Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

This would be the first time that I have ever lined my muffin tins with paper muffin cup holders to bake - pastel colors wouldn't have been my first choice for liners, but I went with what was available at the store. Usually, I move full speed ahead and bake directly in the pan, but to be honest, I am not very patient when it comes to scrubbing hard, baked-on muffin crumbs off the side of a pan. I must admit, muffin liners are the way to go and I will probably never bake without them again. Clean-up is a breeze and the muffins travel quite well wrapped in their own individual package. Now, if only they made liners for the pan when you make banana bread, my hand-washing dishes life would be complete.

This is a Made for Monday recipe that I am just getting around to posting. When I used to live in Louisiana, we would make weekend trips to Covington to have coffee at Coffee Rani - and you wonder where my coffee addiction stems from. It started young at quaint, local coffee houses while living in Mandeville. Mom and Dad would get coffee but I always went straight for the baked goods - I mean at age 8 it might have seemed odd for me to order a giant cup of coffee. Back in the day, coffeehouses didn't make frappuccinos loaded with calories and sugar for the kids - nor would Mom and Dad have let me order one of those. Coffee Rani had the most amazing orange muffins. To this day, I can still remember exactly how they tasted - they were sweet, lightly flavored with orange and had a turbinado, crunchy sugar topping. It was the best part of the weekend trip to Coffee Rani.

I was hungry for that muffin last weekend and started looking through the various food blogs and online websites to see if I could find something similar. I didn't quite find an orange muffin recipe but I did come across a lemon-poppy seed muffin that sounded just perfect. The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From my Home to Yours cookbook. I doubled the recipe as I wanted to have some for myself and I thought I could take the rest into work, for the Made for Monday treat.

The muffins are more cake-like in texture than you might expect - but don't be fooled because they are not overly sweet. I tripled the amount of lemon that the original recipe called for, because I thought a lemon muffin deserved more than 1 lemon for flavor. I also swapped out 1/2 cup of sour cream for 1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt. You wouldn't even miss the extra fat. These are a great muffin and kept well overnight to bring the next day to work. I have leftover muffins in the freezer and have pulled one out every so often to have as a snack after dinner. I'm still on the hunt for that orange muffin recipe and will post about it, once it has been made.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

adapted from Dorie Greenspan

2/3 cup sugar

grated zest and juice of 3 lemons

2 cups flour (I used Whole Wheat cake flour)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

1/4 cup sour cream

2 eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla

1 stick butter, melted and cooled

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

Preheat oven to 400. Butter/spray the muffin pan OR line the muffin tin with paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and lemon zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist - you will really be able to smell the lemon. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk the sour cream, yogurt, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and melted butter together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and combine mixture with a spatula. Do not over mix - it is ok if there are a few lumps. Stir in the poppy seeds. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for 20 minutes until the tops are golden. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before removing the muffins from the pan.

Dwayne's 5 Gallon Bucket Salad

I've been gardening! For a good 5 months out of the year, my Grandpa works really hard at his garden - and he has been doing that for as long as I have known him. Every summer we have the luxury of enjoying Grandpa's ripe tomatoes, more zucchini than we can even fathom, delicious carrots, fresh beets, potatoes dug straight from the ground, bell peppers, cucumbers delicious for pickling and both red and white onions. We are spoiled really. Grandpa puts all the time, hard work and effort into planting the produce and keeping up with it throughout the year, and we enjoy eating it. Mom has been a huge help in the garden this year and I was really hoping to get out there to see the lay of the land - and to bring home the bounty. Last weekend I was able to go out and pick tomatoes, dig carrots, hunt for the last few zucchini and pick cucumbers.

Out at the garden, there are fresh tomatillos being grown. They weren't quite ready yet. The paper shells hang from the branches, and if you squeeze them gently, you can just start to feel the small mass that will soon become a tomatillo. I'm looking forward to some homemade salsa verde!

For the first time, Grandpa is growing brussels sprouts - just for me. I think my love and affection for them over the past 2 years has spurred him on to try and grow them in the garden. If you look closely at the picture you can just start to see the tiny sprouts starting to grow.

Last weekend, we went down to central Illinois to meet a new addition to the family, see the new farm house and have a delicious BBQ. It is so nice to get out of the city every once in awhile and be out in the country. I am amazed at the differences in lifestyle between the farm and the city. The kids entertain themselves all afternoon while riding 4-wheelers all around the farm, playing with John Deere tricycles, driving John Deere gator type golf carts and shooting clay pigeons. We had a great time and if I only would have been able to find the Starbucks on the drive down, it would have made for the perfect day.

I know what you are thinking: who is Dwayne and what in the world is a 5 gallon bucket salad? As Mom and I scanned the buffet of homemade dishes, we were immediately drawn to this enormous, silver mixing bowl filled with a tomato/cucumber like salad. It was covered in a light dressing and it just looked like the perfect summer picnic salad. Well, needless to say, we were both immediately up for seconds. The salad was so good and yet looked so simple. I started to question who had made the salad so I could get the recipe - here is where Dwayne steps in. Dwayne made the salad and quickly gave me the ingredient list: tomato, cucumber, green pepper, red onion, garlic salt and Kraft Cucumber Ranch dressing.

I can't remember the last time I have purchased Kraft dressing, but if it could make a salad taste like this, then you can bet in my next trip to the grocery store, I would be buying some of this. Mom and I went to Jewel the next day and got the dressing; Mom and I being the health nuts of course went for the Light dressing, which we will not do again. Go big or go home and go for the original - you only use 3 tablespoons so it won't kill you. You must make this salad because the tomatoes are perfectly ripe in season and you won't be disappointed in the simplicity of the ingredients.

Dwayne's 5 Gallon Bucket Salad

adapted from 5 gallons to serve 1 with leftovers for the week

4 large ripe tomatoes, cut into large chunks

1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced

2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced about 1/2 inch thick

1/2 green pepper, chopped into chunks

1 teaspoon garlic salt

3 tablespoons Kraft Cucumber Ranch dressing (not Light)

Salt and pepper for final seasoning

Place the thinly sliced red onion in a bowl of ice water and let soak for at least 15 minutes. This will reduce the 'bite' of the onion. Drain.

In a large bowl, combine tomatoes, onion, cucumbers, pepper, garlic salt, dressing and additional salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Let sit for at least 30 minutes. The tomatoes will start to release their juices and will mix with the dressing to evenly coat all the ingredients. Serve.

Basil-Tarragon Pesto

My Tivo has fallen in love with a new channel and that would be the Travel Channel - number 333 on my RCN guide. I'll admit that for the past 26 years, I didn't even know where that station was located in my channel lineup. I could of course easily name the TLC, MTV, Lifetime, ESPN and HGTV stations without a second thought or hesitation - but asking me to find the Travel Channel would have been the like asking me to find the History Channel. If you know me at all, you know that the History Channel and I do not see eye to eye.

For the longest time, the Food Network was always my go to network. I'm just a little disappointed with where the network has gone lately; I just don't love the new food personalities and it is taking me awhile to get used to the new shows. I'm still a huge fan of Giada, Ina and Bobby Flay, but the spark just isn't always there with the others. The Travel Channel is great. I love that there is a mixture of shows that focus on both food and travel; everything I watch seems to be both educational and entertaining. I think I have just scratched the surface, but I'm excited to see what other shows I haven't uncovered yet.

As summer wears on, my freezer starts to get less full. Meals that were made over the winter months have slowly been eaten and there are only a few goodies that remain. This is the perfect changing of the guard routine though because that means I can start loading up the freezer again, as winter will be here before we know it. Pesto is one of my favorite things to have year-round. You can put it on pasta, make a dressing for vegetables or salad, use it as a spread on sandwiches or top your baked sweet potato with it - the possibilities are endless. When the fresh herbs are in season, now is the time to pre-make your pesto.

My Dad has been making pesto with our fresh basil for as long as we've been growing herbs on our back deck. I love being able to go to the freezer throughout the year to pull out a small cube of basil pesto. I was at the farmer's market last week, getting basil for my corn salad, and I somehow ended up with way more basil than I could eat in a week. I decided to mix up a batch of pesto. I didn't really use a recipe, but instead just went with what I had in my pantry.

I used a mix of both pine nuts and almonds as well as both basil and tarragon herbs. I didn't want the tarragon leftover from my chicken salad to go to waste, so I thought adding it to the pesto would be a good idea. You can use just about any cheese but I think Parmesan always adds the perfect bite to the mixture. I pour the pesto into empty ice cube trays so that they can freeze in individual serving sizes. Once the trays are frozen, remove the cubes and put them into a freezer bag to have throughout the year.

Basil-Tarragon Pesto

1/4 cup mix of pine nuts and whole almonds

4 cloves garlic, in their skins

4 cups fresh basil

1/4 cup fresh tarragon

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon salt

Pepper

1/2 cup olive oil + more depending on how much basil you have

Preheat oven to 350. Toast the pine nuts and almonds until lightly browned, about 8 minutes. Wrap 4 garlic cloves, in their skin, in aluminum foil - cook in the oven for 30 minutes. Garlic will become very soft and aromatic. Squeeze the garlic out of their skin and set aside.

In the food processor, add the toasted nuts, roasted garlic, Parmesan, basil, tarragon, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Puree until smooth and all ingredients are combined. With the machine running, slowly add the olive oil. Keep adding oil until you have the consistency of a thick soup. The amount of oil you need will depend on how much basil you are adding and how thick or thin you like your pesto.

Taste and season with salt and pepper. Pour the pesto into ice cube trays. Freeze. Remove pesto cubes from trays and put in a freezer bag to use throughout the year.

Mexican-Style Zucchini Tacos

The Little League World Series has officially taken over the ESPN and ESPN2 networks. I'm not ashamed to admit that I look forward to August each year for the pure fact that you can turn on the tv and watch a Little League baseball game. My favorite team of all time would have to be the 1998 Tom's River New Jersey East team - their final game is still saved on my Tivo. Weird I know - but I can't help myself from watching the games each year.

I came out to Crystal Lake this weekend to spend some time with Mom and Dad. I can't believe it has been almost 8 weeks since I have been home. Mom and I text messaged back and forth today about possible dinner menu options. My first text message to her about dinner choices was: burgers with grilled potato wedges. Ben had made burgers last weekend and I was still craving that grilled, summer flavor. I quickly followed up with another message that said - or grilled salmon. Mom - knowing how I am with deciding on meals in the middle of the afternoon - told me I had all afternoon to decide. Well at the end of the day, I ended up not being able to make a decision therefore, not making burgers or salmon.

Mom and I decided on a Rick Bayless recipe - go figure. We decided to make his Mexican-Style Zucchini tacos. Zucchini is readily available this time of year, especially when you have a Grandpa that grows it fresh from the garden. Dad was willing to make homemade corn tortillas and Rick's recipe for margaritas - so I think we were onto something here.

The zucchini filling for the tacos is almost casserole like as it comes together in one large pot over the stove. You cook the tomatoes, onions, zucchini, roasted poblanos, fresh corn and cilantro in a pan together. The flavors have time to combine, thicken and marry, creating a rich, homemade flavor. The only addition I made was to add a small can of tomato paste. Rick didn't call for this addition, but after looking at my mixture, bubbling on the stove, I realized it needed a thickening agent. We served our tacos on homemade corn tortillas with queso fresco, chopped cilantro, fresh cabbage and diced avocado. Needless to say - they were delicious. No wonder Bayless won Top Chef - every recipe in his cookbook is restaurant quality and simply one of the best meals you will ever make at home.

I will invite you over at anytime to try homemade corn tortillas - they are simply unbeatable and the best you've ever had. The homemade variety put all other tortillas you've had in the past to shame. Go big or go home, and these tortillas fall in that category of going big.

Mexican-Style Zucchini Tacos

adapted from Rick Bayless One Plate at a Time

1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

1 pound ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped

1 teaspoon garlic powder

2 large fresh poblano chiles

2 ears of corn, husked and kernels cut off

2 large zucchini, trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1 small can tomato paste

salt

Fresh corn tortillas

Topping:

chopped cilantro

chopped cabbage

diced avocado

queso fresco

Roast the poblanos in the oven under the broiler setting, turning regularly, until the skin has blistered and blackened on all sides, about 5 minutes. Place peppers in a brown bag and seal the opening. Rub off the blackened skin, then pull out the stems and seeds. Rinse briefly and remove any stray seeds. Slice into 1/4 inch strips.

Measure the oil into a large skillet and set over medium high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until browned, about 8 minutes. While the onion is cooking, coarsely puree the tomatoes in a food process. Add the garlic powder to the browned onion and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes. Reduce the heat to medium and over the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes. Add the peppers, corn, zucchini, and cilantro. Add the tomato paste to thicken.

Cook, stirring frequently, until the zucchini is crisp-tender and the liquid has thickened. Taste and season with salt. Serve in hot tortillas with queso fresco, diced avocado, chopped cilantro and chopped cabbage.

Fresh Corn Salad with Basil

I'm trying to keep busy before the finale of Top Chef Masters tonight; i'm really hoping Rick Bayless pulls out the win. He deserves it and I truly believe the world has fallen in love with him throughout the course of the show. My lunch is made, dinner has come and gone, clothes are set out for tomorrow, dishwasher is going, a load of laundry is in, Twitter has been updated, RCN bill paid and now the last thing on my to-do list is to write about the wonderful corn salad I made to take to Ben's last weekend when he and Anne had me over for dinner.

Ben surprised me and offered to grill bison burgers - it is really amazing to see what Whole Foods has done to our taste buds and our food likes and dislikes. I would have never thought Ben and I would sit down to a dinner of grilled buffalo between two pieces of bread, yet we really thought nothing of it when it actually happened. Bison tastes like beef in my mind. If you had told me I was eating a ground beef hamburger I would have believed you. I do think bison is slightly more tender than your average ground beef burger and it also has a richer flavor. Bison is very low in fat, high in iron, more protein rich than beef and it also has a lower calorie count than most proteins - what's not to like?

I decided to bring the Barefoot Contessa's fresh corn salad with basil to dinner on Sunday. I had been to the farmer's market on Saturday and there were large crates of fresh corn throughout the market. Some people take the time to peel back the husks surrounding the corn to inspect each one, but I throw caution to the wind and just take my chances. More often than not, the corn is absolutely fine and I am ok with that little uncertainty in life.

The corn salad is short on ingredients and is simple to put together - the key here is to use the freshest ingredients possible. It is the perfect summer salad. The fresh, crisp kernels of corn with the bite of the red onion and the basil kick in the background make for a mouthful of summer. Today, I brought the leftover corn salad to work and added half an avocado to make it a meal. This is a great alternative to eating the corn straight off the ear, slathered in butter.

Fresh Corn Salad with Basil

adapted from Ina Garten

5 ears of corn, shucked

1/2 small onion, finely chopped

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup chopped basil

In a large pot of boiling water, cook corn for 2 minutes. Drain and shock in an ice bath or run the corn under very cold water. When it is cool, remove the corn from the kernel, by slicing down each side of the cob with a sharp knife.

Toss the kernels in a bowl with the onion, cider vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Right before serving, mix in the basil. Serve cold or at room temperature.