Whole Wheat Apple Muffins

In the midst of my crazy meal prep madness getting ready for Mia’s arrival, I had bought a big carton of buttermilk to use in an Ina Garten chicken recipe, as well as a batch of Bran Muffins and still had a good amount leftover.  I wanted to add another type of freezer-friendly breakfast food to my Babygeddon stash, and saw this recipe that also uses buttermilk on Smitten Kitchen.  They are SO good!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed, divided
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup buttermilk or yogurt
• 2 large apples, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped (I used Granny Smith)

Diced Apples

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Grease and flour 18 muffin cups and set aside.
2. Mix together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, and set aside. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and add the granulated sugar and 1/4 cup of the brown sugar. Beat until fluffy. Add the egg and mix well; stop once to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.Mix in the buttermilk gently. (If you over-mix, the buttermilk will cause the mixture to curdle.) Stir in the dry ingredients and fold in the apple chunks.

   

   Don’t Overmix!

3. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, sprinkling the remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar on top. Bake for 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 400°F, and bake for an additional 5 to 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins for 5 minutes in the tin, then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Hot Out of the Oven

For a muffin that uses wheat flour instead of all-purpose, this sure was moist!  It had more of a cake-like texture than I was expecting it to have.  I went easy on the sugar for the crunchy top (probably only 1 TBSP brown sugar instead of the 1/4 cup the recipe calls for).

As with all of my food prep as of late, being able to freeze what we weren’t going to eat immediately was important.  These freeze really well, though I would skip adding the brown sugar on top since the crunchy top texture goes away once you microwave it.  YUM!

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins

Crustless Quiche with Summer Vegetables

“Quiche” is such a fancy word.  Every time I see them in bakeries, I always think about how much work it’d be to make one.  However, once you remove the crust factor from the equation, the steps are far less daunting!  This crustless quiche has been THE recipe of summer 2017 for me.  I’ve made it a dozen times to date, and it never gets old.  It’s low-carb, as healthy as you want to make it, and holds up really well as leftovers.  It’s a filling breakfast that you can just pop any leftovers in the microwave, top with a bit of avocado, and enjoy.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 large yellow or white onion, sliced into half-moons
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper, plus more to taste
• 3 to 4 cups chopped vegetables*
• 8 large eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup shredded cheddar or other cheese

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Melt the butter in a cast iron or ovenproof skillet over medium heat. (If your skillet isn’t ovenproof, transfer everything to a deep dish pie plate to bake it.) Add the onion slices and sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper over them. Cook the onions until they are golden-brown and starting to caramelize, about 10 minutes.

   

   Spread the Onions Evenly

3. Remove the pan from the heat and spread the onions evenly across the bottom. Spread the vegetables evenly over the onions. The dish or pan should look fairly full.

   

   Layer with Vegetables

4. In a bowl, use a fork to beat the eggs lightly with the milk, cheese, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, just enough to break up the yolks and whites. This is a savory custard mixture. Pour the custard over the vegetables and onions and enjoy watching it fill in all the open spaces.

   

   Add Cheesy Egg Mixture

5. Transfer the quiche to the oven and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Once the surface is lightly brown all the way across, it’s fully cooked. Let the quiche cool for about 20 minutes, then slice into wedges.

   

   Hot Out of the Oven!

*NOTE:  For hardier vegetables — like broccoli, cauliflower, or winter squash — steam or cook them before adding them to the quiche to ensure they’ll be fully cooked. For tomatoes, zucchini, spinach, or any other quick-cooking vegetable, just use them fresh.  My favorite combination (and also what I used in these photos) so far has been zucchini, dry-packed sun dried tomatoes, and steamed broccoli.

Also, if you HATE scrubbing burnt egg and cheese out of a cast iron skillet, you can also make make this in an 8×8 Pyrex baking dish.  I would even recommend lining it with nonstick foil to make clean up impossibly easy.  Just use a frying pan to cook the onions prior to tossing them in the Pyrex. Your servings will be more like rectangles if you use a Pyrex, like the photo below:

Crustless Quiche with Summer Vegetables

Chipotle Chilaquiles

Continuing the festivities during Kevin’s birthday celebration weekend, I wanted to make some sort of Mexican breakfast (his favorite).  If we are ever out to brunch and chilaquiles are on a menu, it’s a given that he will order it.  I wanted to make a different kind of chilaquiles dish to mix it up from what you’d find in a restaurant and came across this Rick Bayless recipe on Food and Wine Magazine.  I was drawn to the idea of a smoky chipotle chilaquiles dish, and I still had some chipotle chiles in the freezer from a previous recipe!

INGREDIENTS:

• One 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained and 1/2 cup liquid reserved
• 2 chipotles in adobo sauce
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 large white onion, thinly sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth
• Salt
• 8 ounces tortilla chips, store-bought or baked*
• 1 1/2 cups shredded chicken**
• 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese or queso (I used a mix of shredded parm and cheddar)
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro leaves
• 1 avocado (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a blender, combine the tomatoes with their reserved 1/2 cup of liquid and the chipotles; blend until almost smooth.

   

   Pureed!

2. In a very large, deep skillet, heat the oil. Add two-thirds of the onion and cook over moderately high heat until browned around the edges, about 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Pour in the tomato puree and simmer, stirring, until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the stock and boil the sauce over moderately high heat until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and remove from the heat.
3. Gently stir the tortilla chips into the sauce, making sure they are well coated. Top with the remaining onion, the shredded chicken, cheese, and a fried egg and 1/4 avocado per serving. Sprinkle with the cilantro and serve immediately.

   

   Chipotle Chilaquiles

NOTE: The recipe makes 4 servings and can be prepared through Step 2 and refrigerated overnight. Reheat the chipotle-tomato sauce before proceeding.

*I decided to make my own baked tortilla chips instead of using store-bought chips or deep-frying.  I highly recommend baking tortillas to make chips vs anything else, since you can slightly over-bake them to dry them out a bit more.  That way, they won’t get too soggy in the chilaquiles sauce!  I used a Food Network recipe and baked for 2 minutes longer than recommended.

Baked Tortilla Chips

**I highly recommend keeping a batch of shredded chicken on hand for any occasion.  You can easily thaw and use it in salads, sandwiches, enchiladas (recipe forthcoming!), and of course, chipotle chilaquiles.  The Kitchn’s instructions for making shredded chicken in a slow cooker is my favorite – it’s easy and you don’t lose any of the nutrients by boiling the chicken, nor moisture by using the oven.  I strain the fat out of the stock after and use it for other things too!

Lightly Brush with Oil

Cut into Chip Size

Baked Tortilla Chips

Canned Whole Tomatoes and Chipotle Peppers

Pureed!

Caramelize the Onions and Garlic

Chipotle Chilaquiles

Banana Bread

In my quest this past spring to find a breakfast bread that wasn’t overloaded with sugar but still tasty, I gave a number of different recipes a try.  The third recipe I tried out (from AllRecipes.com) for Banana Bread was hands down my favorite.  Because the banana content is so high, you don’t have to worry about moisture and you don’t need as much added sugar as other breads do.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 C butter (1 stick)
• 3/4 C brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/3 C mashed overripe bananas (about 3 bananas)*
• 1/2 C chopped walnuts (optional)

*NOTE:  If you don’t have over-ripened bananas, you can ripen them to your liking in the oven.  Put them in the oven at 250°F for 15-25 minutes (depending on how unripe they were to begin with).  The low heat accelerates the ripening, turning them sweet and almost pudding-like.  However, beware the peel will turn an unappetizing black color, and the bananas may leak a little!

On-Demand Overripe Bananas

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Since the bread is SO moist, it won’t stay fresh for very long.  I would give it three days tops outside of the fridge, and maybe 4-5 days in.  With that, I prefer to split these into 6″ x 3″ x 2″ mini loaf pans (this recipe will make enough for 3), wrap them tightly in plastic wrap, and freeze the loaves I’m not going to eat immediately.  The loaf at that size will easily thaw over night.  Just adjust the cook time to about 40 minutes, but start checking for doneness around 30 minutes.  Enjoy!

Easy Potato Latkes (Pancakes)

Well. The Thunder are out of the finals, so I guess that means I’m back in action here.  My social media feeds have slowly lost interest once the East and West coast conference champions were announced. No one wants to watch the Heat beat the Spurs. For a second year in a row.  What was so promising in the first round ultimately led us right back to where we were a year ago.  Can I also just call attention to the world’s most illegal screen, courtesy of Blake?  I don’t even have a clever way of incorporating it – I just think it’s too awesome to NOT include somehow.

Any way.

I love opposite flavors and temperatures paired together in my food.  Hot with cold, sweet with salty, crispy with chewy…potato pancakes with a little apple sauce on top is pretty much all of that wrapped into one awesome breakfast.  I’d only ever eaten them in a restaurant but decided to give them a try at home. It was. Delicious. Smitten Kitchen never lets me down, so here is the recipe I adapted:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 large russet potato (1 pound), peeled
• 1 small onion (4 ounces), peeled
• 1/4 C all-purpose flour
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
• Oil, for frying (Smitten Kitchen uses peanut oil; I used grapeseed)

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a food processor, coarsely shred the potato and onion. For longer strands, lay the potato sideways in the chute of your food processor. Transfer to a colander or wrap in a cheesecloth sling, and squeeze as dry as possible. Let stand for 2 minutes, then squeeze dry again. I would recommend getting really OCD and doing it a third time. It makes a difference.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, egg, salt and pepper together. Stir in the potato onion mixture until all pieces are evenly coated.

   

   Ready for Frying!

3. In a medium skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of oil until shimmering. Drop packed teaspoons of the potato mixture into the skillet and flatten them with the back of a spoon. Cook the latkes over moderately high heat until the edges are golden, about 1 1/2 minutes; flip and cook until golden on the bottom, about 1 minute. Drain on paper towels. Repeat with the remaining potato mixture, adding more oil to the skillet as needed.

   

   Flatten with a Spatula

Tip from Smitten Kitchen: Latkes are a do-ahead-er’s dream. You can also keep latkes warm in the oven for an hour or more, if you’re waiting for stragglers to arrive. Cooked, they keep well in the fridge for a day or two, or in the freezer, well wrapped, for up to two weeks. Reheat them in a single layer on a cookie sheet in a 400 degree oven until they’re crisp again. Bonus: If you undercooked them a bit or didn’t get the browning on them you’d hoped for, you can compensate for this in the oven.

Easy Potato Latkes (Pancakes)

We had these for breakfast back in January (yes, still extremely backlogged) with eggs over medium and red pear. I was too lazy to make apple sauce, but I couldn’t have my latkes without it.  I had some leftover individual packs of applesauce from the Carrot Cake Cupakes I made, so I popped one open and mixed in some cinnamon and nutmeg. It was PERFECT. The only downside is that our place smelled like fries for a couple of days. Well worth it, I’d say!