Apricot Stilton Cheese Muffins (recipe & tips)

Apricot White Stilton Muffins

My Facebook friends know that earlier in the week I returned home with a hunk of apricot stilton cheese. They are aware that not long after arriving in my kitchen, I united cheese with cracker and called it good. What they are about to learn is that when I spied the stilton in the 1/2 off bin, I saw the opportunity to concoct a muffin that married the flavors of cheese and fruit.

Here’s what I came up with, using this Pioneer Woman recipe as a guide.

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Don't be fooled by the holly paper: I made these muffins today. Of course they would be a lovely holiday treat but they would also sport up a Superbowl Buffet.

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Apricot Stilton Cheese Muffins

Ingredients

crumbled apricot white stilton cheese

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups crumbled apricot stilton cheese
½ cup sliced almonds
1 cup fat free milk
1 egg
1/4 cup melted butter

Directions

Ready to bake

Mix dry ingredients; stir in cheese. In a small bowl, whisk together egg, milk and butter. Pour milk mixture into dry ingredients and stir until just moistened (batter should be lumpy). Bake in greased muffin tins (or hey, use up leftover paper cups from holiday baking, like I did) at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Yields one dozen yummy muffins.

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Just out of the oven

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Tips for turning out excellent muffins

First, gather all ingredients; insert paper cups or grease the muffin tin.

Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl.

Whip liquid ingredients in a separate, smaller bowl.

Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients.

Pour the egg mixture, all at once, into the well you’ve created.

Stir only until combined, leaving some lumps. This is the main trick to tender muffins.

Bake until golden brown (usually 15-20 minutes). Take care not to over bake.

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I mixed this batter by hand for less than 45 seconds.

Note: this is not a low-fat, low calorie food. As with all things, enjoy cheese muffins in moderation.

Can an Antihistamine Keep You Hydrated?

I found myself pondering this question during the final three miles of our weekend snowshoe outing. A common use of antihistamines is to dry up runny noses, so the obvious answer is no. But wait, there’s another answer.

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An allergy sufferer with blocked nasal passages will breathe through her mouth, especially if exerting herself, while, shall we say, snowshoeing six continuous uphill miles. Breathing through one’s mouth accelerates water loss, which increases chances of dehydration.

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Below Rainbow Curve on Trail Ridge Rd, Rocky Mountain National Park

Trail Ridge Rd, Rocky Mountain National Park

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We snowshoed a little over 12 miles along the closed-in-winter portion of Trail Ridge Road.  That’s roughly 6 uphill miles of above-10,000 feet workout.

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I drank 88 ounces of water during nine of those miles, and still became dehydrated during the last three. Happily, we had additional water in the Jeep.

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Why did I drink so much water on a relatively easy climb? I failed to take my homeopathic allergy remedy with me, and though I did not begin the day dehydrated  and carried what normally would have been plenty, I apparently did most my breathing through my mouth.

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Thus my body became mildly dehydrated despite the 88 ounce water intake.

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Mounts Chapin, Chiquita & Ypsilon as seen from Trail Ridge Rd.

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So here’s a snowshoeing tip for allergy sufferers: use your ‘antihistamines’ to stay hydrated!

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For reference: the recommended daily water intake for a healthy adult is 64 ounces.

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It was calm & warm during our visit, but missing tundra snow tells the story of high winds. The continental divide is in the background.

Nature Calling…

The next time you hear your name on the wind or feel the mountains call, consider that it might be this guy.

He's not just whistling Dixie.

Image taken off Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park on 1-30-10. (that’s a lower portion of the TRR in the background)

It’s a Great Year to Grow Organic Corn!

Maybe you read this Huffington Post article highlighting the seemingly inexhaustible connections Monsanto Corporation has with the Obama administration. Perhaps you’ve seen this USDA Web site that details the levels of bio-tech (GMO) corn that has been planted in the US.

The statistics are sobering to the point of stagger. Reuters reports that in 2007, GMO crops were found on 73 percent of U.S. corn acres. Many, if not most, packaged foods contain corn products. If you eat out; if you drink soda; if you pour commercial milk on your Kellogg’s Special K, you consume GMO corn.

Nobody knows for sure how bad that is, however another Huffington Post article says a recent study links GMO corn to organ failure in rats. 

The World Seems Awash in GMO Corn

America is the world’s largest corn exporter. Late last year, the world’s third largest corn exporter, Argentina, approved genetically engineered corn.

“This strain will allow … greater diversity in the competition for seed sales of this type,” said Lorenzo Basso, (Argentine) government secretary for agriculture, ranching and fishing.

(full story here)

How can you limit your exposure to GMOs if there is no labeling law? You could buy  the 2010 Non-GMO Sourcebook. Another thing you can do is order organic corn from a trusted seed seller like the Seed Savers Exchange and grow your own.

Corn is easy to grow. It requires warm soil (60-75 degrees) to germinate and doesn’t particularly like to be transplanted, so sow it outside. Corn thrives in full sun, is pollinated by wind and requires three or four rows for optimum success. Don’t over water –corn does not like to sit in water– but do keep it moist. Get complete cultivation tips here.

The last three years, we’ve grown our corn in terraced gardens that receive full sun. Our most successful varieties to date are Hookers and Oaxacan green dent. We had marginal success with True Platinum. That lackluster harvest probably had to do with the fact of excessively hot summer days coinciding with irrigation system failures and one of our camping trips.

This year we are again growing Oaxacan green dent for cornmeal and trying a new-to-us heirloom corn: Black Aztec. The Black Aztec is a fine sweet corn that matures into a flour corn, so we are looking to have our sweet corn and grind it, too.

Field fresh corn is so good you might pick it, shuck it and eat it right in the garden. Corn on the cob freezes beautifully and makes a marvelous addition to winter soups and chili. And then there’s home ground cornmeal, which can be used in breads, pies, pizza, cookies, muffins and pancakes.

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For all these reasons, it’s a great year to grow organic corn!

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Loving the Grind: how to make your own cornmeal

Great cornmeal starts with homegrown corn. If you use organic corn, you have taken a step away from GMO-laden commercial food. It’s easy! Here’s how:

ready-to-be ground corn

Let your flour corn mature on the stalk. Pull back the husks of harvested ears then set the ears hang the ears on a line to dry, or spread them over a flat surface.  Once the kernels are dry (five to ten days, depending on your climate) they are easily removed from the cob.

Place the kernels in a shallow bowl and blow off any remaining husk. You are ready for the grind.

This coffee grinder has made lovely cornmeal for me for years.

Set on espresso and done in 2-4 cup batches, my old Braun coffee grinder hasn’t had any trouble, but please note that dent corn isn’t as hard as is Indian or flint corn. If you’re using Indian corn, you may have to get a heavy duty grinder.

Store your cornmeal in an air tight, preferably glass, container. Use as you would commercial cornmeal.

ready to use fresh ground corn meal from Oaxacan dent

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A collection of recipes using cornmeal:

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This cornbread is the result of following Daniel Koontz's recipe using my homegrown, home ground corn.

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Daniel Koontz’s Best. Cornbread. Ever.

Donalyn Ketchum’s Orange Cornmeal Cake with Currants

Hugging The Coast’s Mexican Black Bean Tart With Cornmeal Crust

Anita’s Cranberry Cornmeal Muffins

100 cornmeal recipes from The Food Network

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Oaxacan dent kernels, dried, ready to be ground

This blog entry has been entered in the Grow Your Own Roundup for January, 2010. Get more information about the GYO Roundup, and how you can enter, here.

Room Temperature for 90 Days: are the eggs edible? Egg Storage Experiment Conclusions

This morning we used the last of the backyard eggs we’d stored in lime water since October 23^rd, 2009.  A few days back —at day 89— Wonderhubby prepared himself an omelet. Here’s the thing. I’m a morning person and sometimes rise two hours before him. I’m also one of those get-up-and-eat types, whereas he likes to surf tech news before breakfast. Thus, we typically only manage to break fast together weekends.

So anyway, he made himself an omelet on day 89. I was outside when he did this. By the time I returned he’d eaten half his breakfast. Of course I asked sweetly (before whooshing away his plate and grabbing the camera without a hitch) if I might take a fast picture for this blog entry. Of course he acquiesced to my request.

Here’s that omelet. My apologies for the need to obscure the back half with toast.

Day 89 breakfast: homemade whole wheat bread and a 3-egg omelet covered in salsa

Today —day 91—  I was more organized, and asked that he use the final three storage eggs to prepare an open-face omelet.  See how luxuriously thick and colored this is? Neither photo has been colorized. The first photo is awash in strong sunlight; the second was taken on a dreary, cloudy morning using the incandescent hood lamp as illumination.  Today’s omelet was indeed a lovely golden-orange.

Day 91 breakfast: open-face 3-egg omelet still in the pan

Here’s my conclusion: the non-refrigerated lime water preservation process (detailed here) works beautifully with fresh, unwashed, backyard eggs for at least 90 days.

I plan now to reuse the lime water with a few dozen more fresh, unblemished, unwashed  backyard eggs and intend to let them sit until mid-May (around 120 days).

Organic Seeds You Can Trust

(c) Abundant Life Seeds

A number of my farming and gardening friends buy from Johnny’s Selected Seeds –and Rob Johnston is a nice guy, I admit— but I’m giving my order to Abundant Life Seeds, because while both companies have signed the Safe Seed Pledge, Johnny’s still does business with Monsanto subsidiary Seminis. (Scroll down to the letter I posted from Johnny’s in the comments section of this post for more on that.)

Meanwhile, Abundant Life sells only organic, biodynamic, sustainably grown seeds. Which means I can fall in lust with a listed variety without concern, for the seeds have been carefully produced in a sustainable way, come from open-pollinated organic stock, and that each batch was tested extensively for germination rate.

I’ve taken a little heat over the past twelve months for this anti-Monsanto GMO post, but I remain committed to growing organic foods in a sustainable fashion and am thrilled to find a seed supplier that can stand up to scrutiny. My scrutiny.

If you are similarly concerned about the quality of seed you sow, if you plan to save seeds, if you want organic seeds you can trust, please check out Abundant Life Seeds.

You say you hope to grow your own food, but don’t know where to start? Abundant Life has a terrific solution for you! Their Abundant Bounty Collection was created with you in mind. Here’s the description:

This collection offers a bounty of varieties to grow so you can enjoy the harvest, and save the seed for a continuous food supply. Perfect for the self-sufficient gardener. Grow your entire garden with the help of the Growing Your Own Food Made Easy book, and carry your homegrown produce in the reusable, food-safe Earth Sac. Our collection contains only top-quality, open-pollinated vegetable (13 packages) and herb (2 packages) varieties for seed saving and optimum nutrition. Shipped with a desiccant package to keep your seed fresh and a copy of the informative Abundant Life seed catalog.

You may also like their seed cleaning screens, the biomass stove, the desiccant packages for seed storage, the soil thermometer, and the fact that they offer a yogurt maker with glass containers rather than plastic.

My order will include these: sweet chocolate bell pepper,

(c) Abundant Life Seeds

Five-colored silverbeet Swiss chard

(c) Abundant Life Seeds

and Thelma Sanders’ sweet potato acorn squash.

(c) Abundant Life Seeds

This is as good a place as any to admit the following: I have no association or position with ALS, other than the order I plan to place nor have I been paid to review or mention this fine company. All images are theirs, and are used with permission. So. Now you know.

Long-term Egg Storage Experiment, Day 80

January 11, 2010 Update:

I pulled nine eggs out of the lime water this morning, and while rinsing them, noted that the shells looked splotchy, which gave rise to concern the eggs had been negatively affected by the lime water. However, when I cracked one into a bowl and took a whiff, all worries were squelched. I scrambled two,  and found the result colorful, tasty and fluffy. In short: excellent. Then I boiled the rest, and as you can see, this process produced hairline cracks. Actually, the photo doesn’t show it, but each boiled egg developed a  crack, which is not my experience when using fresh eggs. (I mean, usually one cracks, but not all of them. Just noting this development for whatever that is worth.) There are roughly two dozen eggs remaining in the lime water solution.

In other news: Our girls have picked up the production rate, which is filling my refrigerator with fresh eggs, thus I’ve just announced a January Egg White Sale to select customers.

See the original post (with full directions for non-refrigerated long-term egg storage) here.

Homegrown Winter Salad? That’s hot!

Grow lettuce in a space the size of your pillow!

leaf lettuce

Our area is expected to receive a foot of snow as I write; it’s early fall. (Note: This entry was originally published by Luciole Press in the Winter ’10 issue as my Organics, It’s a Balance Thing column and was written over a month ago. It is, however, snowing as I prepare this post.) The thing is, we’re more than ready for cold weather; we are, after all, living in northern Colorado where summer air can be chill and brisk and winter is eager. I enjoyed our summer garden, but have happy intentions to grow salad fixings in the greenhouse, where, with a little effort, I’ll be able to maintain a zone 10b. (see recent blog post about winter greenhouse gardening here)

Learn more about plant hardiness zones, and find yours here.

spinach

Hotboxes and coldframes are miniature greenhouses.

You may not have a greenhouse and you may not have much of a yard, however, you can grow your own salad in a homemade coldframe or hotbox that’s roughly the size of your pillow.

With a wooden fruit crate, you’re half way to lettuce. Add a ¼ inch thick clear plastic top held in place by a couple nails, and you’ve built yourself a miniature greenhouse. It’s that easy!

Detailed information and directions for building coldframes and hotboxes here.

bok choi

Coldframe, Hotbox, What’s the Difference?

A coldframe (here) is a clear-lidded bottomless box into which you plant cold hardy vegetables like those pictured (bok choi, Chinese cabbage, lettuce, spinach) for winter greens. Cold frames will be partially dug into the ground, with soil mounded around the outside to help collect and retain heat. Speaking of heat, remember to prop open the lid to your coldframe on sunny days to let out excess warmth, but be sure to close it again an hour before sunset. In northern climes, you’ll want to use thicker materials to help hold in the heat. In addition, your miniature garden will benefit if you lay an old towel or blanket over your coldframe to keep it warmer at night.

A hotbox (here) is similar, though they are generally a little larger than a pillow, are filled with fresh, straw-y manure rather than soil and are used to get an early start on the summer garden. The manure creates heat and helps seeds germinate.

Both need to face south; both are time tested and budget friendly ways to keep gardening while Old Man Sol vacations in the southern hemisphere.

Building a coldframe or hotbox from materials you have around or that can be picked up at the local Habitat ReStore (here) is an earth friendly and budget friendly way to get your salad growing this winter. If budget is less of a concern and high tech a fancy, you’ll want to check out this solar pod (here).

Chinese cabbage

Oh, to Be Wood

reaching higher, though days are short

Wood energy, according to oriental medicine, encompasses the power to expand.

thriving between rocks in a hard place

Wood energy is full of the instinctive life force to grow against all obstacles, ground, rocks, or climate changes.

sharing the light

No matter our calendar season or life season, may we each one be filled with wood energy.

This photo essay was originally published by Luciole Press.