Strawberry Muffins

I made these muffins this morning with fresh Plant City strawberries. Plant City, FL, which is about 15 miles east of Tampa, is known and the winter strawberry capital of the world, and according to Wiki, is named for its flora (vegetables, fruits, and tropical plants). This recipe was adapted from one I found online, that specifically called for Florida strawberries.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups chopped fresh strawberries
• 1/2 cup turbinado sugar
  
• 1/4 cup turbinado sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• a few extra sliced strawberries for garnish
  

DIRECTIONS

1. In a small bowl, combine the strawberries and 1/2 cup sugar. Set aside for about 1 hour. Drain, reserving liquid and berries separately.
2. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Grease a 12 cup muffin tin, or line with paper liners.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and 1/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt and nutmeg; stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the juice from the berries. Gently stir in the berries. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups.
4. Garnish muffin tops with sliced strawberries
   
5. Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

breakfast at noon

ahem. this is Grace reporting on my status in foods. shown right here is my breakfast at noon. (no-i did not wake up ant noon. ) these are english whole wheat muffins with philadelphia straberry cream chees. the brown gunk on the top is a generous helping of cinnamon sugar. of course, this would be better on a real bagel and with plain cream cheese. alas, we did not have either. but if you want to stop by with bagels and cream cheese, that would be greatly appreciated. i understand that you have not seen the before pics of tis years gingerbread house... only the devestated after's. here you go-well, aparently, it didwhere i wanted to, but who cares. thats the completed gingerbread house,yogi, and a doll started eting the gingerbread house. i think i'll call this one "when plastic dolls attack. and Carolyn... have you looked at your sandwich comments latley?

Home Remodeling and Food - together at last

The perfect amalgamation of home improvement and food. Here is a link to Grace and last years gingerbread house. I have a photo of this years house, but my cable is misplaced, so this will have to do for now. http://flickr.com/search/?q=gingerbread&w=82302491%40N00



Grace and I have been decorating a gingerbread house every year for several years now. The gingerbread house in the photo was christened the "california house" because if you look closely, you can seen a large crack due to an earthquake. As you can see, the house starts out with a lovely mosaic of candy on the outside. After several days, it looks like Katrina has struck. On Christmas when you all come over, you can check out this years house - after all the candy has been eaten off. When Adam was younger, after Christmas was over it was his important responsibility to smash the house outside for the squirrels. He did it with great zeal, and I hope he's not too old this year to carry on the tradition.



For Christmas this year, Pam is in charge of lasagna and other goodies, Ann has dessert and Brian and I will provide the rest.

Carolyn comes home

Carolyn finished her last final at 8:45 p.m. Thursday and jumped into a speeding car driven by her friend Brenda, who had come to visit, and arrived on Newgard just before midnight. The next day, Brenda joined us for a celebratory dinner, when we enjoyed zitoni (those are the fat hollow noodles that could serve in a pinch as straws at a bubble tea shop), with tomato-basil sauce, fresh mozzarella, asparagus and sautéed collard greens. They regaled us with stories of their college adventures and we had a fine time.

After dinner they headed off to a JUMP Company dance show, then we got a call asking if we had certain baking ingredients in the house, then the doorbell rang at 11:30 p.m. because Carolyn had forgotten her keys, and then there was a great deal of laughter and cooking noises filtering up from downstairs. In the morning, we found a nice batch of cookies on the kitchen table.

The oatmeal-and-cocoa cookies came in four variations: chocolate chip, peanut butter chip, coconut-cranberry-walnut and chocolate chip-walnut.

And since Carolyn is the master of sandwich making, she invited Brenda and her sister Vicky over for lunch and made us each a grilled sandwich to our specifications.