.chocolate zucchini bread.

Now before you turn your nose up and close the browser, I want you to give zucchini a chance. You don't taste it and it provides not only nutrients to your bread, it makes it moist and delicious!

I've been making this recipe for years now and it's one of my favorites. I'm sure it will become one of your favorites, as well.

This recipe makes 2 loaves, or about 1 dozen large, Texas sized muffins. (Those are the kinds of muffins we made at my bakery -- we like em big!)

In a large mixing bowl, combine:


1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

In another bowl, mix together:
3 eggs, beaten
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup oil (you can substitute applesauce, if you like)
2 1/2 cups grated zucchini
1/2 bag mini chocolate chips

Dump all the wet ingredients into the dry and mix using a fork just until the dry ingredients are slightly wet. Don't overmix.

Spoon into prepared bread or muffin pans and pop in a 375* oven and bake 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350* and continue baking until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Trust me... you're going to love this bread! (you can thank me later. ;) )

.apple streusel muffins.

When I was 17, I worked during the summer at my Dad's bank (not his bank..but the bank he worked for) doing odd jobs to earn money. There was a bakery around the corner that sold every kind of muffin you could ever think of. They had chocolate chip muffins, blueberry, zucchini, carrot cake, YOU NAME IT, they had it. My absolute favorite was their Apple Streusel muffin. When I opened my bakery, I wanted to have a ton of varieties for my patrons just like this place.



Muffins at the bakery were very popular. People would walk in and glance into the display case and gasp at the size of these massive treats. I don't use the traditional muffin pans. I use Texas sized muffin pans for honkin huge Texas sized muffins!

This recipe calls for zero transfat and with apple pieces baked into each muffin? Yummy wholesome-y goodness. The *only* fat is the 1/4 cup butter in the streusel topping. Can't beat that!



In a bowl, mix together:
4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup powdered milk

This is my standard muffin mix. When making various flavor muffins, however, I jazz it up.



For these muffins, we're going to add 1 Tbsp cinnamon.










Peel, core, and dice two granny smith apples. You don't want the pieces too big or else they won't bake enough and you'll have hard pieces in your moist muffins.

In a measuring cup, put 1 cup applesauce. This replaces the oil!

Leave the apple sauce in the cup and then fill it to the 2 cup line with cold water.

Add 2 eggs to the measuring cup. Mix together to blend the wet ingredients together.

Pour it all into the dry ingredients.

Mix only until the dry ingredients are wet. You WANT your batter to be thick and lumpy. If it's *too* thick, add a little more apple sauce. You don't want it soupy though because then they won't rise and you won't have the nice muffin top we're going for.

Add the apple pieces and mix together. Remember. Don't overwork it!
















Spoon into a sprayed muffin pan about 3/4 of the way up.

Now let's make the streusel topping.

In a bowl put 3/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup butter, cut up.

Cut the butter in with a pastry blender until it's nice and crumbly. I love adding walnuts to the topping. I'm out of them right now, but if you have some, add them at this stage (about 1/2 cup).

Put some of the streusel topping on top of each muffin.

Put in a preheated 425* oven.

Bake for 10-15 minutes at this temp. When they are nice and domed, reduce the heat immediately to 350* and bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

The key to nice lifted muffin tops is to not have too wet a batter, and start the baking off with a high temp. It forces the hot air through the muffin giving it that peak.

Pull from the oven when done and dump onto cooling racks. Let them cool on their tops before standing upright. The heavy muffin tops will sometimes make the bottoms collapse in on themselves. We don't want flat muffins!

Serve with fresh fruit or with butter. ;) Enjoy!

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_42hjzk2bqt

.white chicken chili.

Tonight I was scrambling to think of something to fix for dinner. It was an insanely busy day today. The baby had her (late) 2 month appointment first thing this morning and got two shots. Poor thing. Happy to report she's in the 95th percentile for height and like the 97th or so percentile for weight. That's my girl! She was NOT thrilled with getting jabbed. She's been recouping by sleeping half the day.

After her appointment, I drove down to Fernandina Beach to meet up with my gal pals for lunch. Then I hit Target. Then back home to pick Miss Paige up from school and play piano for the Chorus Club after school.

I made some chicken broth the night I made Huli Huli Chicken and the only real thing to make with a bunch of broth is soup.

To make your own stock, take chicken (you can use chicken breasts, or if you have roast chicken, put the carcass in a pot. Add carrots, celery, onion, a bay leaf and some salt. Coat with water and put on the stove to simmer and reduce. Let it go as long as you can. The more it condenses, the richer the flavor. When it cools to room temp, pour into a bowl or a glass pitcher. Put in your fridge and chil completely. The fat in your broth will float to the top and solidify. This makes it really easy to spoon off and discard.

So I checked the pantry and I had all the ingredients to make White Chicken Chili.

Here are the items you'll need:

• 4 cups chicken stock
• cooked chicken (you can use canned if you want)
• veggies: onion, celery, garlic
• 1 jalapeno, finely chopped
• chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (found in the hispanic section of your grocery store)
• 2 cans navy beans and 2 cans northern beans
• spices: bay leaf, cumin, chili powder, salt & pepper
• 4oz can diced green chilies

If you've never had anything with chipotle pepper, you're in for a surprise. It's got a smokey flavor that gives this chili a very unique flavor. A word of caution. Do NOT use too much. It's easy to go overboard and you'll wind up with a chili that's too hot to eat. Start with chopping up 1 pepper finely and if it's not hot enough, add a little more. I used 1 1/2 in mine tonight and it had some kick. Just the way I like it! (My sister, Marcia and mom would find it too hot though)

Chop your veggies -- finely chop the jalapeno, chop your onion, mince two cloves garlic, cut up 3 stalks of celery.

Heat up a little olive oil in a soup pot. When hot, put in all your veggies, 1 bay leaf, 2 tsp chili powder, 2 tsp cumin, and the 4oz can of diced green chilies. Cook this and stir until the onions and celery begin to soften.

Add 4 cups of chicken stock to your pot. Rinse the 4 cans of beans and add them too. Chop up one of those chipotle peppers and throw that in. Season generously with salt and pepper. You can also throw in your cooked chopped chicken. I used leftover chicken that was pulled from the carcass but it wasn't enough. So I used some canned chicken too.

Let this simmer on low for about an hour. If you like to use a crock pot, at this stage, I would put it in your pot and put on low heat to simmer all day. The longer this cooks, the better the flavor.

I like my chili with corn muffins. MMMmmm...

Printable version:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_10dcx2xwfr

In a bowl, mix together:

1 1/4 c. flour
1/3 c. sugar
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 c. cornmeal

In another bowl, mix together:

1/2 c. butter, softened
1 1/4 c. milk (I like to use half and half or whole cream)
1 egg

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix only until it comes together. Don't overmix this! It doesn't need to be smooth. In fact, lumpy is GOOD!

Dump in about 1 to 1 1/2 c. frozen corn and mix in. Again, do NOT overmix.

Spoon into a muffin pan sprayed with Pam vegetable spray. Put in a 425* F oven and bake for 10-15 minutes. At that time, lower your oven to 350* F and let them finish baking.

Baking at a high temp forces the heat through the center of the muffin giving it that awesome muffin tops! That's a trade secret among bakers.... ;) (Now you know!)

Here's what your baked muffins will look like. I use my texas size muffin pan and get a yield of 6. If you use a regular muffin pan, you'll most likely get 12 if you only fill 1/2 way up.

Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_11htvjzbcc

To serve your chili, ladle into the bowl and top with grated cheese, a dollop of sour cream and if you're trying to make an impression. Put some chopped cilantro on top. Gives it AWESOME fresh flavor.