Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins

So, I have to confess.....breakfast is not my meal of choice. In fact, I'm one of those unhealthy people who tends to skip breakfast in favor of just a few cups of really strong coffee.

I know, I know. Bad choices.

However, I do love muffins for two reasons:

1. They are portable.
2. I can pretend they are cupcakes

This is one of my favorite muffin recipes. I've substituted the heck out of it and they always turn out amazing!









Here's what you'll need:

Blueberries, butter, buttermilk, 1 egg, 1 egg yolk, vanilla, fresh orange peel, flour, sugar, baking powder,  and salt

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Grease or paper line your muffin tin.

In a large bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients: 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, and 3/4 teaspoons of salt.

In a separate, smaller bowl, whisk together 1/3 cup of melted butter, 1/3 cup of buttermilk, 1 egg, and 1 egg yolk.

Take your orange and grate about 1/2 tsp of orange peel. I always do a little more because I love citrus.
Add it into the egg/buttermilk mixture and combine.

Add your liquid mixture to the dry ingredients.

Way back when I was in my high school foods class, the teacher told us that whenever you make quick breads or muffins, always create a "well" in the dry mixture and then slowly pour in the liquid mixture. I'll be honest....I'm not exactly sure why this is important, but I always do it. If any of you know the answer, then please share!

Now, dump in your blueberries! The recipe calls for approximately 1 1/2 cups. Sometimes I'll add up to 2 cups. Just because I like fruit. You can be flexible.

Mix until just combined. Don't over-do it.

Divide the batter evenly among your muffin cups.

Now, you can bake them at this point. And they would be fine. Buuut if you want them to be extra fantastic, then you have to make the streusel topping.

Combine 1/3 cup of flour, 1/4 cup of sugar, and 3 Tbsp. butter with either your fingers or a fork until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Sprinkle evenly over the batter.

Pop them in the oven and bake them for about 23-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Enjoy!

~ Megan

S'mores Bars

So...recently I've started this book club. Mostly because I woke up one morning and realized that I hadn't read anything even remotely intellectually stimulating in over a year. Which was a bit alarming for me. Can I share a little bit of my nerdness with you? I used to give myself summer reading assignments. I used to try to fit in at least 5 great classics a summer. But when I started my graduate degree.....leisure reading went straight out the window.

Hence, the book club. We call ourselves the "Park Ave Book Club". Fancy Fancy.

We also really like food. and wine. and baked goods. When I was thinking of something to make I found these s'mores bars at Crepes of Wrath. They were a hit!

Here's what you need:

Butter, brown sugar, white sugar, 1 egg, vanilla, flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder, salt, chocolate bars (about 4 to 5 bars), and marshmallow fluff

Cream together 1/2 cup of unsalted butter with 1/4 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of white sugar until it's light and fluffy.

Add in 1 egg and 1 tsp. vanilla extract and keep on mixing.

In a separate bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients: 1 1/3 cups of flour, 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs, 1 tsp. baking powder, and 1/4 tsp. salt. Whisk it all together until it's all combine and then gradually add to your butter/sugar mixture in the mixing bowl.

Take half of the dough and press it to the bottom of a greased (or lined) 9x9 pan. '

Take your chocolate bars and line the entire dish. You can just break them to make them fit, but they should cover the whole thing.

Now take 1 1/2 cups of marshmallow fluff and spread it on top of the chocolate bars. *Important* I had a whole bunch of marshmallows and was just going to use those instead when I read that using actual marshmallow would make this things turn out hard as a rock when they cooled. Trust me. Just use fluff.

Take the rest of the graham cracker dough and lay it over the top of the marshmallow fluff. This is a bit tricky...since you can't really press it down. I used my hand to flatten out little pieces and then layered them over the top. Don't worry if it's a little funny looking. The dough will expand in the oven and you'll never know.

We've got some nice layering action here.


Place into a preheated oven at 350 degrees. Bake for about 30 - 35 minutes.

Yum. Wait until it cools completely before you cut it. Or else you'll have melty goop everywhere. You have to trust me again.

Cut apart into squares and serve.

Enjoy!!!

~Megan

Chocolate, Coconut, and Pecan Cookies

I love cookies. Obviously. 

These are one of my all - time favorites. 

Milk chocolate. Coconut. Pecans. There really isn't anything else to say.

I don't even remember where I found this recipe, but it calls for about a cup of each ingredient above. What's wonderful is that if you just double the recipe, you can just throw in a whole bag of each and call it a happy, happy day. 

Here's what you need:

Flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, butter, brown sugar, white sugar, an egg, vanilla, milk chocolate chips, flaked coconut, pecans

In a medium bowl, mix all of your dry ingredients: 1 and 2/3 cup of flour, 3/4 tsp. of baking powder, 1/2 tsp. of baking soda, and 1/2 tsp. of salt.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together 7/8 cup of butter (which is a stick and 6 Tbsp.), 3/4 cup of packed brown sugar, and 1/3 cup of white sugar.

Yum. I love butter and sugar. Too bad it's technically not socially acceptable to eat it this way.

Add in 1 egg and 1 1/2 tsp. of vanilla and mix it all in.

Take out your beaters and dump in 1 cup of milk chocolate chips, 1 cup of flaked coconut, and 1 cup of chopped pecans. Mix them all together with a wooden spoon.

Form little 1inch balls and place them 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. It should make approximately 3 dozen....depending on how much you eat along the way.

Place into an oven that's been preheated to 375 degrees and bake for 8-10 minutes. I like cookies to be *slightly* underdone, so I took them out at exactly 8 minutes. Perfect.

Let them cool on the pan for 2 minutes, and then transfer to a cooling rack.

Enjoy!!

~ Megan

Coconut Peach Cobbler

So.....do you ever get into these weird phases....where you only want to eat one thing...for weeks on end? Well, this summer, for me it's been coconut. I've gone through more boxes of coconut popsicles than I care to admit and have been adding toasted coconut to almost everything I can think of. So when I saw this recipe in an old Cuisine at Home magazine.....well, it was fate.

Here's what you'll need:

Peaches (about 3 lbs), sugar, coconut, ground ginger, butter, flour, baking powder, table salt, buttermilk, coconut extract, and milk

Get your peaches peeled and sliced and in a bowl. You'll need about 6 cups total. If you want to save some work, you can even use canned peaches. I won't tell.

Toss them with 2/3 cup sugar, 1/2 cup coconut and 1 tsp. of ground ginger.

Place mixture into a deep dish pie plate or a 9x9 square baking dish and dot with 2 Tbsp. butter, cut into small pieces.

In a different bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients: 2 cups of flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, and 1/2 tsp. salt.

Cut in about 1/4 cup of butter  until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Then add in 1/2 cup of coconut, 1/3 cup of buttermilk, and 1 tsp. coconut extract.

Mix it all together, and then form it into a ball. Let it sit for about 5 minutes.

Roll out the ball until it's about an 8 inch circle and around 1/2 inch thick. It's okay if it's a little rough around the edges. Cobbler is not a real fancy thing.

Lay it on top of your fruit mixture. Here's where I made a little mistake....you should have about an inch between the crust and the edge of the pie pan for steam to escape. I didn't....and things got a little messy. Learn from my mistake people.

Brush the top of the crust with 1-2 Tbsp. of milk. (*tip* this not only helps the coconut stick to the crust, but it also makes it shiny and pretty. You can do this to pies as well). Top with 1/2 cup of coconut and throw it into a 400 degree preheated oven for about 25 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean).

Ta da! If you don't want your coconut to be this dark (mine definitely got a little crispy) you can cover it with foil for the first 15 minutes or so.

Serve with your favorite ice cream and enjoy!!!

~ Megan

Steve's Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Pie is Steve's thing. When I first met him in college he was baking homemade apple pies in the tiny dorm kitchen and selling slices to his college buddies. I on the other hand, have never been gifted in the pie area. They aren't bad, just....meh. So when it comes to pie I leave it all up to Steve. (Which is why there are man hands in the photos....just so you know. Those aren't mine.)

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie is definitely one one of our favorites. (Only rivaled by ever classic apple pie.) Steve has been tinkering with the recipe for this pie for a while....and we finally found one that we think is a winner! So without further ado......Steve will take you through the rest of this recipe!

~Megan

Here's all the ingredients you'll need:

For the crust: flour, salt, shortening, and cold water. For the filling: rhubarb, strawberries, lemon, almond extract, sugar, tapioca, flour, salt nutmeg and butter. Get your oven preheated to 400 degrees while you're mixing everything together.

The first thing to do is dice 3 cups of rhubarb, 2 cups of fresh strawberries and put them in a large bowl. It's always better if you can get your hands on some market-fresh rhubarb, but frozen isn't horrible by any means. If you do have to go the frozen route... just make sure to thaw and drain the goods before moving on.

Squeeze in 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice and 1/8 teaspoon almond extract and stir together. The almond extract adds a great hint of flavor to the berries, just be really careful not to put too much in... it will taste strange, I know from experience. Pretty much an almond pie that looks like berries.

In a separate bowl, mix together 1-1/3* cups sugar, 3* tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca, 1* tablespoon all-purpose flour, 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg. Now as a note (*) I always measure these select ingredients using the "slightly heaping" method. Since this pie has more juicy ingredients than typical recipes, I tend to use more sweetening and thickening components to make sure the pie sets and doesn't flop apart. Or "ooze" apart I guess would be the better term...

Add the dry ingredients to the fruit mixture and toss it around gently. Now let it sit for about 10-15 minutes... Or hopefully about as long as it takes you to make the crust.

Over the years, I've learned that pastry and pie crust can be the simplest yet most frustrating thing to make when baking. Theres only like three ingredients, well four technically, but it's sooo easy to screw it up. Too much shortening the dough is like butter, too much flour it crumbles apart, and with too much water it's a sticky gooey blob. So this is one time when I really make sure to measure more exactly.
In a medium bowl add 2 cups of all-purpose flour and 3/4 teaspoons salt, mix together. Now cut in 2/3 cup of shortening with a fork, or preferably a pastry cutter, until it looks like this:

The official term is "coarse crumbs" which can be interpreted to any extent if you ask me. I would say that the mixture should look more "nubbly."
So we somehow misplaced the pastry cutter in our recent move and had to go the old fashioned way of using a fork. It gets the job done, but if you plan on doing some extreme pastry making in the future, invest in the cutter. Time saver, it is.

The next thing to do is add least 6 tablespoons of cold water. Other recipes usually have you use a fork to mix the water in and then move to using your hands. I just use the hands, forks are for wimps... and an extra unnecessary step.
Work the water into the dough by kneading it gently in a circular motion. Shortly the pieces will come together into a flaky orb. At this point, if the dough isn't quite holding together, add a 7th tablespoon of cold water bits at a time until the ball of dough holds but won't break apart too easily.

Since we're making two crusts for this pie, I like to split the ball unevenly to begin with and start with the bigger half for the bottom crust. I don't enjoy having a crust that's too small and won't fit the pie tin on the first try. And besides, with the extra dough from the first rolled-out crust, I can add it to the second one to make sure there's enough for that crust too!

Make sure you have a large area to make your designated rolling surface. Of course, sprinkle it with flour first, then roll.

When rolling the dough, always start from the center and roll outwards, moving in a circle so that it stays reasonably round. It's pretty hard to make it perfect so don't worry if there are cracks, just fill 'em in with extra dough. If the crust starts sticking to the pin, sprinkle some flour over the dough, problem solved.

Once the circle of dough is about 2 inches wider than the top of the pie tin you're using (hopefully it's a 9 inch pan) you can put the bottom crust in. There's no exact way to do this part, but I just fold the crust into quarters and flop it in the tin. Another way to transfer the crust is to roll it gently on to the rolling pin like a scroll, and then unroll it into the tin.

Lightly press the crust into the bottom edge of the tin and make sure there's no air bubbles. Then trim the edge of the crust with something sharp.

Pour the fruit mixture into the bottom crust and make sure to get all the juicy goodness.

Now roll out the top crust with the remaining dough lump. Don't forget to add the scraps from the first one you rolled out.

I like to add 1 Tablespoon of butter cubes for flavor before putting the top crust on. Just fold the crust like the first one and place it over the entire pie.

At this point, dip your finger in water and rub it along the rim of the bottom crust between the two layers. This helps to form a seal and stop the two crusts from breaking apart during the baking.

Using your thumb and forefinger, crimp the edges of the crust. Cut some slits in the top crust to let steam out when baking. Then stick it in the oven for 15 minutes. After that, turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 30-35 minutes until bubbly and golden.

Mmm.....amazingness.