Piña Colada squash muffins

So I kind of have a summer squash issue around here.. we have entirely too much of it for us to possibly use! So I decided to get creative, and here's what I came up with. After reading tons of zucchini bread recipes, I made this recipe out of what I had around the house, and it worked beautifully! Don't be afraid of cooking and baking, because if you read enough recipes, you're likely going to do just fine. Mod this recipe as you see fit. For my purposes, and for what I had around the house, it was perfect. :)

Piña Colada squash muffins with a coconut lime yogurt glaze:

2 cups self rising flour
1.5 cups shredded summer squash, any color
1 heaping cup sugar
1/4 cup softened butter
2 tbsp lime juice
2 oz vanilla greek yogurt
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup buttermilk (or make your own with an acid and milk)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together the butter and sugar until combined, then add in buttermilk, yogurt,lime juice, squash, eggs, and salt, and mix with a spoon until well combined. Then add the flour slowly until incorporated without lumps. Batter should be pretty soft. Don't bother straining the squash. Grease your muffin tin (makes 18, so I used two) and ladle the mixture 3/4 of the way up. Mine filled all the spots perfectly. I think I just got lucky with this one..

This part isn't so much tricky, as it is probably just a new concept to most folks. We are energy saving folks around here; Well, money, energy, everything saving folks, that is.. and I recently read that you can get your oven up to heat, and if you have to cook the thing you are cooking for 20 minutes or less, you can turn it off right when you put it in the oven! I was amazed, intrigued, and of course, I had to try it. It works like a charm. So I used it here. Basically, you put your muffins in, set your timer for 15 minutes. Once the timer goes off and you make your way over to the oven, you'll just turn your oven off. I then set the timer for another 10 minutes, left the oven light on to check them, and walked away. When that timer went off, I finally opened my oven to check them with a toothpick, and they were PERFECTLY done! Talk about energy savings! Plus it didn't heat up my house as much. :) Awesome tip for summer baking.

While they were in the oven, though, I made this simple glaze:

Coconut rum yogurt glaze:

1/4 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup warmed honey
6 oz greek yogurt (I used plain, but I like a tart glaze)
2 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp lime juice
1 tsp any rum (spiced is nice)

Toast the coconut on medium heat until it starts to turn golden, then take it off immediately! Mix it together with all the other ingredients until it's nice and smooth! I put about a tablespoon on top of each of my muffins, and then I licked the bowl. Hey, don't judge me.. You can do whatever you want with your leftovers.. But I suggest enjoying it. :)

Icelandic Pauses

Figured I'd bring back the poetry a bit with this one. It's also a throwback to the trip we took to Iceland last March. Everywhere I go makes an impression onto who I am becoming. Iceland is no exception.

Icelandic Pauses


I remember that night
when we landed
It was snowing like hell
You tried to pull those heavy bags,
all of them
for me
But you couldn't do it
The sidewalks were wet and icy

I remember staring out the window
into sheer nothingness
coated in a sheet of ice and snow
I remember that corrugated yellow tin building
It was so Scandinavian, so foreign
that I felt released,
tangibly intrepid

I remember the smell of sulphur
in hot showers and instant coffee
and a little box of sugar cubes in the
clear Ikea cabinets
I remember eating hamburgers and quick oats
with cinnamon and sugar
but I don't remember minding

I remember Emiliana Torrini,
the soundtrack to our trip across the moon
and other places
The black beaches near the white mountains
and I remember feeling overwhelmed
With the starkness
wanting to sink into those empty stretches of beach
and emerge when you can surf at midnight
Who would ever find me there?

I remember feeling the
Reykjavik winter winds on my face
when I looked to the sky to see stars
and instead saw the Northern Lights
I remember politics with Icelanders
and skyr and cheap cookies,
hot cocoa when it was most needed
in my life

I remember dancing in our apartment, drinking
Icelandic vodka, classy stuff,
making love on the sofa
All these things I remember
as clear as glacial ice
as clear as the nearly frozen water
that we snorkeled in
in that continental divide

We are one
you and I
and you knew from the start
we'd be nomads

The buns to end all buns

Grandiose, isn't it? These wonderful little jewels are worthy of the title and the effort it takes to make them as well. I'm a thrifty person. Ok, ok, I'm cheap. I'm okay with that. These are cheaper and tastier than what you can buy at the grocery store, plus who wouldn't be impressed when you tell them you MADE the buns?! Nobody, that's who. Anyway, you will always find that there are never enough of these in your life, so go ahead and double the recipe, freeze the dough or already baked buns, because you'll want them again.

There are only a couple tricks to these that I can think of adding here; one of which is to microwave the milk/butter (or whatever vegan alternatives you choose) in the microwave in order to get them up to temp. Start with 45 seconds or so, and then work your way up until it feels like bath water to the touch. Somewhere around 10

0 degrees. Sure, you could heat it on the stove, but it would take longer that way. Save yourself the time, and use the microwave. Another trick I use, because I'm kind of a perfectionist, is to weigh out the dough, divide it by 8 or 10 or however many buns you want to make (8-10 works for one batch) That way you get evenly sized buns and you don't have to guess about it. If you don't have a kitchen scale, no worries- Just eyeball it. And then on top I like to dust it with a little flour and a sprinkle of thyme for a beautiful rustic look. The buns in the photo are before I started doing that, so they have the more typical glazed egg-wash look. I prefer the other method, having tried both.

Here's recipe! Feel free to vegan-ize it and let me know how that goes! Should be pretty easy to just swap out the standard ingredients with vegan ones, but hey, I'm no expert!

Ingredients

1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons dry active yeast
1 cup skim milk
1 egg
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (sub some wheat flour here, it works beautifully. If you do use wheat though, try using honey instead of sugar, as they work well together.)

Optional:
1 egg + 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash
sesame seeds (optional topping)
or
a little white flour and a sprinkle of thyme


Set a side a *large* bowl that has been sprayed with cooking spray.
In a bowl, combine the sugar, salt and yeast.
In a smaller bowl, microwave the milk for 30 seconds at a time until it is about 100°F or feels like bath water.
Slowly whisk in the milk to the sugar, salt and yeast and stir until the yeast and sugar are basically dissolved (a couple of seconds).
Add the egg, butter and 1 cup of the flour and stir until there are no clumps.
Slowly add in the remaining 2 1/2 cups of flour until the dough is covered enough to start kneading with your flour covered hands or feel free to use a stand mixer!
Knead for about 3 minutes.
Transfer the dough into the bowl that you set aside earlier. Please don't try using a small bowl. It will overflow insanely if you let it.. =/
Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours until it has doubled in size.
Punch the dough down, reshape into a ball, recover, and let it rise again for another 1 hour, until it has doubled in size again.
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Weigh the dough and then divide and shape into balls, letting them rise while the oven is preheating.
Bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on how browned you like them. Enjoy with the sweet potato burgers that I'll be posting next time around! :)

"Milkshake" obsession

I knocked over 6 other glasses, two containers of soap, a teapot, and a clock to get to this tall, clear glass in the picture. Then I stepped on some sort of unknown berries that are always appearing on our deck outside to get the mint garnish. I suffered for this picture. Enjoy it.

In all seriousness, you really have to try this recipe. There are alterations GALORE, so feel free to explore, and make it your own. This is MY own favorite ever. Yes, maybe even favorite food. You know, for the time being anyway.

It's healthy, decently low calorie, a good combination of carbs, protein, and fats, and it is cheap and easy. Did I mention the taste is TO DIE FOR?? Because it is. It can also be vegan if you sub the milk for almond milk or some other substitute and you change the whey protein to soy protein. I'm pretty sure the results will still be ridiculously wonderful, any way you slice it. I am currently continually on the search for those bags of cheap, overly ripe bananas for slicing and freezing, because I'm pretty sure we go through about 10-15 bananas a week these days, between Steve and me.

I call this my "workout shake," but who am I kidding?? It's 9:00 at night, I worked out 3 hours ago, and I'm craving a snack that won't make me mad at myself later on. Enter this shake. I'm pretty sure there isn't an appliance in my house more used than my lovely Martha Stewart blue Kitchenaid blender. (Thanks, mom! :D) Anyway, here's the recipe.

Choco-peanut butter banana bliss:

118 grams (one medium) banana- chopped and frozen

2 tbsp PB 2 Chocolate (this is a wonderful product available on amazon, with 85% fewer calories and fat than peanut butter, but if you don't have it/don't want to use it then use regular peanut butter. No sweat.)

1/4 cup whey protein. I use half Bob's Red Mill whey concentrate unflavored and half my husband's cheap protein that's cookies and cream flavored. I don't like using much of his because it makes me bloated (thanks, creatine!) but a little adds something to the shake. Plain or vanilla or chocolate protein or leave it out completely if you like will also work nicely.

1 cup milk of your choice

1 tbsp flax seeds, because I'm a health nut vegetarian, and I'm sure I'm not getting enough Omega 3's. ;)

Blend the dry ingredients with the milk until smooth and then add the banana and blend until smooth and creamy. It will be just like a milkshake, thick and slurpy! Garnish however you like.. or slurp it down like a kid. ;)

Impromptu lunch

There is no picture of this yet.. I am ashamed to admit to eating it all before I could snag one, and this is, as it says an impromptu situation. There doesn't need to be a picture just yet, because trust me, there will be many repeats of this meal. This is my quintessential impromptu meal: Pad Thai. There's always SOMETHING in the house that I can throw into a sweet, saucy mix topped with fresh peanuts. Why do we always seem to have everything needed for this dish?! Oh yeah, and for chocolate chip cookies. But the reason for that one is obvious. Perhaps they are just both so very crave-able? That's my take on it anyway. It's delicious, quick, healthy, and SUPER versatile. What I had today fit perfectly. I had a shredded up head of cabbage, half an onion, a clove of garlic, some shirataki noodles (Hooray! I finally found the perfect way to use those noodles!) an egg, and about half a fresh zucchini. Whatever you have will be fine, I assure you. So you don't have cabbage? Do you have spinach or another green? Pssh, then don't worry about it! You have carrots? Throw a couple of those in there. I'm serious, it's hard to go wrong. If I had my very pick of veggies, I'd go with bok choy, onion, garlic, and an egg. But honestly, you put in it whatever good, fresh veggies you want. Let's just say you don't have the right kind of noodles- you don't have rice noodles or shirataki noodles. But maybe you have fettuccine or linguine noodles. Go ahead and use those. They make it a bit heavier, but it's really okay. I've made it with all different types of noodles, and while my favorite is actually this shirataki I just used, everything works fine. Here's the "recipe." hehe, it just feels wrong to call it that!

Impromptu Pad Thai:

Serves 2 a decent lunch:

1 8 oz package of shirataki noodles, rinsed and in warm water. Drain and dry before using
2 eggs
1/2 a zucchini- julienne cut. Or whatever.
1/2 white onion, sliced very thin
1 cup shredded cabbage
1 clove garlic, finely chopped. But I'm lazy, so I use the fine cheese shredder..
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tsp sugar
1 tbsp light flavored oil
1 dash sriracha sauce
1 dash onion powder
1 dash ginger powder, or grate a little fresh. Whatever you want.
small handful of peanuts, chopped

First off, get your ingredients out and prepped. The cooking will be really quick and you don't want to be scrambling to get something chopped up while your eggs are burning. So once everything is prepped, you'll start by scrambling your eggs. No salt, no nothing. Just scramble and remove from the pan. Set aside. Then you'll need to start your veggies to cooking. Put the onion, garlic, and zucchini in a hot pan with the oil and the rest of the seasonings. Cook it for about 4-5 minutes, and then add your noodles, making sure they are decently dried before adding them. I put in a handful of peanuts then, and stirred it all around until the noodles have soaked up a good bit of the sauce, maybe 3 more minutes. I then toss in the eggs, stir around a bit, plate it up, sprinkle with peanuts and thai basil (because it's in my garden) and voila! Delicious! And so quick and easy.. This will likely be a common impromptu meal of yours as well! Pictures coming, I swear!