Dark Cherry & Chocolate Chip Muffins

My friend H. (whom I've blogged about before), threw a game night at her place. A group of us had a blast playing charades and Apples to Apples. Everyone brought something and I decided it was a good opportunity to try a new recipe. I recently saw a recipe of Strawberry Hedgehog's blog for Vegan Dark Cherry and Chocolate Cake. While I'm never afraid to try a vegan dessert, my kitchen confidence has been pretty low lately, especially after a series of culinary failures. So I decided to play it safe and make a new recipe off of a tried and true classic, my Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.

My confidence rose a bit when these turned out to be quite delicious. It helped that the friends that helped me eat these at the game night were gasping with delight. My friend Lisa even said it was a new favorite. Huzzah! Success. Confidence has been restored. At least until my next failure.

Ingredients:

2 cups of chopped dark cherries (well drained if frozen)
1/2 cup of sour cream
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla
10 tablespoons of butter melted and cooled

2 cups of flour
1/2 cup of brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 cup of chocolate chips

This recipe makes 12 muffins

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Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Chop your cherries and drain any excess juice.

Mix your sour cream, eggs, vanilla and butter in a bowl. Set aside.

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt then add in the sugar and chocolate chips. Add in wet ingredient mixture until it's fully incorporated. Fold in the cherries. It's important not to over mix when you add the cherries because they'll bleed and make your batter pink.

Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. Evenly distribute the mixture to the 12 liners. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

These are especially good served warm.

Dark Cherry & Chocolate Chip Muffins

Sunday Thoughts ~ May 9th, 2010

Administrator's note: I am changing Sunday Roundup to Sunday Thoughts. More free-form, less linkage.


Last week was pretty nightmarish. I had gone to the hospital two Saturdays ago with an infection. The antibiotics that the hospital gave me, and my exposure to hospital bacteria, gave me a brand new infection that left me in intestinal turmoil for the whole week. Who would have thought that an antibiotic would cause an infection?! I had blood tests (and other unspeakable tests) done to me to see what it was that I had. Turns out it was clostridium difficile colitus and boy it hasn't been a fun infection to have.

The nurse practitioner I saw put me on a bland food/liquid diet. Chicken, potatoes, brown rice, plain carbs, chicken broth, apple juice, watered-down gatorade, etc. No vegetables, no meats, no salads and the such. Also, I read online that a good way to combat the... umm... effects of such an infection is to go with BRATTY foods. That's Bananas, Rice, Applesauce/Apple juice, Tea, Toast and Yogurt. For the most part, I can't eat yogurt, so I've been trying to stick to the other foods on that list.

I am usually very conscious of what I eat. I am hypoglycemic so I have to keep a relatively low-sugar diet and be aware of blood sugar drops. I have a lazy digestive system so I need to eat things that help speed things along and avoid foods that prevent the train from arriving at the station, so to speak. I'm also somewhat lactose intolerant which prevents me from indulging in my love of all things cheese (::gripe::). I'm generally conscious of my weight and overall health and try to eat a relatively low calorie diet with lots of fruits and vegetables without depriving myself of certain culinary joys.

So on Saturday I found myself on the road and hungry. I'm hardly ever really hungry. You know, the kind of hungry that makes you feel empty at your very core and the call of the stomach sirens with their lurches and bellows seems irresistible. You must eat. NOW.

Solution. McDonald's!

McDonald's?

No it's true. I kept to my bland food diet and didn't overindulge by going to McDonald's and buying a Happy Meal. The experience also brought me back to my childhood. Many a time did my mother take me to McD's where I had a Happy Meal with a lovely toy inside waiting for me to play with. At 29, I'm still a kid at heart and I wasn't even the least bit embarrassed to order to go the McDonald's drive-thru and order a girl's Happy Meal.

To stick to my bland food/liquid/bratty diet I got a Happy Meal with chicken nuggets, french fries and apple juice. The total calorie intake was just under 500 calories which is what I try to stick to anyways for a noon-time meal. It was delicious and did just the trick. And I got a mermaid doll out of it too. Score!

Sometimes you have to make lemonade when life throws you lemons. And a Happy Meal makes for a tasty lemonade.

Easy Tiramisu

Tiramisu is a relatively new recipe. It hasn't been in existence for more than 30 years, but it's already a classic dessert. There are so many variations but the basic set up consists of lady fingers soaked in espresso and rum with a layer of mascarpone cheese and topped with a dusting of cocoa powder.

My recipe is super-simple.

Ingredients:

Package of lady fingers (the soft kind)
a small cup of strong coffee
2 containers of mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup of sugar
2 egg whites
cocoa powder

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In a bowl, add your two egg whites and your sugar. With a handheld mixer, whip that mofo until it forms stiff peaks. In a smaller bowl, loosen up your mascarpone cheese by mixing it by hand with a spoon. This is an important step because stiff mascarpone is going too tough to mix into the delicate egg whites. Fold the mascarpone cheese into the egg whites. Set aside.

In a small baking dish, add a layer of lady fingers. Spoon over some of the coffee onto the ladyfingers.

Add half off the mascarpone mixture over the lady fingers. Then create another layer of ladyfingers and soak them in coffee.

Carefully add the rest of the mascarpone mixture. Dust top with cocoa powder. Chill in the fridge for a few hours to let the tiramisu set. If you don't let it chill for a sufficient amount of time, it will be difficult to scoop out and eat. I tell you this out of personal experience.

This makes a 2-layered tiramisu. Depending on your baking dish you may only want to make 1 layer. If you want to use cups or glasses, you can make a multi-layered tiramisu parfait. Or quadruple the recipe and make a ginormous trifle! The sky is the limit.

Raquelle's Easy Tiramisu

Aquapocalypse Chicken & Pasta Salad

If you live in Eastern Massachusetts, it is very likely you are being affected by the aquapocalypse. Either directly or you are being bombarded with news coverage about it. You may be asking yourself, what is the aquapocalypse?

Many towns in Eastern Massachusetts get their water from Quabbin Reservoir which is in Western Massachusetts. A series of pipes transport water to various towns in the Boston area. Not all towns elect to take from the Quabbin Reservoir (Cambridge, MA gets theirs from Fresh Pond) and other towns have back-ups (Woburn, MA uses Horn Pond as their backup). The history of the Quabbin reservoir is interesting. In the 1930s, all residents of 4 Massachusetts towns were kicked out of their homes and the area was subsequently flooded with water. It's been the primary source of public water for the state ever since.

A few days ago, one of the pipes that transports Quabbin water to a select group of towns ruptured and our drinking water was contaminated. People in my town and various others have had to depend highly on bottled water or boiled water. I prefer boiled water as this incident is already causing environmental damage, who wants to create more by creating excess plastic waste?

The aquapocalypse is pretty serious. Not only does any drinking water need to be boiled any water you ingest has to be too. So for washing dishes, making ice, brushing my teeth, it's been boil, boil, BOIL!

This recipe is based on the Grilled & Dilled Chicken & Pasta Salad from REC(ession)IPES.


Aquapocalypse Chicken & Pasta Salad

- Various pots of boiled water that's been cooled for washing dishes
- a big pot of boiling water for cooking pasta
- ice cubes from boiled water
- a few cups of boiled water that's been cooled for washing veggies

3 celery stalks with leaves sliced
1 red pepper diced
1 cubanelle pepper diced
2 carrots sliced

2 teaspoon dijon mustard
4 teaspoons of white wine vinegar
6 tablespoons of mayo

5 chicken cutlets
juice of half a lemon
light olive oil

1 package of elbow macaroni

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh dill

This makes enough for 2 with lots of leftovers. Make sure you invite friends over to share!

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Heat up a grill pan. Add salt and pepper to your chicken cutlets and the juice of half a lemon and light olive oil. Make sure there is plenty of boiled/cooled water around for you to wash your hands thoroughly. You're properly armed against aquapocalypse with all that water so don't forget the battle against salmonella!

Add your chicken to the hot grill pan. Grill on both sides for about 2-3 minutes each side. Set aside to cool.

Get a big pot of water boiling for the pasta. By now, you are an expert boiler so you know to let it bowl for a couple of minutes to make sure all that bacteria is dead and gone. Take that aquapocalypse!

Add your macaroni and cook for 10 minutes.

While the pasta is cooking, chop your veggies and rinse them in boiled/cooled water. Drain. Set aside. Do this instead of washing your veggies before you chop them. This method requires less water and that boiled/cooled water is very precious!

In a smaller container, add your dijon mustard and white wine vinegar. Shake shake shake. Set aside.

Chop your chicken!

Drain your cooked pasta. You need to cool down your pasta before you add your vegetables, chicken and dressing. Hot pasta is no good, so add some ice cubes made from boiled/cooled water.  Stir, cool, drain.

In a big bowl, add your cooled pasta, veggies, chicken, dill, dijon/vinegar dressing and mayo. Stir. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Wash your dishes with boiled/cooled water!

Congratulations, you've made it through the aquapocalypse!
Aquapocalypse Chicken & Pasta Salad