Healthy Yogurt Muffins

So after playing around with a cake mix, I wanted to play around with some recipes. People always say that cake mixes aren't the time savers they claim to be, that from scratch can be just as fast. So I thought I'd see--plus I wanted to try using the mini donut pan I bought! I have two cookbooks with lemon yogurt muffin recipes--very different approaches, though both claim to be healthy and low calorie. At first I'd planned on a half batch of each, but ended up accidentally adding too much at one point of yogurt, so ended up with full batches.

Lime-Pomegranate Yogurt Muffins

Ingredients:

1 c whole wheat bread flour
1 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
`1/4 c granulated sugar
3 tbs light butter
1/3 c egg subsitiute
1 c fat free pomegranate Greek style yogurt
2 limes juiced and zested

Glaze

1 lime juice and zest
confectioners sugar

 The butter and sugar are creamed together, then the egg, yogurt, lime juice, apple sauce, and lime zest are added. In another bowl, the dry ingredients are sifted together and then quickly added to the moist ingredients. This makes a pretty thick batter--more like a dough. Which was pretty hard to get into the donut tin.These bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Since they aren't very sweet, I dipped them in a little lime juice and powdered sugar.

Verdict: In making this, I used up the leftovers of the substitutions I'd used in the cake mix experimentation, so it was a little off from the original. I did think it was a little doughy and heavy--the wheat made it taste "healthy" not in a good way. It is very muffiny--heavy not light, and didn't work well in the donut mold.

Lemon Cornmeal Muffins

Ingredients:

3/4 c granulated sugar
1/4 c light butter
1/4 c egg substitute
lemon juice and zest from one lemon
1/4 c lite coconut milk
1 c all purpose flour
1/4 c cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 c non-fate light lemon yogurt
1/2 c mixed berries
leftover blueberry lemon compote

Beat the wet ingredients together in a large bowl. In a different bowl mix the dry ingredients--I followed the recipe exactly, except I added the salt--it seems baking needs some salt. Then quickly combine the two, being careful not to overbeat. This is a much looser batter--and I poured it in a bag so I could better distribute it into the donut pan. It is important not to overfill the pan, so I put a bit in each and baked them for 12 minutes.


They cook fast, so keep an eye on it. The donuts are really small, so this made 46 mini donuts--some of which I added fruit to, some I added sauce, and some I did plain. I also topped some with leftover blueberry lemon compote after cooking.

The Verdict: These worked perfectly in the pan, turned out light and airy, with just a bit of a crunch from the cornmeal. Whether plain or with berries, they are tart and delicious. There is only one downside to these, they are small so it is easy to turn around and discover you've eaten 10. The good thing is that is still fewer calories than a large bakery muffin. This is a recipe I'd make again and again--the very best baked good I've made all weekend long!

My Moroccan Mains: Chicken Tagine with Maximum Yumminess

So about a month ago I found some bags of meyer lemons at WalMart and decided to make something I'd never had before--preserved lemons. Today is the culmination of that experiment, in which I made an elaborate tagine to highlight the lemons and the flavors of Morocco. I was inspired by Claudia Roden's book Arabesque, which I checked out of the library, though I may have to buy my own copy! I made 5 recipes from this one book, in one weekend--this has to be a sign of a book I should have in my collection.

Ingredients:

1 tbs olive oil
2 onions
3-4 cloves of garlic
pinch saffron thread
1/2 tsp ground ginger
4 chicken thighs, 1 chicken breast
salt and pepper
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tbs chopped cilantro
2 tbs chopped flat leaf parsley
Peel of 1 1/2 preserved lemons
18 kalamata olives
1 tsp harrisa paste
12 oz artichoke hearts

I cooked this up in my dutch oven from start to finish, so while any dish I have to start thinking about a month before hand is elaborate to me, this actually could be a one pot meal! The first step is to chop the onions really fine and saute them in a tablespoon of oil heated up in the pan until they soften. Then grate the garlic and add it, the ginger, and the saffron to the pot.

 I went to four stores looking for saffron--though actually all but one had saffron. I just couldn't spend 18$ on a bottle, so I kept looking. I ended up spending 10$, but it was the cheapest I could find. And that 10$ buys this teeny little baggy, so small! It does give a nice yellow color and an indescribable flavor that apparently can't be duplicated. The chicken goes on top of the onions and is generously seasoned with salt and pepper. Then about a cup and a half of water is added and the pot simmers for 15 minutes covered. I turned the chicken once and checked to add some more water if it dries out. At this point I remembered the harissa and added it--though it should have gone in at the beginning.

While that simmers away, I got out the preserved lemons, and the rest of the add ins. While I made the lemons for this dish, I've already used them, and may actually make another jar before citrus season is over. They are just that good--I could eat them plain, on veggies, with eggs, with fish. I thinly sliced them, rough chopped the olives (I prefer a little of the olives through out), chopped the parsley and cilantro, and juiced the lemon.



After 15 minutes simmering, I pulled out the chicken breast and let the thighs cook for another 25 minutes. At that point, I added in the artichoke and the fresh herbs, olives, preserved lemon and lemon juice and returned the breast to the pan. That cooked for another 15 minutes--I did take out the chicken and let the sauce reduce some more.

I served it with a cucumber yogurt salad and a spinach preserved lemon salad, and a little bread.

 The Verdict: Lemony, savory, salty goodness--this has just a hint of heat and is not the flavor profile I would have thought from my last tagine. I love the onions and artichokes, the tender thighs, and the sweet salty bite of the lemon. The breasts were a bit over cooked--in the future I would just do thighs or just breasts--though I think the ability to cook the darker meat longer helps develop the flavors. It went really well with the spinach and just a crust or two of fresh bread.

Two Moroccan Side Salads

Since I didn't want to go with couscous for my tagine, I decided to make a couple of salads to go with my chicken. One is a traditional cucumber yogurt dish made all over the Mediterranean; the other is a spinach and preserved lemon delight from the chapter on Morocco in my cookbook.

Cucumber Salad:

Ingredients:
2 large cucumbers
Greek Yogurt
garlic
dried mint

Peel and chop the cucumber into half moon shapes, then lightly salt them and let some of the liquid drain. Then mix about 2/3 c of yogurt with 3/4 tsp mint, two cloves of garlic grated, and a dash of lemon zest.

Dry off the cucumbers, and add them to the yogurt mixture. Refrigerate if not serving right away. You may want to add a little salt.

Verdict: A good accompaniment to any hearty or spicy dish. Can be made with dill as well for a more Greek flavor.





Spinach Salad with Preserved Lemon and Olives

Ingredients:
2 lbs fresh Spinach
3 cloves of garlic
1/4 c chopped olives
preserved lemon chopped

The recipe calls for the fresh stuff, but I want to try with frozen because it is cheaper and doesn't take so long! Anyway--the spinach is wilted in a giant pot, then it is well drained and dried. Then in the same pot, I sauteed the garlic with cooking spray. Once that had some color, the spinach is returned to the pan with the garlic, the chopped olives and preserved lemons. That is cooked for about a minute or so. It can be served hot or cold.

 The Verdict: This is unbelievably good--I would eat it alone all day. In fact the original recipe says this serves 8, but in realty this one pot could serve just me on one plate. It goes really well with the chicken tagine.

Blueberry Lemon Compote

So I decided to make more cheesecake cupcakes to use up the last of my yogurt, and because the first batch was so good I wanted more! This time I wanted to amp up the fruit flavor, so rather than just putting frozen blueberries in, like I did last time, I wanted to make a sauce or compote to go in and on top. This is pretty simple, but the flavors pop a lot more than simple frozen blueberries.This is my first time making something like this--though it is similar to making cranberry sauce, just less sugar and less cooking time.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 c sugar or 2 tablespoons stevia baking blend
2 teas cornstarch 
juice and zest from one lemon


I put the frozen blueberries in a small sauce pan, zested and juiced the lemon over them, and sprinkled on the sugar substitute.

This cooks over medium heat until the berries defrost and some of juice from the berries comes out. I drained the juice and whisked in the cornstarch and re-added it to the berries. This cooks for a while to thicken the sauce and for the berries to soften more. Once it has cooked down for a few minutes, I used the immersion blender to puree it

The Verdict: The lemon really brightens up the blueberries and makes it tart and delicious. Since I used meyer lemons it is particularly sweet, without too much sour. I put some in the cheesecakes before cooking them and then topped each one with a generous dollop before eating it. I also used it in my breakfast bowls for flavor. It didn't make enough in my opinion, because I just keep eating it in different things. I think it would be good with yogurt, on ice cream, or as a topping for pound cake. I will be making this again!

Sugar Cookie Cook Off--America's Test Kitchen Light

One of my all time favorite Christmas cookies is the sugar cookie, but I've had mixed luck with making them. I prefer a soft cookie, not a crispy or crunchy one. So when I volunteered to make cookies for a cousins' party I knew I would have to find a recipe that would work and not embarrass myself by bringing. Since the party is in a couple of weeks, I figured I'd test them on my coworkers and hopefully and redeem my cookie making skills after my last disaster!

So I'm making two different recipes to see which will work--if neither do I'll have to keep trying! I picked one from my America's Test Kitchen Light cookbook (one I actually already owned, and didn't get at the library,) and one from Midcentury Menu. I figure after I killed the snowball cookies, I need to do one right. Plus both recipes are for a lemon sugar cookie, one of my favorite flavors!

America's Test Kitchen light sugar cookies
3/4 c all purpose flour
1/2 cup cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
5 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/3 c  sugar
1 large egg lightly beaten
1 tsp vanila
2 tsp lemon zest


If you've ever read anything put out by America's Test Kitchen, you'll know that they are very particular about the way their recipes are followed. They do not encourage experimentation, since they've already done all of the testing to figure out what they believe is best. Plus, as we all know, my weakness is when I don't follow the recipe exactly--so this time I was determined to do exactly as it says. I even had four different people at WalMart help me find cake flour--five if you count my sister who I called on the phone to ask about cake flour, and my other sister who tracked me down when they found it and I'd wandered off to look for butter.

 First whisk the dry ingredients together--flours, baking powder, and salt. Next cream a cup of sugar with the butter--I struggled with this step. The opposite of my last cookie making problem, there was a lot of sugar to butter ratio. Also, I broke the beater attachments to my beater a while ago, so I just have a whisk and dough hook. The directions say to beat it for 3-5 minutes until light and fluffy. I'm not sure what that looks like. But I whisked and stirred the butter and sugar and then added an egg, lightly beaten with 2 teaspoons of lemon zest and one teaspoon of vanilla. Turns out the recipe called for a tablespoon of vanilla, but since I added the lemon zest (which was a suggested alternative) I figure it is ok that I didn't get the right amount in. Though the less liquid might explain why the dough was a little crumbly.

 I wrapped the dough up and refrigerated it for a day, let it come to room temperature and then rolled it out. Since these were supposed to be alien cookies, I couldn't use my one cookie cutter, instead using a glass to make circles. The cookies baked at 345 for 8 minutes. They all should have been the same size, but this first batch was very inconsistent. On the first tray the cookies spread out and were thin and large, but as I continued to roll out and shape and cut the scraps the dough became overworked and they didn't spread as much. It was interesting to see how different the first cookies from this batch were from the last ones.

 I frosted the cookies with a very simple royal icing I found in one of my books, a standard recipe that I had all of the ingredients on hand. Basically, 2 egg whites, 3 cups of powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons lemon juice, and a little green and yellow food coloring. They were all frosted and when the royal icing hardened, I drew aliens on them with a bottle of sparkly icing.

The Verdict: This is a temperamental cookie and it probably would be really different if I hadn't refrigerated the dough. When the cookies first came out of the oven, they were chewy and almost crispy, with some having a clearly overworked texture. However, after being stored overnight with the other cookies I made (which were softer) they softened, and after being iced they were even softer still. So when they were served, several days after they were cooked, they tasted better than right after they were pulled out of the oven. Also, even though they are a "light" cookie, they are not really that much more healthy than other sugar cookies. This might be a good cookie for those who prefer a crispy or chewy sugar cookie, but I am a soft or cakey cookie girl!

Baba Ghanoush

 For my work holiday party, I made a trio of dips as part of my cooking explosion. I was inspired by a recipe out of my Hungry Girl cookbook, but I wanted to do a more traditional dip. In the cook book it calls it eggplant goo, but I think that is less appetizing than baba ghanoush. For a more traditional flavor combination, and using what I have, I used sesame oil and roasted eggplant, lemon, and salt and pepper, with a healthy amount of cayenne. 

 Ingredients:
2 medium eggplants
1-2 tsp sesame oil
juice from 1 lemon
salt and pepper and cayenne to taste.

One of the things I like about dips is that they are flexible--a little of this, a dash of that, and if you make a mistake you just adjust until it tastes good! The hardest part of this is getting the eggplant right--I roasted it in the oven, but when I took it out it wasn't quite done--so I sliced it and roasted it some more.

 After the eggplant was finally cooked enough, the skin easily peeled off with my hands. Then I rough chopped it, put it in a blender and added the sesame oil and the lemon. After pulsing a few times, I added salt and pepper and cayenne to taste.  
The Verdict: This is a healthier option than hummus and goes well with veggies, pita, or even on a sandwich. Add different flavors and even try grilling the eggplant for a smokey flavor. It wasn't the most popular dip at the party, but eggplant is sometimes an acquired taste, and we had a high food to people ratio. (there may have been more types of dip than people)

5 oriental eggplants

Sesame oil, with or without cayenne

2 lemons

Good olive oil

Parsley/fresh herbs – garnish

Black olives — garnish

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