Maine Life Blog

Alex and Nana's Pumpkin Muffins

morse.elizabeth@gmail.com — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 22:07:00 -0500

My grand daughter, Alex, loves to cook with me. She started out reading me the recipe and I would fill the measures and she would pour them in. Now she has advanced to the point where I get the ingredients out, she measures them and puts them in. She just needs a little advice now and again like, "don't pat the flour down, Alex" and "just 'tunk' the egg on the side of the bowl and pull it apart with your thumbs." We have a really good time. One of our favorite things to cook is muffins. They are fast and usually come out well, no matter what. We have found a recipe for Pumpkin Muffins that I will share with you. Pumpkin muffins are great. They aren't as crumbly as most muffins and they are very tasty. They go with about anything too. So here is Alex and my favorite pumpkin muffin recipe.

1-1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup sugar 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup canned (or fresh if you really want to work) pumpkin 1/2 cup butter, melted (Alex and I use canola oil) 1 egg 1/2 cup raisins (Alex and I NEVER put in raisins

Heat over to 400 degrees. Grease bottoms of 12 medium muffin cups. Mix all ingredients just until flour is moistened. Batter should be lumpy. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon sugar over batter in each cup. Bake 18 - 20 minutes. Immediately remove from pan.

Makes 12 muffins, but you won't be able to tell because they disappear so fast!

Sally's Everyday Bread

morse.elizabeth@gmail.com — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:11:00 -0500

My mother-in-law used to make wonderful yeast rolls. She would make them and then freeze them. Whenever the need (or knead) for yeast rolls arose, she would product a plastic bag with a dozen or two in it. They were great! I can remember back when we had a sailboat, sailing back from Monhegan Island to Boothbay Harbor munching on Nana's rolls and listening to Parker read from an absolutely hilarious book as we sloshed along in dying wind. Anyway, Nana did something awful. She passed away without teaching us how to make her rolls! Holidays are when we miss them most. This year, my friend Sally gave me a recipe she said she used at Thanksgiving to make rolls. This is a simple recipe and i tried it this past weekend. The dough can be used to make rolls or bread but, frankly, the bread I made was much better than the rolls.

Sally's Everyday Bread "2 hours from mixing bowl to oven"

3 cups warm water 3 Tblsp or 3 envelopes yeast 1/4 cup sugar or honey (I used honey) 8 - 10 cups flour (i used about 9-1/2) 5 tsp. salt (I used 4 but perhaps should have used 5) 5 Tblsp oil

Combine water, yeast, supga/honey in large bowl. Stir until yeast dissolves. Add salt & half of the flour. (Can substitute 1 to 4 cups of whole wheat flour or 1/4 - 1/2 cup of wheat germ at this point.) Beat hard with spoon until batter is smooth. Add remaining flour and blend well with spoon and hands. Pour oil over dough and knead in bowl for a couple minutes. Oil makes this easy. Cover bowl and let rise until double - about 45 minutes. Turn out on floured board and knead slightly. Shape into 2 loaves and place in buttered pans, or make into rolls. (1/2 recipe makes large pan of rolls.) Let rise until double. Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes (rolls probably 15 minutes or so.) Brush tops with butter for a pretty crust after removing from the oven. Enjoy!

Pie Crust

morse.elizabeth@gmail.com — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 20:50:00 -0500

The earlier pie crust post talked about freezing pie crust for later use. It reminded me that my mother used to make large batches of pie crust, mixing the dry ingredients and storing them in large glass jars. When she wanted to make a pie, she measured out enough to make a two or one crust pie and added water before rolling it out. She made fabulous pie crust and I have to think that some of the flavor came from the dry crust setting in those glass jars "seasoning". On the other hand, the glass jars that she stored the dry crust were ones my father brought home from work. He was a chemistry teacher, perhaps that is where the flavor came from.

Crab Dip

morse.elizabeth@gmail.com — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 08:33:00 -0500

The blog post about crab cakes reminded me of this wonderful crab dip recipe that I have been hiding in my recipe box for way too long.

Crab Dip

In the top of a double boiler combine, 8 oz. Cream Cheese 3 TBS mayonnaise 1 TBS lemon juice 8 oz. Crab Meat

Heat until cream cheese is melted and mixture is warm.

Serve with chips or crackers.

How easy is that! And everyone will love it.