Egg 'McMuffin'

I call these Egg 'McMuffins', but they're really more like omelette muffins, or a crustless quiche, or maybe even more like mini frittatas. 


I made these one morning for Pete and a few of his buddies a while ago when they came down for a Saturday morning in Laguna. That morning, Pete and I took an early Saturday morning stroll and walked down to the market to get some groceries for breakfast. Peter got a call on his cell phone and the next thing I heard, he was saying, "Sure, Meg's about to make breakfast- come on down!" Suddenly, my menu changed and I had to get back and throw a feast together fast! I had never made these before, but it was the easiest way to throw together a bunch of breakfasts for a bunch of boys with about NO times notice. They were such a hit that I have loved making them ever since then. This week, these little egg muffins made their debut as our St Patricks Day pots of gold :) 


Besides the fact that they are fun and fast for breakfast, they are also great because you can use ANY ingredients that you would normally like in an omelette or quiche. PLUS, they are awesome to keep in the fridge and reheat for an instant breakfast on a work morning. That's what we have been doing all week; Pete has just been loving these quick healthy little 'omelettes'. 


Recipe (for a large (6 muffin) sized muffin pan): 

• 10 Eggs
• 1 cup Skim Milk, or fat free Half & Half
• 1/2 cup shredded Cheese (I use low moisture part skim Mozzarella, but Cheddar, Gruyere, or Swish would be good too)
• Toppings (I use 2 Bell Peppers- 1 red & 1 green, 1 diced Yellow Onion, for the boys I added 8 oz. lean Sausage, I just used the veggies for Peter and I and it was great too!)
• *Optional 1/2 teaspoon Salt

Directions: 

1. (*If using sausage or bacon, cook that in your pan first.)
2. Heat some Canola oil in a sautee pan and cook your diced onion and bell peppers for a few minutes. 
3. Whisk your eggs and milk together (you can add a little salt here too. If you are using a breakfast meat though, those are usually pretty salty already; also cheese adds a little salt to it as well)
4. Spray your muffin tins with nonstick spray.
5. Divide your sauteed veggies and/or meat evenly between the muffin tins. 
6. Ladle the eggs into each muffin tin over the fillings
7. Sprinkle a little cheese on top of the egg
8. Bake at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes. 

Bake until they puff and golden on top:

Look at how beautiful and golden they get!

However, they do deflate within minutes of pulling them out of the oven. I've tried using a little baking powder whisked into the egg mixture to make them stay puffed... but that just leaves a funny taste to them. 

Nevertheless, these deflated little omelette muffins are still SO SO yummy and convenient just the way they are. 

I let these cool, then store them in the fridge in a giant ziplock bag. I've been SUPER busy with work and have had a lot of early mornings, so these are great for Pete. He just pulls one out heats it in the microwave and dabs a little tapatio on it. Instant homemade breakfast to go!

Other Ideas: 

• If you have guests staying the night, you can make these ahead of time and cover them in the fridge until the morning when you can bake them off fresh.
• You can toast a whole grain English Muffin and put one of these little egg muffins between it to make a breakfast sandwich.

Sweet Cornbread

OH MY GOODNESS! This is my favorite cornbread I've ever had! I always made boxed cornbread, but I have really, really, really been wanting to try making it from scratch. However, I have pretty high demands for cornbread; it has to be sweet, moist, it can't fall apart into dry crumbles in my hand, and it absolutely must have actual bits of corn IN it. I figured I'd have to make it a few times before I could piece together a recipe that I would approve of, but this time I got so lucky! This is my first scratch recipe of cornbread and it hit ALL the points on my checklist, and it exceeded my expectations for taste. I could eat the entire dish by myself! It tasted  kind of like that sweet corn cake that is commonly served with mexican food, but in bread form. This cornbread tastes as if that moist & buttery corn cake married sweet & soft corn bread. 


We've kind of had a couple cooler days down here in Laguna that already feel like the beginning of Fall. That always gets me so excited for cozy nights and fall baking! So I jumped on the opportunity to made a big pot of my sweet chili when Peter said that this cooler weather made him feel like chili and cornbread. This was also my big opportunity to try cornbread from scratch. If you're into sweet, moist, flavorful, perfect cornbread... this is something you might be interested in  (hehe, okay- maybe I'm biased :)


Recipe (one 8x8 baking dish): 
1 cup Flour
1 cup Cornmeal
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 stick Butter, melted
1/4 cup Milk (sometimes I'll use Fat Free Half & Half if I have it around -not like this is a healthy recipe or anything, but anytime you can swap in healthier ingredients- even the smallest choices- make a positive difference :) lots of small changes add up to make a big change.)
1 large Egg
1 can Cream Style Corn


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Mix the 6 dry ingredients in one bowl, and the four wet ingredients in another bowl. 

Dry Ingredients:

Wet Ingredients:

After your dry and wet ingredients are each mixed well, add the dry mix into the wet bowl just until combined. Do not over mix (supposedly overmixing can result in tough, dry, hardened bread). 

Pour Batter into a buttered or well oiled 8x8 baking dish: 

Bake at 400 degrees F for about 30 minutes. 

Enjoy with some meaty, sweet 'n spicy chili:

 Just look at how moist it is, and with those sweet little juicy bits of corn in it too! Mmm!

You can even make this recipe into corn muffins if you would like, but lessen the cooking time to about 18 minutes.

Cafe Latte- no expensive machine required.

So I was looking to get an espresso machine since Peter and I love coffee and love going out to get a latte or a mocha as a treat once in awhile. I was so excited about getting an espresso machine that I started researching recipes and techniques before we even got the thing! 
While I was searching the web, I came across a 'how to' page with step by step instructions on how to make homemade specialty drinks without an espresso machine! This led to more research and even YouTube videos teaching me how to do this. All I needed was a french press and a stovetop espresso brewer (both of which we already had!). If you don't have those, you can find them anywhere for around $10-20... a fraction of what an espresso machine would cost, plus a lot less storage space required (added value in our tiny little cottage).
I saved money and kitchen space and still have fresh, handmade specialty drinks in less than 5 minutes :)


I already love these drinks to begin with, but I love even more the rustic, 'pioneer' feeling of getting to make them by hand (well, plus the help of a couple gadgets- but even those pieces are classic, old fashioned tools that have been around since back in the day.)


Ingredients: 
Finely Ground Espresso Beans
Milk (I used nonfat, you can use any milk or cream that you desire)


Fun Flavored Options: 

• Some vanilla extract & a little powdered sugar dissolved into the milk to make a vanilla latte
• A couple tablespoons of French Vanilla flavored coffee creamer mixed into the milk to make a vanilla latte
• Chocolate powder or syrup to make a mocha latte. 
• Be creative! ...the possibilities are endless :)

First start your espresso on the stovetop, and set a timer to 5 minutes:

Then, fill your french press with desired amount of milk (I use about 1 cup milk for the 2 of us).

Microwave about 45 seconds to 1 minute until it is steaming and starts to froth slightly:

Load glass cylinder of steamed milk back into its french press handle. Place french press top into place. (I tilt my french press to increase the surface area of the milk while I pump it):

 Pump for about 15 seconds. This action forces air in between the protein molecules of the milk/cream, creating frothed milk. You can see how the original milk in this french press tripled in volume once I frothed it.

Steamed milk still remains in the bottom of the press, while the frothed milk sits on top:

By the time your milk is steamed and frothed, your espresso should be just about ready: 

 Fill glass half way with espresso. Then pour the steamed milk from the bottom of the french press into the espresso, and finish by pouring the frothed milk on top:

Look at that beautiful froth. So thick you can almost eat it! 

These Saturday morning lattes were enjoyed with these warm muffins made from my same banana bread recipe, and they were topped with some extra streusel topping from our crumble dessert the night before :)

Citrus-Zested Blueberry Muffins

It was my birthday this weekend, and one of the presents Peter got me was a new citrus zester! I was so excited to use it, so I took an inventory of my kitchen to see what I could create using my new zester. I had a bowl full of oranges from Grandma Joanie and a big bag of blueberries in my freezer...  perfect; orange-zested blueberry muffins! I remembered a killer-looking blueberry muffin recipe that I came across when I was browsing some recipes awhile ago. I dug out the recipe from 'Cooks Illustrated' and whittled in some room to add orange zest into the recipe. 

I thought muffins would be a great treat for Peter to take to the office in the morning and share at work. However, after he ate one for breakfast, he decided that he liked them too much and wanted to leave them... all... at home. So he asked me to make something else to send to the office so that he could keep his arsenal of blueberry muffins for breakfast this week. I guess this means it's a pretty darn good recipe. Give it a whirl:

Recipe (for a dozen regular sized muffins):

• 2 cups Blueberries
• 1 /18 cups Sugar, plus 1/3 cup sugar, plus 1 teaspoon (separated like this)
• 2 1/2 cups Flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 2 Eggs
• 3 Tablespoons melted Butter
• 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
• 1/4 cup Milk (I used nonfat but you can use any type)
• 3/4 cups low-fat Yogurt (I used Vanilla, but you can use plain or any flavor you wish; orange or blueberry might be fun to try!)
• 2 teaspoons Orange zest

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. And before you start anything else, prepare the topping that will go on the muffins later before they go into the oven. To do this, zest 1 teaspoon of orange and mix with a fork into 1/3 cup sugar until well combined and fluffy (not clumpy): 

 The sugar will lightly take on the orange color of the zest and look so beautiful and sparkly orange!

 Then bring 1 cup blueberries and 1 tsp sugar to a boil in a small saucepan:

 Stir it frequently and break up the blueberries so that all of their juices are released. Allow to simmer over medium-low heat:

 Continue to simmer and stir for about 5 minutes or so until it reduces and thickens up a bit, then remove from heat and set aside:

 While the blueberries are cooling, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl:

 In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and 1 1/8 cups sugar until smooth. Then add in the vegetable oil and and the melted butter. Mix well.

 Combine the 3/4 cup yogurt and the 1/4 cup milk.

And add the yogurt mixture and another teaspoon of orange zest into the bowl with the egg mixture: 

(Can you faintly see the speckles or orange zest in the bowl):

Stir in the remaining cup of whole blueberries into the flour mixture until well coated. 

Then gently fold the egg mixture into the flour bowl. Be careful not to over-mix these together. It's okay if some of the berries burst; they just make pretty swirls in the batter. Do not mix so much that the blueberry juice dyes all the batter, just leave it be at the 'swirl' stage.

Spray your muffin tins with a non-stick spray and fill each cup only part-way (about a shy 1/4 cup each)

Remember the sweetened blueberry 'sauce' that you made earlier? Nestle about 1 teaspoon of that mixture into the middle of each muffin:

Then finish filling each tin with the rest of the dough until the tin is full:

Then top-off with a good spoonful of the orange zested sugar on top of each muffin. 

Bake at 425 degrees F for about 16 minutes or so, until the tops puff up and get a crackled sugar top, like this: 

Let them cool for a minute before removing from pan otherwise they may pull apart.

We enjoyed ours for breakfast with fresh coffee from another one of Peter's gifts, a french press!

(Peter had his blueberry muffin AND a slice of banana bread):

Then it was a good thing Peter didn't take the rest of the muffins to work, because Mom surprised me with a morning visit and a walk on the beach...

 ...which turned into a long, fun adventure of the two of us climbing around cove after cove after cove....

 ...and each little cove was so beautiful that we had to keep climbing to see what new tide pools and secret beaches awaited us around the next point:

Possible alterations: 

• You could use lemon zest and make blueberry-lemon muffins!
• Cook's Illustrated says you can use 1 cup buttermilk instead of the mixture of 3/4 cup yogurt and 1/4 milk.
• Use fresh instead of frozen blueberries :)