10-Grain Muffins

I read a lot of food blogs. Whenever I find a recipe I’d like to try, I flag it. Then, once a week, I get out the pad of “grocery list” paper and pore over those flagged recipes until I’ve picked enough for one week. Then we go grocery shopping. The only part I’ve left out is that I tend to postpone making the list until we’ve run out of groceries and are desperate for some fresh produce. This is the very situation I found myself in this morning. We needed breakfast. We try not to buy much cold cereal. We had no eggs; no fruit. Oatmeal was getting old. I started sifting through condiments in the back of the fridge and found a bag of Bob's Red Mill 10-grain cereal. Lo and behold, there was a recipe on the back, which required only standard pantry ingredients and required just half an hour to make – so Rich would make it to work on time! Since they saved the day, I thought I'd honor the muffins with a post of their own – here’s my adaptation of those muffins:

10-Grain Muffins
1. • 1 cup 10-grain cereal
   • 1¼ cup milk
   • ½ cup sugar
   • 5 tbsp butter
   • 1 egg, room temperature
   • 1 cup flour
   • 1 tsp salt
   • 1 tsp baking powder
   • 1 tsp baking soda
   • ½ cup frozen blueberries
2. 1. Mix Bob's 10 Grain Cereal and milk and allow to stand for 10 minutes while preheating oven and assembling other ingredients.
   2. Cream sugar and margarine and egg together. Add dry ingredients and milk with cereal. Mix until just combined. Spoon into a greased muffin pan.
   3. Bake in 400 degree oven for 15 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.

Snow

It snowed this weekend. We were in Chicago when it happened, so we didn’t get a chance to shovel the driveway until around 10:30 Sunday night (sorry, neighbors!). We only shoveled wide enough to get the car through (we have a two-car garage and only one car), but even with such a steep driveway, it only took two tries to get the car into the garage. While we toiled to get through the snow, the cats seem to enjoy just looking at it. Charlie especially likes to try to catch snowflakes through the window, much like he does with bugs in the summer.

Loaded miso soup

I haven’t tasted many miso soups, but in my experience they have been quite minimal. The most elaborate contained a few tiny cubes of tofu and a few shreds of seaweed. In comparison, this miso soup (adapted from a Mayo Clinic recipe) is loaded with tofu, onions, mushrooms and watercress. And it tastes fantastic. The only difficult part was trying to find white miso at a reasonable price (I did find some near the refrigerated tofu at my local Whole Foods). If you want to try the recipe and you live nearby (or I’ll see you soon), let me know and I’ll share my tub of miso with you.

Loaded Miso Soup
1. • 1 tablespoon olive oil
   • 1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
   • 1 tablespoon peeled and grated fresh ginger
   • 3 cloves garlic, minced
   • 4 cups vegetable stock or broth
   • 2 tablespoons white miso
   • ½ pound firm tofu, drained and cut into ½–inch cubes
   • ¼ pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, cleaned with a damp cloth, stemmed, and thinly sliced
   • 1 cup watercress leaves
   • 1 green onion, thinly sliced
2. 1. In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the yellow onion and saute until soft and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the ginger and garlic and saute about 5 minutes. Add the stock and bring to a boil.
   2. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Whisk in the miso until dissolved. Add the tofu, mushrooms and watercress and simmer until the tofu is heated through and the mushrooms and watercress are softened, about 1 minute.
   3. Garnish with the green onion.

Fetapitas

I just realized (thanks to a request from Greg) that we haven’t posted this recipe yet. I found the recipe in the August 2004 issue of Real Simple, which was passed to me from my mom. At that point, I was in the habit of tearing out and cataloging all the recipes in her old magazines, then choosing and cooking from this selection each week. I don't remember when Rich and I first made fetapitas, but they were an immediate hit with us. One of us could make dinner for two in about 15 minutes. And it was nearly* foolproof - no matter how badly we estimated ingredients, the meal was always delicious. When discussing this recipe with Sarah, she referred to it as "fetapita", and the name stuck.

* The only time we've messed up the recipe was when we picked up an 8-ounce container of "plain yogurt" that was actually sweetened. So check the ingredients and make sure your yogurt is not sweetened. I complained to the company and got them to change their wording.

Fetapitas
1. • 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
   • 2 tablespoons olive oil
   • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
   • 4 ounces crumbled Feta cheese
   • 1 cup plain, unsweetened yogurt
   • Juice of half a lemon
   • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
   • 1 10-ounce bag cleaned spinach
   • 4 pitas
2. 1. Heat oven to 400º F.
   2. Toss the tomatoes with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and ¼ teaspoon of the salt. Arrange the tomatoes, cut-side up, on a baking sheet. Bake until they are just softened, about 10 minutes.
   3. Meanwhile, whisk together the Feta, yogurt, lemon juice, and ¼ teaspoon of the salt; set aside.
   4. Place a medium skillet over medium heat. Add ½ tablespoon of the olive oil to the skillet. Add the garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is softened and just turning golden. Don't burn the garlic! Add the spinach and the remaining salt. Cook, tossing occasionally, until the spinach is just wilted, about 4 minutes.
   5. Brush both sides of the pitas with the remaining olive oil. Place in the oven and heat until lightly toasted, about 2 minutes per side. (You can also do this on a medium-hot grill.)
   6. Place the pitas on plates. Top with the spinach and tomatoes. Dollop the yogurt-Feta sauce on top and serve.

Favorites

I keep thinking I’ve posted some of our favorite foods here, but I guess I haven’t. Let me start with links to a few of my favorite websites for finding recipes, and a some favorite recipes from each of these sites:

• Simply Recipes is my first stop when searching for a recipe for a certain food. Like I did hash browns. And Thanksgiving.
  • Mac and cheese
  • Hash browns
  • “How to cook and eat an artichoke” isn’t exactly a recipe, but I recently discovered my love of artichokes and this was how I prepared my first fresh one.
  • Italian sausage spaghetti
  • Need I link to my posts about Thanksgiving #1 and Thanksgiving #2? We used several recipes then.
• Slashfood is recipes and food news
  • This is where I first heard about the No-Knead Bread that I posted about.
  • Oven-Baked Latkes
  • I used this hot cocoa and marshmallows recipe for hostess gifts for a couple of Christmas parties.
  • Pumpkin-Pecan Muffins
• Coconut & Lime is a new find for us
  • Maki Sushi
  • Potsticker Dipping Sauce