tea for one...

I got a bag of rhubarb today from a friend because I wanted to make my favorite rhubarb jam. Since I had extra I decided to try out a few new recipes including this one for Sticky Rhubarb Muffins from the Rhubarb Info.com website. It was the perfect opportunity to use one of my vintage fruit plates that I found in an antique store in Texas. The stamp on the back reads Bordallo Pinheiro LDA Caldas Da Rainha, Made in Portugal.


Sticky Rhubarb Muffins
from rhubarbinfo.com
Ingredients:

4 T Butter
6 T Dark brown sugar
1 c Rhubarb; cut in small dice

Dough:

4 T Butter, softened
1/4 c Sugar
1 Egg
1 1/2 c All-purpose flour
1 ts Baking powder
1/2 ts Baking soda
1/4 ts Salt
1/2 ts Nutmeg
1/2 c Milk
Grated rind of 1 orange

Using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, mix the butter into the brown sugar roughly. Stir in the rhubarb. Distrubute this mixture evenly into 12 muffin cups.

Cream the softened butter and the sugar together, then beat in the egg. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg together thoroughly, then add the butter-sugar mixture alternately with the milk. Do not overmix. Stir in the orange rind. Pour equal amounts of the batter into the muffin cups. Bake in a preheated 350 F oven for 25 minutes. Let cool in the pans 5 minutes, then invert the muffin tins and ease the muffins out so that the sticky glaze remains intact. Serve warm, with glaze topside.

Marsha - Thumbs halfway UP (the sticky tops were not as "sticky" as I imagined them to be - most of the brown sugar mixture bubbled up an over the edges of the muffin pan and I'm not sure they were worth having to clean out the oven).
Jeff - not home at tea time, he will try them later.

Looks like I wasn't the only one having tea for one today :)

a day in the kitchen...

I let 3 bananas get a little too ripe so this morning so I decided to make our favorite chocolate chip banana bread recipe. Once the mini loaves were in the oven and I was washing out my bowl I thought why don't I just keep going and stock the freezer. So next up I made brownies (from a mix) in my pumpkin & fall leaf pan. While they were in the oven - I had to think of what I could make next since I used up all the eggs in the house. While munching on a warm slice of banana bread...I remembered a recipe I saw on a blog recently for Pumpkin Crescent Rolls. Of course I didn't have crescent rolls (much less 8 cans) in the house but I thought the filling would work great with my WS pocket pie molds. Since you can't make a regular pumpkin pie custard filling with a top crust this recipe worked extremely well.
The results were fantastic with pie crust and I can only imagine how good this must taste using actual crescent rolls. I decided to have a cup a tea and a pumpkin pocket pie and read the mail before I tackled the remaining dishes...and as you can see I couldn't wait for the first taste even before the teapot got hot enough for tea :)
Pumpkin Crescent Rolls from Snarky Mom at Postcards From Insanity.

8 oz cream cheese, softened
15 oz can pumpkin
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 T flour
2 T cinnamon
1 t pumpkin pie spice
8 pkgs refrigerated crescent rolls
½ cup sugar
Preheat oven to 375. In mixer bowl, blend cream cheese, pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, flour and spices until combined and smooth. Unroll crescent rolls, separate and lay flat. Evenly spread 1 ½ T of pumpkin mix over dough. Roll into crescent shape and sprinkle top with sugar. Bake 11-13 minutes until golden brown.

My notes: I made the filling exactly as listed - yes, 2 TB of cinnamon! It sounds like a lot but we are cinnamon lovers as well and it tastes wonderful. Oops, I guess I didn't make it exactly as listed - pumpkin pie spice is just a combo spice of cloves, ginger & nutmeg so I used 1/2 tsp of ginger, 1/2 tsp of cloves and 1/4 tsp of nutmeg because I just bought them all fresh for the pumpkin pie dessert I made earlier this month and of course, I used standard pie crust for the pocket pies. I definitely will be trying this in the future with the crescent rolls.

Click on the link to her post HERE to view the post showing this recipe and 17 others that are traditional Thanksgiving recipes for her. I will be trying some more of her recipes soon!
Our favorite banana bread...

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
3 mashed bananas
2 cups sifted flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, milk and mashed bananas, blend together. Add sifted flour and soda. Pour the chocolate chips into a small bowl and toss with a TB of flour until they are coated. This helps the chips from sinking to the bottom of the bread while baking. Mix in and pour batter into 3 buttered mini loaf bread pans (or 2 regular ones). Bake at 350 degrees for approx 45-50 minutes. Test with a toothpick after 40 minutes.

muffins...

I got a new toy this week, a muffin pan with leaves and pumpkins. Perfect for autumn gatherings so today I gave it a try making blueberry muffins from a recipe I had saved a while back.
I had fun using a the leaf shaped ones and made some lemon flowers to go with them and my tea. How do all those other blog authors get their lemon slice to float perfectly center in the cup? Impossible I say :)
I know I originally got this recipe from another blog but I am sorry I don't remember which one.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Muffins

1 stick softened butter
8 oz softened cream cheese
1 Cup sugar
1 Tablespoon lemon zest
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ¾ c. all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt

1/3 c. 2% milk (or cream)

1 pint fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350°. In a mixer cream the butter, cream cheese, sugar and lemon zest until well combined. Slowly beat in the eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. With mixer on low, add half the flour, then half milk or cream, then remaining flour, then remaining milk until just combined. Carefully fold in blueberries. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray and fill with muffin batter, about ¾ full. Bake for 23-28 minutes or until golden brown on top and cooked through. Remove and let cool.

Marsha - Thumbs Up
Jeff - Thumbs Up

Tea and Scones...

Yesterday, I had a wonderful group of women tour the gardens. I served them tea and scones and we sat on the patio and enjoyed great conversation while watching little goldfinches entertain us. I didn't remember to take pictures until they left so I posed the leftover "blooming tea" with a few leftover scones for the blog.
I have used this recipe many times and the raspberry/white chocolate version is our favorite. We also like them with blueberries and white chocolate too ;) The recipe is from Thibeault's Table, a beautiful blog whose author believes "recipes are to be shared".

Click HERE for the scone recipe on her blog. These were made with frozen raspberries and white chocolate chips.

Marsha - Thumbs Up
Jeff - Thumbs Up

Blueberry Roly-Poly

A few years ago my son bought a house and all of it's belongings from an estate. The former owner was 96 years old when she passed away and from what I hear, she was an excellent cook. As we sorted through the home and it's belongings, Nathan did not want lots of stuff so I brought home her collection of recipe books. This one was full of "clipped" recipes...
and I am sure it had a lot of use as evidenced by the burn mark on the cover.
After buying fresh blueberries on sale this week, I decided to try the following recipe from the above book for Blueberry Roly-Poly as submitted by a Mrs. Lempi Siermala, from MN. Click on the photo below to read the recipe.
The only change I made to the recipe was to use lemon rind, instead of orange rind in the filling. I just like lemon & blueberry together but I am sure the orange is good as well. I rolled out the dough...
and spread it with the cinnamon/sugar/lemon rind mixture and rolled it up like a cinnamon roll.
Then it was baked in a loaf pan...
and came out looking like this.
I didn't know what to expect from the recipe as I have never heard of blueberry roly-poly before. I think I was expecting a coffee cake. Instead, it tastes like a blueberry filled cinammon biscuit.
Sure tasted great with some tea and lemon!
Thumbs up from Marsha
Thumbs up from Jeff