Monday, January 30, 2006

Cranberry-Walnut Muffins


Muffins are great anytime of day. These will carry you through mid-morning, and to break time. OR - have them mid-morning, and they will carry you to lunch.








1 Stick Butter at Room Temperature
1 Cup Sugar
2 Eggs at room temp
½ tsp Orange extract
½ tsp Almond extract
2 Cups All Purpose flour
1 tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Baking powder
1 Cup Buttermilk
½ cup chopped or crushed walnuts
½ cup chopped dried cranberries


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time being sure they are well blended. Stir in the extracts.

Sift the dry ingredients into a separate bowl.

Add dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk until just combined. Do NOT over mix. Blend in the berries and nuts. If too dry, add more buttermilk or regular milk to get a pourable batter.

Spoon the batter into buttered muffin tins. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar over the batter. The yield here will be 12-standard muffins; 24-mini-muffins; or, 6-Texas sized muffins. Fill muffin tins to 2/3 each.

Turn oven to 400-degrees. Bake for approximately 25 minutes. Cool for 15-minutes before removing from muffin tins.
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Green Chili with Pork in Bread Bowls



A delightfully tasty meal that can be as mild or hot as you like.


2 Lbs Pork Tenderloin 3/4 inch diced
1 1/2 Cup Flour
2 TBS Powered Cumin
1 TBS Garlic powder
1 tsp Ground black pepper
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
1 Can Chicken Broth
1 Can Beef Broth
1 Can Chopped Green chilies
5-10 Slices of jalapeno or habanero peppers that have been coarsely diced
1 TBS jalapeno juice or habanero vinegar

Mix flour, cumin, garlic powder, black pepper in a zip lock bag. Add diced pork and shake so all the pork is well covered. Add vegetable oil to large pot, and bring to very hot. Add floured pork, and brown. Save the flour. Add broths to pot, and the remaining ingredients. Simmer for several hours. The heat must be VERY low, or the mix will Burn or stick to the bottom of the pan.

After an hour of simmering, mix the remaining flour with hot water, stir to make a paste, and add to the pork. Continue to simmer for another hour to have the flavors absorb into the pork mixture. This will be a very thick mixture, so be sure to keep the heat on the lowest setting possible. Add water if necessary.

Serve this in a bowl or in a bread bowl which is absolutely delicious. We made a French sourdough bread bowl recently and used that. If you bake the bread bowls in a greased chili bowl - normally 5" - 6" in diameter by 3" x 4" deep, then scoop them out - this works perfectly.

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