Our house on the weekends is a veritable smorgasbord. We eat. All weekend. And we eat well. No wonder following WeightWatchers during the week isn't doing my waistline any good! Although we do try to eat healthful foods, all made from scratch and using organic and local ingredients whenever physically (and fiscally) possible (ahem, except the Nathan's hot dogs. Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do).
A bowl of lemons has resided on my kitchen table all week. They are very pretty and Tuscan-looking, but they are not being used. It doesn't help that my husband exhibits a gag reflex anytime he tastes lemon flavoring (see saturday, june 28 and the purple potatoes). I also am the proud owner of a nice little basket of local blueberries, which I purchased last week in a ridiculously overestimated quantity to make my blueberry cobbler, and which also have been sitting, waiting, just waiting to be coated in batter and sugar.
So I decided to make blueberry-lemon bread. Scott said "why not make blueberry muffins and eliminate the lemon?". We compromised. I made blueberry-lemon muffins (light on the lemon), and glazed half of them with additional sugary lemon goodness.
Here's the recipe I used, a Cooking Light recipe found on the "Oh Kitchen, What Won't You Do" blog via Google. Oh Internet, how I love thee.
Blueberry-Lemon Muffins
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch salt
1 cup blueberries
1 cup buttermilk (I used regular, it was fine)
3 tablespoons butter melted
1 tablespoon lemon zest (I used one lemon's worth)
1 large egg
Cooking Spray
Cooking Directions
1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2) Lightly mix together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in blueberries.
3) Make a well in the center and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir well.
4) Grease/spray pan and spoon in batter. Cook for approximately 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.I enjoyed this recipe, because I like corn muffins and lemon poppyseed muffins and blueberry muffins (in fact, the only muffin I don't like is chocolate), and this is like a combo of yumminess. The muffins turned our nicely - soft and crumbly, with bursts of blueberry and a very very very slight lemon flavor. Scott still grimaced, but I hold that if I hadn't revealed the addition of the lemon, he never would have known.
I also mixed together roughly equal amounts of lemon juice and superfine sugar, microwaved for 20 seconds, and poured the glaze over half the muffins, which gave them a sticky, gooey, tangy je ne se quois.
Served with an iced mocha latte, it made for a decadent and summery breakfast.
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At our wedding, we served a strawberry-poppyseed salad that still haunts my dreams. I make it at home quite often, and since poppyseed dressing is unfailingly packed with about 347 grams of fat, I've found that Ken's Lite Sweet Vidalia Onion is a perfect substitute.
Strawberry Blue-Cheese Salad
1 cup spring greens
2 large strawberries, sliced
1 Tbsp crumbled blue cheese
1 Tbsp caramelized walnuts
Ken's Lite Sweet Vidalia Onion dressing
One step: combine all ingredients and dress as you like. Eat. With Fork. Or Fingers.
And to complement the salad, a brown-sugar ham and cheddar panini, made with my fave sourdough bread.
I make this on my super-duper expensive, bells-and-whistles panini press... oh wait, no I don't. I make this on my $5-on-the-clearance-rack-at-Lowe's-miniature-George-Foreman-bright-red-grill. And it works BEAUTIFULLY!
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