What’s the difference between a cupcake and a muffin?
Honestly, I don’t know. But I do know that I can eat a muffin for breakfast without anyone (aka my husband) giving me that “Oh-no-you-shouldn’t!” hairy eyeball. You get a free pass for breakfast with a muffin. You don’t get a free pass for breakfast with a cupcake.
But even if this WERE a cupcake—and I’m not saying it is—winter is here and I need some meat on my bones in case my car crashes into a snowy ravine in the country and I end up wasting away for days on end waiting for someone to notice I went to Wal-Mart.
Wait. I don’t need to rationalize. These are muffins, not cupcakes!
These are a wonderful, moist and a bit spicy muffins that will make your heart sing. A bit of ginger, some cinnamon and a handful of coconut make it a not-your-usual-morning-cupcake-muffin. So drag out those muffin tins and bake away.
Ginger Coconut Morning Muffins
1 1/3 cups unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/3 cup unsulferated molasses
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup boiling water
1 cup sweetened, flaked coconut
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 12 muffin tins with tulip liners or other muffin cups of butter and flour 15 muffin cups.
In a small bowl, mix together flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt.
In a mixer, beat together butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time and beat until smooth. Add molasses and beat until smooth.
Boil the water and add the baking soda. Gradually add this to the butter mixture. Slowly add the flour mixture and beat until blended. Stir in coconut.
Pour batter into prepared muffin cups. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until a knife inserted into one of the muffins comes out clean.
P.S.
Don’t forget You Need This Book. Leave a comment there by the end of the day tomorrow to be included in the drawing.
People garden for vegetables, herbs and fruits. Why not condiments?
This past spring I was surprised to find a horseradish plant at my local garden center. They only had one, but I grabbed it.
Horseradish is a perennial in zones 2 through 9. In fact, it’s so hearty than the underground roots can become invasive.
Since my horseradish was only planted in the spring, I was frugal in digging up just a few roots this fall. They didn’t smell of much until I processed them.
Processing horseradish in large quantities should be done outside to avoid burning of the eyes and nasal passages. It involves peeling and then grating the roots by hand or in a food processor, adding a vinegar and water mixture to preserve the horseradish. Fresh horseradish processed this way will keep for about six weeks in the refrigerator.
Since I only had a bit of horseradish, I threw caution to the wind and processed it indoors rather than hauling my Cuisinart to the back porch. I survived unscathed.
The fresh horseradish is amazingly brisk and pungent, with a much cleaner aroma than the horseradish I buy in the stores. So far I have made a sauce for crab cakes and horseradish deviled eggs—because God knows I have plenty of eggs.
The flavor is so fabulous, I’ll never be without horseradish in my garden again. I suppose that’s especially true if it turns out to be invasive.
My feeling is that if it’s going to be unbearably cold, it might as well snow. So I was thrilled to finally have a snow day. Even at the age of *hummmm*, I can still enjoy an unscheduled snow day.
Not everyone here was happy though.
The chickens were quite put out and protested by spending the day indoors near their panel heaters. Once in a while one of the chickens would mosey up to their exit window to poke his or her head out before trying to get back in. Of course, chickens being chickens, all the other chickens had followed the leader up the ramp to also go and look out the window. All day long there were a series of collisions with one chicken trying desperately to get back into the the warm chicken coop and all the other chickens trying to see what was so interesting outside.
Snow always manages to stoke my cooking instincts as well. I get the urge to bake breads, make cakes and bake cookies. I used the threat of the possible loss of power to roast a chicken and make biscuits early in the day. Then I made more bread–just in case we needed sandwiches, you see.
Many of you who know me know that food is as much an important part of my life as gardening. In my mind they go hand-in-hand. The fresh vegetables, herbs and fruits are an important part of the table. And the garden serves as a beautiful backdrop for our family al fresco family meals in the summertime.
In the coming months I’ll be writing not only about fresh food happenings and resources in the D.C. area, but also offering menus, recipes, tips and techniques for making meals as fresh and flavorful as possible.
What’s on your plate today? The weather here is sunny and at least not frigid. I’ll continue my early spring garden cleanup and also clean and repair bird houses. The bluebirds have made their return and are already checking out the real estate. What a joy to watch over my Sunday morning coffee.
I find this one of the most anxiety-producing times of the year in the garden.
As I head outside and begin the winter cleanup, the whole summer garden thing just seems incredibly overwhelming. There’s so much to do. And I’m just one person out there. Honestly, I felt like sitting down to have a good cry about mid-afternoon. But I managed to put one foot in front of the other and actually got a good amount of tidy-up work done. Tomorrow will be more of the same.
Thank you everyone who left a comment explaining how you approach reading and leaving comments on blog posts. The cumulative input has been extremely helpful. The overall consensus is that you’ll read comments if it’s an interesting discussion. You don’t usually subscribe to comments because it clogs up your email box. And you’ll only check back to see if the author has responded if you’ve left a question. That about sums it up.
On another note, I have selected by random number generator the winner of Grocery Gardening. She’s been notified. When she responds back, I’ll announce who she is.
I went outside to re-fill the bird feeders—AGAIN. The parts of my lawn that don’t look like the frozen tundra resemble a swamp. With every step I take my foot sinks down at least an inch. Walking to the feeders I can see my path in the mud.
I also see that we lost one small ornamental tree by the driveway as well as one of my rose trellises, which succumbed to the weight of the snow.
Spring better hurry up and get here. I have a lot of work to do.
Are you sick of everyone talking about the weather? I am too, but here goes…
There is so much snow on the ground, I don’t know when it’ll all melt. On top of that, much of it has iced to the extent that moving it from one place to another requires a pick ax. Walking in the back yard to fill the bird feeders is like walking on a bumpy ice rink. There are trees and bushes that need a bit of first aid to remove partially broken branches, but I don’t dare risk skating across the ice with my pruners. Not yet anyway.
Still, there is hope. Although we’re expecting snow flurries today, the weather should warm up into the forties in the next few days, providing some melting relief.
But really, all this unrelieved WHITE is getting to me!
