One Small Step In Cooking, One Giant Leap For Me

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day holiday!

My Mom and brother’s visit was just what the doctor ordered. I’ve had so much family time within these past couple weeks, but in the best way possible. Sorry Skype, you’re fantastic for what you are, but you just can’t beat in-person time with loved ones. We did everything from lounging and watching movies, to going to Disneyland (shocker there, I know), to hanging around Venice Beach. Resulting from my “Squirrel” post, the muffins were a success!

Those are actually mine and they were delicious! I followed the recipe as listed in a previous post – the only thing that I left out was the thin-skinned orange. There was already so much going on that I thought orange might be a bit too much for me. All of the elements were delicious and one part didn’t overpower the other. It looks like a lot when you’re putting the batch together, but all parts go together quite nicely! 🙂

Hold onto your seats, because I also got adventurous and made these fruit pops!:

Putting the pops together

Ready for freezing

Muffins and popsicles within the same weekend – watch out! 😉 Really though, they were the perfect treat to end the holiday weekend with. The fruit I included were kiwi (1, peeled and sliced into quarters), blueberries (2 handfuls, sliced in halves), raspberries (2 handfuls, sliced in halves) , and a peach (1, chopped). The juice I used to fill up the containers with was white grape – so good and refreshing! I bought the Jelly Belly ice pop containers and once I filled them up with all of the fruit and juice, I put them in the freezer for 6 hours and they were ready to go (all ingredients I combined to make 8 pops).

I foresee myself making many more fun concoctions as the Summer goes on, they’re just so tasty and easy to make/freeze!

What are some fun Summer treats that you like to make?

Muffins and Popsicles

A few posts ago, I mentioned how one of my new missions is to start cooking healthy, respectable meals. In need of a bit of a getaway, my Mom and brother are coming into town for the long weekend (yay!), since its one of the biggest pre-Summer holidays – Memorial Day. Over the past couple weeks I’ve been ironing out a loose agenda: 1. Because I’m most definitely a Type A personality, and 2. So we can have some sort of an idea as to what we’ll be doing each day. I’m very proud that I haven’t been overly anal about the details, just a general “in the morning we can do this and in the afternoon at some point we can do that.”

As a little “Welcome-to-your home-away-from-home” type gesture, I’m going to make muffins! I know I’m starting small, but hey, a start is a start, right? Right!

Not only are they muffins, but they’re going to be decently healthy muffins – I love killing 2 birds with 1 stone! Behold, the vegetable and fruit-infused Oat Bran muffin:

Copyright 2012 MyRecipes.com, by Laurie Herr, Becky Luigart-Stayner; Fonda Shaia

Ta-da! Here is the recipe from 2002’s Cooking Light:

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour $
• 1 3/4 cups oat bran
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup nonfat dry milk
• 1/4 cup flaxseed
• 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups shredded carrot $
• 2 cups chopped Granny Smith apple $
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup fat-free milk $
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 large egg whites
• 1 thin-skinned orange, unpeeled and quartered $
• Cooking spray $

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flours and the next 8 ingredients (all-purpose flour through salt) in a large bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Stir in carrot, apple, and raisins.
3. Combine milk, oil, vanilla, egg whites, and orange in a blender or food processor; process until smooth. Make a well in center of flour mixture; add milk mixture; stir just until moist.
4. Spoon 3 tablespoons batter into each of 28 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Bake in batches at 375° for 20 minutes or until muffins are browned and spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove the muffins from pans immediately, and place on a wire rack.

I’m also going to be trying some Summer Fruit Popsicles. I’ll post pictures after I’m done baking/freezing so we can see how these bad boys turn out.

Is anyone else trying some new recipes for the upcoming holiday weekend?