Blueberry Oat Muffins

I picked up a pint of blueberries on sale at the grocery store, and then two days later got more blueberries in my bag of produce from the farm co-op I joined, so I hunted through the recipe box, and found this. I was surprised that there was only one recipe for blueberry-anything in the whole box. I was also impressed to see a list of such wholesome ingredients, what with all the oleo and corn syrup called for in so many of the other recipes.

I like them. My daughter liked them enough to eat two. They definitely taste like health-food muffins... in a good way. Of course, with the whole wheat flour and oat bran, the consistency is not as light as with white flour, but they did rise nicely, and are not dense like some muffins I've tried. They also don't have the yucky baking soda aftertaste, a problem I've had with other homemade muffins.

Next time I make them, though, I'll use clover honey. I have a big jar of honey from southwestern France (miel de Gascogne, if anyone cares), which is much more pungent than honey here, and has a very rich, distinctive flavor. It's almost overpowering in this batch of muffins, so I'll be curious to taste the difference using local honey.

Oh, and I should have removed them from the muffin pan to a cooling rack right away - I loosened them all with a knife about 2 minutes after they came out of the oven, but when I tried to take one out a few minutes later, the bottoms of the muffins were re-stuck to the pan. I grabbed the knife and a cooling rack and saved most of them, but a few ended up mangled. Oh, well.

Blueberry Oat Muffins

2 eggs - beaten
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp honey
1/4 cup buttermilk
1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour (regular or pastry)
1/2 cup oat bran or oat flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp soda
1/3 tsp salt
1 cup (6-oz container) blueberries

Beat together eggs, oil, honey & buttermilk. In another bowl, combine flour, oat bran, baking powder, soda & salt. Stir wet ingredients into dry and stir until just combined. Gently stir in blueberries.
Fill muffin cups 3/4 full (grease pan or use liners). Bake 20-25 minutes @ 350 degrees.
Makes 12 muffins.

Salmon Ball (Alcott)

Sounds kinda gross, but it's actually very good. Really, it's just salmon and cream cheese with a few flavorings blended in. Fairly simple to prepare. The recipe doesn't give an amount, but I used probably a half-cup of chopped pecans for the outer layer.

I served the salmon ball along with other finger foods at a small gathering of friends, and it was a huge hit. A couple of friends loved it so much they took some home with them to have for lunch the next day. Here's what was left of it:

That said, I think this would be even more delicious with fresh cooked salmon instead of canned. I plan to give it another go soon. I'll buy a little more than a pound and bake it in the oven. It will also be easier to remove skin and bones from fresh salmon. That was actually a huge pain with the canned salmon, now that I think about it. The canned salmon included both skin and bones, and it was pretty tedious picking it all out. Worst of all, I couldn't get the salmon stench off my skin. My fingers still reeked of fish the next day, after a shower and everything. So yeah, I'll make this again, for sure, but with fresh salmon instead of canned.

Give it a try!
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Salmon Ball

1 lb. can red salmon - flake and take out bone
8-oz. pkg. Philadelphia cream cheese
2 tsp horseradish
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 tsp liquid smoke
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp grated onion
extra pecans to roll ball in

Mix all together and let sit overnight. Roll into ball, then roll in chopped pecans.

Banana Tea Bread (Win.)

Well, I hadn't yet considered what to do with recipes I don't care for. I suppose I've been fortunate that the first several have been delicious.

This recipe is a perfect example of why I don't like anyone else's banana bread but my mom's.

With a name like "tea bread," I expected it to be drier and less sweet than most sweet breads, and I was right, but it was also rather bland.

I even brewed a proper cup of PG tips tea to go with my slice of tea bread. The tea helped to wash it down, but I just didn't much enjoy eating the bread, even when it was still warm from the oven.

So why am I including it here? Well, because my mission is to prepare the recipes in the yellow box. Also, it wasn't horrible. Some people may prefer the drier consistency and more subtle flavor, but I prefer sweet breads that are moist and rich with flavor, probably because that's what I grew up with. My mom's recipe is loaded with sugar and oil, as well as cinnamon and vanilla and pecans. I've never had better, and don't expect to find better, but maybe this box has other recipes that are equally good.

Next!
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Banana Tea Bread 
by Win.

1-3/4 cups sifted flour
2 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 cup (2-3) mashed bananas

Sift together flour, baking powder, soda, & salt.
[In a separate bowl] beat shortening until creamy. Add sugar gradually and continue beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat well.
Add four mixture alternately with bananas, a small amount at a time, beating after each addition until smooth.
Turn into a well-greased bread pan (8-1/2 x 4-1/2 x 3 in.) and bake in a med. oven (350 degrees) about 1 hr. 10 min.
Makes 1 loaf.

Cream Puffs (Alice T.)

I was so pleased with this recipe. I'd never made cream puffs before. Just look how pretty these are!

I was surprised that they were fairly simple to prepare, and then they turned out so nice! When I sliced them open, they were hollow with no uncooked dough in the center.

Since there's no sugar in the recipe, I played around with both sweet and savory fillings. I made the vanilla custard filling ("pastry cream") from The Joy of Cooking, then, since I don't have the fancy thing to inject cream into pastries (I don't even know what they're called), I sliced open the cream puffs, put a dollop in the hollow top, and put it back together with the bottom. They were a big hit with the family and friends.

I also prepared some chicken salad (from Cleora's Kitchen - best ever) and that went great with the cream puffs as well. I could easily see those being served at a nice little buffet luncheon.

I have a second recipe that I want to try, just for comparison, but for taste, quality, and simplicity, these might be hard to beat.
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Cream Puffs
from Alice T.

½ cup butter
1 cup boiling water
1 cup flour
4 eggs
½ tsp salt

Bring water and butter to a boil.
Add flour all at once.
Stirring vigorously, cook until thick and smooth, with no lumps, and do not let it stick to pan.
Cool slightly.
Add eggs one at a time, beating each time until absorbed into batter.
Drop by spoonfuls on greased baking sheet - allow space for expansion.
Bake in 400° oven for 35 minutes.
If they start getting too brown, turn down the temperature for 10 minutes.
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Carol Ann's Frozen Pickles

This is the recipe that most caught my attention when I first went through the yellow box, and inspired me to prepare and share the recipes with others. I actually made this recipe before any of the others, so I'm a little delayed in typing up this description.

I had never heard of Frozen Pickles before, though I recently saw a news segment on the growing popularity of frozen pickle juice pops. But this is entirely different.

I love the simplicity of the ingredients (one of my favorite characteristics of a good recipe). If you don't mind spending a little time at the cutting board, this is a super easy and very unique savory treat.

The quantities I used may have been a little off, because I wasn't sure how many cucumbers would make two quarts, but I think it came out nicely. I bought three plump, medium-sized cucumbers at the farmer's market one Saturday. I would encourage using organic cucumbers to get the best flavor. I used a sweet Vidalia onion, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, but I have since done a little poking around on the internet and read that it's better not to use sweet onions for frozen pickles. I'll use a regular yellow onion next time. I also used Heinz white vinegar. I don't know how much taste difference there would be between Heinz and generic, but I figured I'd spluge on the extra few pennies.

What I think I like most about this recipe is how pretty it turns out!

I love the bright green of the fresh cucumbers, as opposed to the unappetizing color of regular jarred pickles.

What I'm not so sure about is how I'm supposed to serve them. I took them frozen to a family gathering at Steve's sister's house. I set them out on the counter, still frozen, but that meant that everyone had to hack away at the icy block in order to get any pickles. It was really counter-productive as a party food. Even after an hour, it was still frozen fairly solid. However, everyone thought they were good - especially Steve's sister, who ended up sitting by the bowl with a fork and scraping out the pickles to eat long after the rest of us had given up our efforts.

So the good part is that they're delicious. The problem is how best to serve them. I think the whole point is for them to be, if not completely frozen, at least icy-cold. I took the leftovers home with me and later moved the bowl to thaw out in the refrigerator, but within a few days the cucumbers had turned drab pickle-green, and I threw them out.

I'll try to figure this out next time I make them, and report back later.
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2 quarts cucumbers, sliced very thin
3 medium onions, sliced very thin
2 teaspoons salt

Mix well and let stand in refrigerator for two hours. Drain well but do not rinse. Heat 1-1/2 cups sugar and 1/2 cup vinegar until sugar is dissolved. Cool. Pour over drained cucumbers. Juice should cover. Freeze in freezer bags or freezer containers.
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Pattie Wheeler's Night Before Coffee Cake

This is exactly how I love my coffee cake!

Cinnamony-sweet and just moist enough not to gunk up in the roof of your mouth, with an awesome crumbly topping.

I don't care for coffee cakes that are bland in the cake part and only sweet in the topping, nor do I like them so dry that you practically need a sip of coffee just to get it down your throat. I mean, really, this coffee cake is just right.

My alterations for this recipe: I used butter instead of margarine, and I substituted for the buttermilk with a tablespoon of white vinegar plus enough milk to make 1 cup (let it sit 5 minutes before using).

Of the three filling options, I used 1/2 cup of nuts (fresh shelled pecans - the best!). I am not a big fan of raisins, though I would consider trying it with dates.

SIDE NOTE: Dates are listed as an ingredient in so many of these recipes! Maybe this blog will bring them back in style. I just wish my grandmother didn't have a wheat allergy so she could taste more of these treats. She says she's always known about the allergy, but only in the last ten years or so has she made a point of avoiding wheat, so I'm sure she was gobbling these up at the potluck parties of yore.

In any case, the one deviation I won't repeat was baking it in a bundt pan, though it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I bought myself this pan two years ago, and only used it once, when I baked Steve a birthday sour cream pound cake, of which he thoroughly enjoyed one slice for breakfast, and the rest of which my lab Gracie ate while we were gone to work. The pan disappeared into the back of the cabinet, and then into a storage box which I only recently unpacked, so I've been wanting to do another bundt cake lately. But this coffee cake recipe was not the answer. I couldn't get it loose from the pan to turn it out, so I had to leave it in and cut out slices to serve. Next time I'll stick with the regular cake pan.

Do give this a try - it is simple to make and extremely delicious!

Bar-B-Q Sauce for Pork Chops or Chicken (Aleen - 8/3/55)

Much gratitude to Aleen for this recipe dated 8/3/55!

All kinds of good stuff goes into this recipe, and it smells wonderful once it gets cooking.

I had both pork chops and chicken, so I split the sauce up and used it on both (two chops and five boneless, skinless chicken breasts). I marinated the meat in the sauce for about an hour before baking both dishes covered for an hour-and-a-half.

It was really, really, really delicious. I'm not all that experienced with culinary descriptions beyond "yum!" but I can say that this has all the flavors I like in a barbecue sauce: a little sweet but mostly spicy, and just the right zing on the spiciness. The sauce was also great on the mashed potatoes I made to go along with the meat.

Oh, woops! I forgot to take a photo. Well, it looks like any other barbecue sauce -- it's the flavor that counts here. You'll just have to try it for yourself.