muffins
 
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A light, citrus infused muffin
Author:
Recipe type: Muffin
Ingredients
  • 2 Oranges
  • ½ Cup Milk
  • 1½ Cups All Purpose Flour, Unbleached
  • 1 Tbsp Baking Powder
  • ⅛ Tsp Salt
  • ½ Cup Superfine Sugar
  • ½ Cup Ground Almonds
  • 2 Eggs
  • 6 Tbsp Sunflower Oil (or melted cooled butter)
  • ½ Tsp Almond Extract
  • 3 Tbsp Turbinado Sugar (Raw Sugar)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400F
  2. Grease a 12-cup muffin pan, or use 12 paper liners
  3. Finely grate the rind from both oranges and extract the juice into a measuring cup
  4. To the measuring cup with juice, add milk to make a full up and add rind
  5. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt
  6. Stir in sugar and ground almonds
  7. In a large bowl, lightly whisk eggs, then beat in the orange/milk mixture, oil and almond extract
  8. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid mixture
  9. Stir until just combined. Take care not to over mix
  10. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan
  11. Sprinkle Turbinado Sugar over the top of the muffins
  12. Bake for 20 minutes until well risen, golden brown and firm to the touch
  13. Allow muffins to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before serving
Notes
Slightly adapted from "100 Muffins From 1 Easy Recipe", Page 60

 

Even before it is baked, it smells really good!

 

Zesty Batter

 

I like the coarse grittiness of the Turbinado Sugar. It gives a nice crunch at the end.

 

Muffin liners filled with batter and topped with Turbinado Sugar

 

The house smells great right about now!

 

Orange & Almond Muffins fresh out the oven!

 

I used Navel Oranges for this recipe. I find them to be sweet and very juicy.

 

Orange & Almond Muffin

 

Such a great little muffin. Bake, grab, go!

 

Orange & Almond Muffins

 

Happy Monday my dear friends! Have an awesome week!

~Lyn

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Quinoa Cakes With Apple Sauce

Apr 19, 2012 by

I was super excited when I came across this recipe. I love Quinoa. It is by far my most favourite grain. It can be cooked in a variety of ways, and provides many nutritional benefits to my joy and comfort 🙂 I like to make “special pancakes” for my kids. This certainly is a very special pancake. I also wanted to make Apple Sauce to go with it. I got the Quinoa Cakes recipe from Martha Stewart. I swear, her recipes never fail me! Even when I make slight substitutions, whatever I make always comes out great.

I was attracted to this recipe because I wanted to have some kid-friendly quinoa recipes ready to go. I need them to be easy, tasty and enjoyable by my kids. I believe this did the trick. My apple sauce addition paired well with them and tasted awesome! The texture came out so smooth – the quinoa was hardly noticeable. Amazing.

 

Quinoa Cakes with Apple Sauce

 

 

5.0 from 1 reviews
Quinoa Pancakes With Apple Sauce
 
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A healthy pancake made with superfood Quinoa
Author:
Recipe type: Breakfast or Brunch
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 1 cup cooked quinoa
  • ¾ cup all-purpose flour, unbleached
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ tsp coarse salt
  • 1 egg, plus 1 egg white
  • 1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
  • ¼ cup low-fat milk
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup + more for serving
  • Cooking spray
  • Apple Sauce:
  • 2 Apples, peeled, cores removed, diced (I used Royal Gala)
  • ¼ Cup Brown Sugar
  • ¼ Tsp Cinnamon
  • 2 Tbsp Apple Juice
Instructions
  1. Start the apple sauce first - place apple, sugar, cinnamon and apple juice in a small saucepan. Cover and cook on low heat 30-45 minutes or until you have reached a desired consistency. Stir occasionally every 15 minutes.
  2. In a medium bowl, mix quinoa, flour, baking powder and salt
  3. In a medium bowl, whisk together egg, egg white, butter, milk and syrup until smooth
  4. Add wet ingredients into dry
  5. Lightly coat a non-stick skillet with cooking spray and bring to medium heat
  6. Drop batter by heaping tablespoonful into skillet
  7. Cook until bubbles appear on top for about 2 minutes
  8. Flip and cook until golden brown for another 2 minutes
  9. Repeat in batches until batter is finished
  10. Serve with apple sauce or fruits and maple syrup
Notes
This recipe yields about 18 2-inch pancakes Quinoa Cake Recipe from http://www.marthastewart.com/329047/quinoa-cakes The apple sauce took the longest to cook - about 40 minutes to reduce

 

See the difference between cooked and uncooked Quinoa? It fluffs up quite a bit. A little goes a long way. I usually cook one cup of quinoa at a time and it lasts me a few days – depending on what I end up doing with it.

 

Uncooked & Cooked Quinoa

 

Here’s the batter – ready to be spooned into the skillet. Making them this small meant a few batches, but it was well worth it. I’ll try making them a little bigger next time.

 

Quinoa Cake Batter

 

I don’t know about you, but I always mess up the first batch. The second set is usually a lot better. They taste the same, but aren’t as pretty.

 

Quinoa Cakes in skillet

 

They are so tiny and cook quickly, so you can’t leave them unattended. The most I could do was stir the apple sauce and then get back to the cakes.

 

Quinoa Cakes in skillet

 

Confession: I popped a few of these into my mouth before I added the syrup and apple sauce. Sorry. They smelled really good.

 

Naked Quinoa Cakes

 

And then there was a feast.

 

Quinoa Cakes with Apple Sauce and Maple Syrup

 

We had leftovers.

Brilliant.

Take good care, friends!

~Lyn

 

 

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Blueberry Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel & Blog Appreciation

Apr 1, 2012 by

One night late last week, I stayed up late to make muffins for my husband and his co-workers. They are doing an internal course in order to advance within the organization. Let me tell you. The work load is what I consider “University INTENSIFIED”. It’s a lot of work and pressure, especially for those who have families and responsibilities. Time management and balance is key. I thought it would be a nice gesture to send something home-made and not some sugar spiked junk from the coffee shop. They need nourishment as well as encouragement over the next few months and beyond. I figured blueberry muffins were portable and universally enjoyed.

I made these muffins for the first time over a year ago and my husband really liked it – we all did. I actually misplaced the recipe that I had found online. Do you know how many Blueberry Muffin recipes are online???? Luckily I found it (phew) and got to baking around 1am.

Yes, 1 AM.

I wanted to have the muffins as fresh as possible since this Diva doesn’t do early very well. Everyone enjoyed the muffins and my husband totally appreciated me making them for the guys. I’m sure he must have been very happy to wake up to that wonderful aroma of muffins at five o’clock in the morning. Thank you dear husband, for leaving a few muffins behind for the family to enjoy 🙂

 

Blueberry Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel

 

 

5.0 from 3 reviews
Blueberry Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel
 
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Blueberry Muffins - everyone will enjoy them!
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert
Serves: 20
Ingredients
  • 2 Cups Blueberries (thawed if frozen)
  • 2 Tsp Unbleached All Purpose Flour
  • 2 Cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour
  • 2 Tsp Baking Powder
  • ½ Tsp Salt
  • ½ Cup Sugar
  • ½ Cup Vegetable Oil
  • ½ Cup Milk
  • 3 Eggs
  • Streusel:
  • 1 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
  • 2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
  • 1 Tbsp Terbinado Brown Sugar (optional)
  • 2 Tbsp Coconut Oil
  • 2 Tbsp Unbleached All Purpose Flour
  • ½ Tsp Cinnamon
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350F
  2. In a small bowl, add Blueberries and 2 Tsp flour. Toss well and set aside
  3. For streusel: in a small bowl, add sugars, flour and cinnamon. Add coconut oil and combine with a fork. Set aside
  4. In a medium bowl, sift together 2 Cups flour, baking powder and salt
  5. In a large bowl, add sugar, oil, eggs, milk and vanilla. Mix well to combine
  6. Add dry ingredients to the wet and mix until just combined. Gently fold in blueberries
  7. Fill muffin cups about ⅔-3/4 full
  8. Take about a teaspoon of streusel and sprinkle on top of the batter in each filled muffin cup
  9. Bake for 30-40 minutes
Notes
Be sure not to skip the first step. Tossing your blueberries in flour will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the batter. I used Terbinado sugar to give the streusel a nice crunch. It is optional and was not in the original recipe

This recipe is slightly adapted from a recipe found at The Family Kitchen on Babble

 

I prefer Blueberries cooked rather than fresh. Or in a smoothie. However I end up having them, I always enjoy it!

 

Blueberries

 

 

Blueberry Muffin with Cinnamon Streusel

 

 

 

Pretty Blueberry Muffins

 

I know, we don’t eat muffins with a fork. Well, I kinda do…sometimes.. 🙂

 

Muffin, unwrapped

 

Take a Big Blueberry BITE!

 

Bursting with Blueberries

 

Hey, speaking of appreciation… I’ve had some really awesome food bloggers give me some wonderful awards! I’m so humbled and thankful that my online foodie friends thought of me to give me these awards. So very humbled. I love what I do here at The Lovely Pantry and as I continue to grow, it’s really encouraging to know that there are people out there who understand what it takes to do this. We blog for many reasons including the love of food, the art of cooking, the love of sharing, the love of community and my personal favourite – photography. It feels great knowing that there are people cheering you on! I’m going to share the love in my next post.

 

Have a wonderful Sunday!

~Lyn

 

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Sweet & Sour Muffin Meatballs

Mar 12, 2012 by

I love when I find a good recipe. Better yet, I love when I find a good recipe that I can improve on 🙂 A while back, I wanted to make meatballs but not just regular plain meatballs – nothing boring. I came across Sweet & Sour Muffin Meat Loaves from myrecipes.com so I decided to try. The first time I made it, I wasn’t sure of the texture and it certainly did not have the colour I was hoping for. I tried again, taking notes on the changes I made and I never looked back. Instead of calling them meat loaves, I’ll say that these are awesome baked meatballs, full of flavour and a nice rich colour.

I wanted to serve it with mashed potatoes and steamed carrots but.. since the meatballs were super spectacular, I’d have to jazz up the company! This was such a great meal! It was different and comforting.

 

Sweet & Sour Muffin Meatballs, Carrots & Baked Potatoes

 

Sweet & Sour Muffin Meatballs
 
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Baked meatballs with a sweet and sour sauce
Author:
Recipe type: Dinner
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1½ lbs Ground Turkey
  • 1 Cup Ketchup, divided into 2½ cup portions
  • ¼ Cup brown sugar
  • 1 Tbsp White Vinegar
  • 1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 2 Tbsp Low Sodium Soy Sauce
  • 1 Egg
  • 1 Onion, finely chopped
  • ½ Cup Breadcrumbs
  • 1 Tbsp Oregano
  • 2 Tsp All Purpose Seasoning
  • Salt & Pepper
  • 4 Large Carrots, cleaned and chopped into ½ inch pieces
  • 2 Tbsp Butter
  • 2 Tbsp Maple Syrup
  • 2 White Potatoes (or any kind you like suitable for baking)
  • Olive Oil for the potatoes
Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 450F
  2. In a saucepan, set carrots to boil about 20 minutes until soft. Drain and then mash with butter and maple syrup. Set aside.
  3. In an oven proof pan, grease the potatoes with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  4. Pierce the potatoes with a sharp knife. Cook for 1 hr, until the skin is crispy and a knife goes through the skin with no resistance
  5. Grease a 12 Cup Muffin Pan
  6. In a 1 Cup measuring cup, mix ½ cup ketchup, brown sugar and vinegar
  7. In a medium bowl, combine ground turkey, egg, onion, breadcrumbs, soy sauce and remaining ketchup
  8. Add salt and pepper, combine well with a fork or better yet, your hands
  9. Add about a tablespoon of ketchup mixture to each muffin cup, reserving about half of the liquid
  10. Form the meat into 12 meatballs, as equal in size as possible
  11. Place in each muffin cup, pressing down to flatten the top slightly
  12. Bake for 30 minutes
  13. After 20 minutes, brush each muffin with the remaining ketchup mixture and continue baking until cooked through
  14. Remove from oven and allow to rest before carefully removing the meatballs.
  15. When the potato is cool to the touch, slice and serve
Notes
The muffins can be baked alongside the potatoes once the potatoes are half-cooked. I used tongs to remove the meatballs from the muffin pan Portions can be 2 meatballs per person, with meatballs left over for lunch the following day

 

And here’s the fun part!

Add ketchup mixture into each muffin cup

 

 

Add each meatball on top of the ketchup mixture

 

After about 20 minutes, the meatballs will look something like this

 

Partially cooked meatballs

 

Brush the meatballs with the remaining sweet and sour mixture

 

Meatballs brushed with sauce

 

Pop them back in the oven for about 10 minutes or so. Your kitchen will smell marvellous. Don’t let your meatballs burn! Watch them carefully. Cover with foil if needed.

 

Sweet and Sour Meatballs - cooked!

 

I especially love the dark, caramelized sweetness of the meatballs and the sweet and sour sauce. I found that it paired well with the carrots and potato. Each component complimented each other quite nicely.

 

Dinner is served!

 

Take a bite!

 

Meatballs, Carrots and Baked Potato - Stacked

 

Seriously. I’m hungry.

 

Happy Monday, friends! ~ Lyn

 

 

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Chicken And Dumplings

Feb 27, 2012 by

I seemed to have developed a strange attraction and liking to dumplings. But not the dumplings that my mom or grandmother made. These dumplings are not the Caribbean way! But I just love them! I also love the way the chicken is cooked down into a stew. My husband loves how fluffy the dumplings are, and I totally agree.

This Chicken and Dumpling meal truly makes me happy. No leftovers whenever I make this 🙂

I know you guys loved the Chicken Soup With Dumplings. But THIS is where the party is at! LOL Yes, I love it that much.

 

Chicken and Dumplings

 

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Chicken And Dumplings

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 2 Tbsp Butter
  • 1 Medium Onion, diced
  • 5 Carrots, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces on the diagonal
  • 1 Tsp Dried thyme
  • 1/4 Cup Unbleached, All Purpose flour
  • 1 3/4 Cup Low Sodium Chicken Broth
  • 8 Chicken Thighs, Skinless, Boneless
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Grapeseed Oil (to cook chicken)
  • Dumplings:
  • 3/4 Cup Unbleached, All Purpose Flour
  • 1 3/4 Tsp Baking Powder
  • 1/2 Tsp Salt
  • 1/2 Cup Milk (I used 2%)
  • 1 Cup Peas, thawed from frozen

Instructions

  1. Season Chicken with salt and pepper
  2. In a skillet, add some Grapeseed oil and brown chicken on both sides
  3. Remove chicken from skillet and set aside
  4. In a warm dutch oven over medium heat, add butter.
  5. When butter has melted, add onion and sauté until softened
  6. Add Carrots and Thyme
  7. Stir 3-5 minutes over medium heat
  8. Add 1/4 cup flour to make a roux. Stir in gradually to combine
  9. Gently whisk in chicken broth
  10. Bring to a boil while whisking to remove any lumps of flour
  11. Add Chicken. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes
  12. In a medium bowl, add flour, baking powder, salt and milk
  13. Combine with a fork
  14. Using 2 spoons, form dumplings and place in the dutch oven (about 14-16 small dumplings)
  15. Cover and cook for 15 minutes (stir once or twice during this time to ensure chicken doesn't stick the bottom of the dutch)
  16. Add peas
  17. Cook for 5 minutes until peas warmed through and dumplings are cooked
  18. Gently stir
  19. Serve immediately
https://lovelypantry.com/2012/02/chicken-and-dumplings/

5.0 from 1 reviews
 
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Adapted from Everyday Food

 

Dumplings in the pot!

 

This is a definite favourite for me. I just need to win the kids over and then this could be a weekly item. Too bad they are going through that funny texture phase.

 

Chicken and Dumplings – Dinner is served

 

Okay, I need to back away from the computer. I’m getting hungry for dumplings.

Have a great week, everyone!

 

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