Banana Streusel Muffins

I had a few bananas laying around and were way over ripe and perfect for baking. So instead of (...doing homework, laundry, or cleaning) letting them rot in my fruit bowl, I decided to try out this recipe I found on Allrecipes.com for banana streusel muffins! I did change it a little but, but the original recipe can be found here.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg lightly beaten
1/3 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Streusel topping:
1/3 cup packed light brown
2 tbs flour
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 tbs butter

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
• In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg, oil, and vanilla. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
• In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
• Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

I took them out at 18 minutes and they were perfect. Some of the streusel rolled onto the baking pan as the muffins rose, so right when they came out of the oven while the sugar was still soft, I trimmed the edges with a knife.

I packaged them in tall treat boxes and embossed flowers on the outside (with my new Martha Stewart Heat Embossing Kit) and labeled them with rubber stamp lettering. I punched a hole in the top right corner and tied charm tags on to the box with my recipients names. (For the tags I used a 1" paper punch, then a regular hole punch) Three muffins fit in a box. You can find all the tools at Michael's or any other craft supply stores.

Enjoy!!

Old Bachelor's Jam with Cherry Kirsch

This is the second of the canning recipes I made last week. I got this recipe from the March 2010 issue of Martha Stewart Living. This jam is very pretty once it's in the mason jar because it has a layered effect to it. (And it tastes pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself.) I have also been told I use alot of booze in my cooking, which I guess is true... I used it in two more recipes that will be upcomming posts - so be looking.

Ingredients:
2lbs organic raspberries (i used local frozen)
2lbs organic blackberries (also local frozen)
3 1/2 cups sugar divided
Juice of 2 lemons divided
2 ounces Cherry Kirsch Liquor

Instructions:

• Bring blackberries, 1 3/4 cup sugar and juice of 1 lemon to simmer in large pot over medium heat. Cook until sugar dissolves and berries are soft about 5 minutes. cover with parchment or aluminum foil directly on surface of jam, refrigerate overnight. Repeat with raspberries and remaining 1 3/4 cups sugar and juiced lemon in another pot.
• Remove parchment; bring each pot to boil. Cook on med-high heat until berries are slightly broken down and jam is the consistency of loose jelly. The original recipe says about 12 minutes for blackberries and 17 for raspberries but I did about 20 minutes for both so the berries would cook down a bit and not get soupy.
• plate test jam to be sure its set. (Plate test instructions on previous post)
• Divide blackberry jam between 4 1/2-pt size sterilized mason jars, filling each halfway; top each with 1/2 oz kirsch, divide raspberries between jars; top each with 1/2 oz kirsch, leaving 1/4-in headspace at tops. Can in water bath for 10 minutes. (I had extra raspberry jam so I filled a jar with just that and topped it with a little of the cherry liquor.)

Water Bath Instructions:
 Fill mason jars with whatever concoction you come up with. Place a wire rack on the bottom of a large pot of hot water and submerge jars, standing them upright.Bring water to a boil, and boil jars for about 10 minutes. This creates a vacuum seal. Let cool and refridgerate over night before serving.
*I didn't do this however and my mason jars created their own vacuum seals when I cooled them down. So I don't know... But this is the proper technique for canning. It honestly probably increases the shelf life if you were going to keep them in a pantry for months at a time.

For decorating the jars I did the same as with the marmalade jars. I made tags with pretty cardstock and tied it onto the jars with ribbon or jute rope. On the tags I wrote the type of jam and the date it was made and packaged and handed them out to family and friends for a fun gift.

This jam can be used as a fruit spread on bagels, toast etc. or a filling for tarts and deserts, or any other place you would use a regular jam. Enjoy!

Make Something Fabulous!

Blood Orange and White Grapefruit Marmalade

I was reading the March 2010 issue of Martha Stewart Living (which my Brother and his Fiancee, Kendra just bought a year subscription for me for my birthday!! Thanks Guys!) and they had a few ideas on canning and preserving so I tried two recipes (the second one will be in an upcomming blog post!). The first of which was a blood orange and white grapefruit marmalade. The origional recipe called for blood oranges and pummelos, but those are out of season - and it wouldn't be me if I didn't tweak the recipe to suit my own tastes, right?

Ingredients:
Organic Blood Oranges (I used 3 large and 4 small because they were on sale at City Market)
Organic White Grapefruit (I used 1 1/2 large ones)
1 Meyer lemon
Sugar (amt to be determined later in recipe)
6 cups water
Organic Clover Honey (optional)

Instructions:

• remove zest from oranges and grapefruit. I did this by quartering the fruit peeling meat away from peel and using a paring knife to eliminate the white pith (which tastes bitter).
• Cut fruit meat into chunks and place in large stock pot. Next slice zest into 1/3" chunks. (no need to be precise, I kind of cut mine into small ribbons) Place into stock pot.
• Deseed, quarter, and thinly slice lemon (with or witout pith, I left mine on for a touch of bitterness to balance out the sweet) put into pot. Add Water.
• Bring fruit, peels, and water to a boil stock pot Cook for 5 minutes. Turn off heat, cover, and let cool. Refrigerate for 8 hours (or up to 1 day).
• Throw a small plate in the freezer, you'll use this to test the consistency of the marmalade later on.
• Uncover citrus mixture, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Cook until thickest peel is tender. (The original recipe says 20 minutes, mine took a little longer - just use your own judgement)
• Measure mixture taking notes of how many cups you have, and return to pot. For each cup of mixture, add 3/4 cup sugar. I had 7 cups of mixture and added 6 x 3/4cups of sugar and 1x 3/4cup of organic clover honey which gave my marmalade an awesome flowery aroma and taste, I would recommend.
• Bring mixture to a boil, stirring often. Cook until mixture registers 220 degrees to 222 degrees on a candy thermometer, mine took about 40 minutes. Make sure the mixture does not get too hot or else the sugar will scorch and then all that work would have been for nothing.
• Test marmalade on frozen plate, see details below. Transfer marmalade to airtight containers, I used mason jars, and let cool at room temperature. Refrigerate overnight before serving. (Marmalade will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to 1 month.)

Plate Test
To test for doneness of marmalade: Drop a spoonful on frozen plate. If marmalade has a slight film when pushed with a finger, it's done. If it spreads out and thins immediately, continue cooking, and test again after a few minutes.

And there you go! I made tags with some printed cardstock and rubber stamps. The handwrote the name of the marmalade and the date it was packaged, then tied it to the jar with jute rope. I gave them out as fun, unique presents for friends and family- plus, I kept a little for myself   :) 

Tips:
Marmalade is great if used as a spread on toast or date nut bread (which I gave a stab at making and will follow up with a blog post!), as a marinade for chicken, or used as filling between two sugar cookies or gingersnaps.

Make something fabulous!

Home Made Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Cole Slaw

Birdy made dinner tonight and it came out fantastic. Definitely worth posting. Try this out at home if you have a crock pot. It's super easy and so delicious you may have to undo your pants button when you're done.

Ingredients

1 bottle (16oz) your favorite BBQ sauce (he used Sticky Fingers Tennessee Whiskey BBQ)
1/2 Cup water
4.5 lb pork rib (remember to buy local if you can!)

Thats it! Through it all in the crock pot on high for 4.5 hours. When the pork is done, pour into a strainer to remove from liquid and shred the meat which falls right off the bone.

We piled it high on a couple of focaccia rolls from Klinger's bakery and topped it with City Market's cole slaw and a BBQ dipping sauce birdy made.
For the dipping sauce, he used one bottle of Annie's Smokey Maple BBQ sauce and added a touch more real VT maple syrup in a sauce pan over medium heat until warm and combined. It was a good complement to the tangy BBQ sauce the meat was cooked in.

So easy, so simple, and so good we almost subbed in our forks for shovels.... Just kidding...maybe.

Enjoy!