Last night, the Baker suggested I wrote a cookbook about all my muffins I have been baking up. He suggested the title “Muffin Top”. I laughed, though it might be appropriate since these muffins are so good it is hard to keep your hands off them. Makes you want to eat muffins post-run, for snack, for dessert (and maybe every meal in between). They are healthy, but if you started a 3 muffin a day habit, might not go so well. Which is why I love being able to share my experiments with my early morning Thursday trail run crew.

I have started a list of all the possible combinations I want to try. It makes me really excited.

At this point, I feel like I am working on two projects. One is to create a whole host of creative combinations of muffins. And two is to perfect the muffin mixture itself. That means, I am really looking for the perfect base. Things I could universally change about them all to make them each individually better. One of the things that I discovered with this batch was that the addition of a teaspoon of baking powder makes a huge difference. I am eager to go back and work on the other flavors I have already done to see what a difference it makes. It’s amazing how something so small and subtle can make such a huge difference.

Each week, I build on the previous week and each week am rewarded by the evolution of the muffin. This combination of ingredients absolutely shined. Not only in terms of the flavor profile, but texturally. They were incredibly light with splashes of texture from the mixed in shredded coconut, bits of pineapple and walnut. The strongest, yet not overpowering flavor was pineapple, the coconut was very subtle. They reminded me of pineapple upside down cake.

One of my friends thanked me for the cupcakes. Naturally, I got indignant and thought, “these are not cupcakes! No, these are muffins!” But as soon as I thought about it, I wondered. What really is the difference between a muffin and a cupcake. Does it really just come down to frosting? Yes, no and maybe. If you were to throw frosting on these babies and present them to someone as a cupcake, they would not bat an eye. There are differences in the amount of flour used in a normal muffin vs. normal cupcake (normal meaning Gluten) and that is about it, with cupcakes having less. Bake time and temperature is also different.

I tend to think that the type of muffins I desire are very different than the type of cupcakes. While a banana ginger muffin sounds great, a banana ginger cupcake sounds odd. If I am going to include chocolate in the game, I would never lie to myself and say there is ANY difference between a chocolate muffin vs. chocolate cupcake except the frosting. You don’t get back much in the way of health benefits on that just by calling it something different.

I basically feel that muffins and cupcakes are on a related spectrum and they can be more closely related or not depending on what is included in each. And frosting, frosting I think is the biggest delineation between the two. Whatever their differences, these muffins were delicious and brought up the idea of a pineapple upside down cake, without having to sacrifice its healthiness and heartiness that you want out of a good muffin at breakfast.

Gluten Free Coconut Pineapple Walnut Muffins

Ingredients

1 can pineapple chunks or crushed
½ cup almond milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup butter
½ cup light brown sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar
1 ⅓ cups brown rice flour
⅔ cups garbanzo bean flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp lime zest
¼ cup shredded coconut, plus more for sprinkling
¼ cup walnuts, finely chopped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 and line with parchment cups/grease 2 muffin pans (12 muffins). In a food processor, mix together the pineapple, almond milk and butter. Mix in the two types of brown sugar and vanilla and mix until incorporated.

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients including the 1/4 cup shredded coconut and 1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts until incorporated. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir to combine.

Scoop about 1/4 cup of muffin mix into the muffin pans, making 9-12 muffins. Sprinkle the muffins with shredded coconut and bake until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted, about 25-27 minutes.

* I was thinking an interesting substitute would be coconut oil instead of butter. Not tested, but probably would work excellent.

I have a goal in life. Well, not just one goal but a small goal regarding cooking and recipe creation. I want to make something that impresses the Baker. Sure I can impress my mom, maybe my sister and perhaps a gaggle of friends on occasion, but it is a much harder thing to impress someone who is routinely surrounded by the best food you can get your hands on. Like is one thing, impress is another. I am sure he has liked at least some of the things I have cooked, but been impressed by, blown away by, running home to recreate over and over again? Not quite yet. Someday I will accomplish that. Until then, I am just going to work at it and create dishes and hopefully come up with enough good ones that I can make a cookbook out of them. Ha, right. Dreams are what they are…

On Friday, I was hankering for some lentils. Lentils are something I have not spent any time cooking, but definitely enjoy. When I bought a few bags of lentils at the co-op I was sort of wondering what the heck I was thinking. All I knew was that I wanted Lentils, Bacon and Sweet Potato. The combo sounded delicious. I poured over a bunch of recipes for ideas and technique, but found nothing exactly like what I was looking for. There are plenty of Lentil Bacon Salads, but I wanted something warm and warming.

While this recipe may not have taken down my small goal, it was pretty delicious.

Lentils with Bacon and Sweet Potato

Ingredients:

1.5 cups french lentils
1 large sweet potato, diced
water
1 onion , halved
1 carrot, halved
7 pieces bacon, cut into thin strips
½ tbsp. olive oil
½ cup red onion, diced
½ cup carrot, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt
4 tbsp. whole grain mustard
1 ½ tbsp. red wine vinegar

Directions:

Place lentils, halved carrot and onion and sweet potato in a medium pot and cover with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil, reduce and simmer until the lentils are cooked. Turn off heat, add a dash of salt. Remove carrot and onion.

Meanwhile in a large skillet before turning on the heat, place the bacon and the olive oil in the pan. Raise heat and cook bacon. Add diced carrots and onions and cook for 3-5 minutes, until slightly tender. Add a dash of salt and the garlic.

Drain lentils and add to skillet, tossing to coat (gently). Turn off heat. Add mustard and red wine vinegar. Adjust seasoning.

Bread attempts

I am not really the type of person to wish to change circumstances that cannot be or wish things away that simply cannot be wished away. It is futile and a great waste of energy. I change or work for change in things I have control over and celebrate the parts of life that simply are what they are good or bad. No resistance, no stress.

There is one thing though I would change. Ok, actually it’s two things. I wish I could eat gluten and I wish I could eat eggs. There is no oh poor me involved in this. I eat these things, I don’t feel good. It is a fact of life, one which would be nice to be able to change. People with food intolerance, allergies and diseases like Chrons/Celiac are not doing happy dances when they get their diagnoses I assure you. As much as you can become happy and ok with it, it is not something you’d wish on anyone.

There are a few brilliant individuals such as Karina and Shauna and bakeries such as BabyCakes (NYC/LA) and Flying Apron (Seattle) who are making great strides in creating gluten-free friendly recipes of the things people commonly have to cut out of their diets when they have gluten intolerance and Celiac. It is awesome what they are doing. Goodness knows, I appreciate it when I need a baked goods fix. I have also started to develop gluten free, egg-free recipes of my own that I would some day love to share in a cookbook or bakery.

I think my biggest problem is that I am not really a baked good person in general. You would think that would make being gluten intolerant easier and it does, but the problem is when I do crave a baked good there are some that just cannot be mimicked in a gluten free style. Cookies, cupcakes, even most morning pastries but not bread. The thing I often crave the most is a big hunk of crusty bread straight out of the oven. In my adult life, I have never been much of a consumer of bread on a daily basis, or even consistently of grains. I just prefer veggies and fruit to grains. But there are some days when I can think of nothing more than a hunk of bread with butter melting over it.

Last week was one of those weeks. I wanted bread. I wanted a sandwich. I wanted crusty, flaky warm bread straight out of the oven. And I didn’t want to suffer for it. And so, I decided to try my hand at baking on. I consulted many sources but each had something I could not use or work with. One has eggs, another uses a breadmaker and provides no alternate instructions. Each had something I would tweak or change. And so I decided to do that.

I developed a gluten free, egg free crusty bread in my brand new 5 1/2 quart Le Creuset, consulted with the Baker about a few techniques and on Friday baked off my first batch. Fresh out of the oven (after cooling), it had a great outside crunch, the inside was what I would expect of a gluten free loaf- slightly dense, but yes! it had some lift and stretchy bubbles. However, it also had a slightly metallic taste which I had just suggested be worked out of another gluten free recipe that the Baker had me try. The metallic taste comes from the egg replacer which would easily be remedied if I had the luxury of being able to eat eggs. Eggs are a good “cheat” in gluten free baking. The loaf was not bad, in fact, it was probably a revelation in terms of gluten free bread baking. But it was not what I wanted. I will continue to develop the recipe and see if I can create something crave worthy. It is a start and I am intrigued.

Condiment Party

Part of the hope in baking the bread on Friday was that I would have a nice loaf of bread that I could put my hot dogs on for our Super Bowl Sunday party. We decided to throw a Super not Superbowl Party, which eventually became just a Super Superbowl Party. The requirements for coming were to bring a beverage and a homemade condiment. The Baker made buns and we cooked up some great tasting dogs. The day before the big game, we spent a few hours in the kitchen making Maple Baked Beans, Chipotle Ketchup, Roasted Peppers, Caramelized Onions and Spicy Mustard.

Best hog dog buns anyone had ever tasted.

Hot dogs braised in white wine, onions and cloves.

Maple Glazed Beans. Cooked for 6 hours. YUM!

The party was awesome and the party-goers absolutely surprised and delighted me in the level in which they got into making condiments. They showed some great creativity. We had a few types of ketchup, honey mustard, sprouted mung bean relish, spicy thai relish, wasabi mayo, guacamole, tomatillo salsa, sauerkraut, cream cheese. You name it, we had it. It was really fascinating to watch the combination and methods that people chose in getting a maximum number of condiments on their dogs or plates. People had a great time and I was really blessed to have such a great group of people bless my home with their presence and my kitchen with their great dishes!