Lemon Berry Muffins

I read about the Lemon Berry Muffins in Penzey's Spices Spring 2010 catalog (pg 51) a while ago and had always wanted to try it. One day while I was at Harmon's visiting my credit union branch, I bought "one" wallaby organic lemon yogurt planning to try this new recipe that night. In the back of mind, I knew I was going to get into trouble when I only bought one, but the wallaby yogurt are way more expensive than any other yogurt and I had a lot of other yogurts at home (a case of them to be exact). I was not able to get to the muffing-making that night and told the kids to stay away form the lemon yogurt because I needed it to make muffins. The yogurt was in the fridge for about three days until the night I had a couple of hours of free time to make the muffins. I opened the fridge to reach for the yogurt and it was gone! Of course Roland did not get the "important message" and he just wanted to try a different flavor of yogurt that evening. I went "ballistic" (PMS for sure) and Roland had to go out to the store that night to buy a wallaby lemon yogurt. To my family members who were home that night, especially Roland, - sorry about going crazy over the lemon yogurt, but the muffins were yummy! I did not modify the recipes much - I used fresh lemon zest instead of the dry lemon peels.

Dry ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbs fresh lemon zest
1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:
1 cup lemon yogurt (I love wallaby organic yogurt)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Berries
1/8 cup flour
1 1/4 cup of fresh blueberries, cherries or raspberries, alone or mixed

Streusel Topping:
2 Tbs all purpose flour
1 tsp fresh lemon zest
3 Tbs vanilla sugar
1 Tbs cold butter

Directions:
Combined all dry ingredients and mix well in a large bowl. Mix all wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Add the wet ingredients to to dry ingredients bowl and mix until just moist. Toss barries with flour and fold into batter. Spoon into lightly greased muffin pans, fill 2/3 full.

Combine the streusel topping ingredients and cut the butter into the mixture with a fork until crumbly.  Spoon evenly over the batter in the muffin pan. 

Bake 375F for 20-22 minutes or until golden.

Recipe from: http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/recipes/r-penzeysLemonBerryMuffins.html

Lamb Chunk With Olives

On the last Saturday of March, I went to clean the church building with our church young women organization. My job was to vacuum the east wing of our building and I was enjoying my vacuum assignment. The vacuum tipped over when I was switcing to a different outlet to be able to vacuum a new area. As I reach down to pick up the vacuum, my back went into a spasm. I managed to stand straight, and without anymore bending, carefully and slowly finished the vacuuming. I tried to be very careful with my back but by the early evening, I was not able to do much except to lay straight on my back. This is really a problem since you have to move sometimes especially when nature calls. Well, I could not move at all without triggering the spasm again and again. Needless to say, I was not able to go to church or do much of anything on Sunday. I sat on the couch, in an un-natural and uncomfortably straight position, running our "Kneading Fingers 2000" nonstop. I couldn't even put socks on my feet when my toes got cold. When I asked Cassidy for help, she kneeled down in front of me and said "yes, mother queen!" just to be funny. Anyway, to take my mind off the pain and suffering, I watched channel 11-3 Create TV all day. And here is an interesting dish from Lidia's Italy to share with you. It is different but a very flavorful dish. My kids loved it.

Ingredients:
3 1/2 pounds boneless lamb shoulder or leg

2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

7 plump garlic cloves, crushed and peeled
1/2 teaspoon peperoncino flakes, or to taste

2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, stripped from the branch
1 cup white wine

2 tablespoons red- wine vinegar

1 1/2 cups brine- cured green Italian olives or oil- cured black Italian olives, crushed and pitted

Directions:
Trim the exterior fat from the lamb shoulder or leg, and cut the meat into 2- inch pieces, removing fat and bits of cartilage as you find them. Pat the pieces dry with paper towels, and season all over with 1 teaspoon of the salt.

Pour the olive oil into the pan, and set it over medium heat. Scatter in the crushed garlic cloves and peperoncino. When the garlic is sizzling, lay in all the lamb pieces in one layer, scatter the rosemary on top, and season with the remaining teaspoon salt. When the meat starts to sizzle, cover the pan, lower the heat, and let cook gently, browning slowly and releasing its fat and juices.

After about 10 minutes, uncover the pan, turn the pieces, and move them around the pan to cook evenly, then replace the cover. Turn again in 10 minutes or so, and continue covered cooking for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the lamb is nicely browned all over and the pan juices have thickened and caramelized. If there is a lot of fat in the bottom of the pan, tilt the skillet and spoon off the fat from one side.

Stir the wine and vinegar together, and pour them into skillet, swirling them with the pan juices. Turn up the heat, bring the liquids to a boil, and cook them down quickly to form a syrupy sauce. Drop the olives into the pan, all around the lamb chunks, then cover and adjust the heat to a bubbling simmer. Cook for another 10 minutes or so, again concentrating the juices and marrying the flavors. Finally, cook uncovered for a few minutes, tumbling the meat and olives in the pan, coating them with the sauce.

Serve immediately, right from the skillet, or heap the meat chunks on a platter or in a shallow serving bowl. Spoon out any sauce and olives left in the pan and drizzle over the lamb.

Recipe from: http://lidiasitaly.com/entrees/lamb-chunks-with-olives

Lemon Buttermilk Poundcake

Kaydn's friend Parker made this poundcake for his family and it was almost legendary. Kaydn had a slice at Parker's house and talked a about it a lot. With so much positive reviews, I just had to try this recipe. The first time I made the cake, it was on a Sunday. I did a quick inventory/ingredients check and was short one egg. I sent Cassidy to borrow an egg from my neighbor Debi while I started the butter, sugar, flour, and the baking powder in the mixer. Everything went well until I started to combine the wet ingredients and read the line after 4 large eggs - 3 egg york - what?! I could not go borrow another "three" eggs and the batter was already going. I think there is nothing worse then when you are in the middle of cooking, thinking you have everything you need, and then find out that you are missing one ingredient. What do you do, especially when it was a Sunday? I looked through my fridge and decided to use 3 table spoons of plain yogurt in stead of the 3 egg york. I regrouped and finished the cake. After the cake was baked, Cassidy and Kaydn was waiting with great anticipation for the cake to cool so I could unmold it. Of course, I could not get the cake to come out of the bundt pan in one piece no matter what. Well, I was trying to teach Cassidy how to grease and flour the pan but I guessed I should have double check her work. The cake was great even though the top half was missing.

About two weeks later, I decided to give this recipe another attempt. This time we had our little Japanese exchange student Mashiro staying with us so she was helping me. I made sure that I had enough eggs, made sure the bundt pan was well greased and floured, and I was sure the cake would turn out perfect. Well, it did not.  I thought the batter looked funny after the mixing but then I thought maybe it was the difference between "3 egg york" and "3 table spoons of yogurt".  What really happened was that during my chatting and giving instructions to the Mashito, I did not put in enough flour. Of course the cake would not "unmold"; it was as good as glued to the bundt pan. We had to eat the cake right out of the pan. Surprisingly, the cake turned out delicious but quite heavy. I think Roland loved it and ate most of it.

So, after another week, I gave a third attempt.  I followed the recipe exactly and even made the lemon glaze. Finally, this cake turn out perfectly. Everyone except Cassidy were not too craze about the lemon glaze; I think there was too much glaze and made the cake a little soggy.  We may have to give it another try using less lemon glaze and make the berry compote to go with the cake. Better make the compote first before the cake since it has to sit in the refrigerate for several hours; otherwise there may not be any cake left to go with the berry compote.

All I know is that it was a lot of lemon buttermilk poundcake in one month; a lot of fat and calories to process.

Batter Ingredients:
1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

4 large eggs

3 egg yolk
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon strained lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Lemon Glaze:
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup strained lemon juice
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Berry Compote:
1 pint strawberries, rinsed, hulled and sliced
1/2 pint raspberries
1/2 pint blueberries
1/4 cup sugar

Directions:
Set a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees. Butter a 10-inch bundt pan and flour the buttered surface, shaking out the excess. Combine butter, sugar, flour and baking powder in mixer with paddle. Beat on low speed 2 minutes. Combine remaining ingredients and add to mixer in 3 additions, beating 1 minute between each addition. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour, until cake is well risen and well colored and a knife inserted between the edge and tube emerges clean. Place cake on a rack in pan. For glaze, combine water and sugar and bring to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and vanilla. Unmold cake and brush glaze evenly all over outside of cake. Cool and wrap for storage. The berry compote, combine all ingredients, cover and refrigerate several hours, serve slices of the cake with the compote.

Recipe from: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cooking-live/lemon-buttermilk-poundcake-recipe2/index.html

Boozer our puppy!

On April 25, 2008 we adopted a 2 months old Shih-Tsu, Boozer into our family. He is one of the three puppies from our next door neighbor Mark & Debi. Kaydn fall in love with Boozer the very first time he went next door to see the puppies. It took the rest of us a little longer to be converted. - 2008

I started to write about Boozer about two years ago. I think that was my second attempt to do something about the blog. My first attempt went only as far as adding two pictures to the blog; well, the pictures disappeared after I download the template that I am currently using so there is nothing show for.

I decided to finish this post because Boozer is very loved by all members of our family. Kimberly said that when she start her family someday, she will bypass all of the small pets, three guinea pigs, one bird, several fish, one bunny, multiple hamsters, and two chinchillas to be exact, and just get a dog to start with. Well, she maybe right because Boozer is definitely the best so far with a lot of personality and lots of love & kisses = licking.

Boozer looks so different now than when Kaydn first saw him, so I have included a few pictures of Boozer from 2008 to 2010. He was dark brown almost black when he was born. Now he is very light tan almost white everywhere except his face.