Cooking Up a Good Mood

Good morning! 

This unconscionably good mood* is brought to you by:

• A hot shower
• Suave Rosemary Mint Shampoo
• A sinus rinse
• Glittery eyeshadow
• Coffee!

(*The whole Moose family is nursing a cold - between Moose's stirring, Daddy Moose's snoring, and my own congestion, it would have been a better use of my time to get up at, say 2 a.m., since I was not getting anything productive - like sleep - accomplished! I will freely admit that I was not in such a good mood this morning when I first awoke!)

I was hoping to post photos of something wholesome and home-cooked today.  However, due to our house full of germies, its a miracle I made it to the grocery store at all yesterday!

I ended up pulling out a jar of Coq au Vin braising sauce I bought during a sale at Williams Sonoma months ago and filling in the blanks with finds from Trader Joe's.

I used 4 pounds of chicken breasts instead of the whole chicken called for.  The sauce made a delightfully large batch and will give us leftovers later this week plus at least two freezer meals besides.

I served over whole wheat penne (which I forgot to photograph because I was hungry).

Not to be left out, Moose got a pan and spatula from his kitchen so he could help. 

I broke up a cereal bar so he'd have something to flip in the pan while he watched me turn the chicken to brown it. 

Sweet Potato Muffins

If you've browsed around Mommy Marginalia at all, you've probably caught on that I've got a thing for muffins.  I've also got a thing for any muffin recipe I can make using only a whisk (i.e. can be made at naptime or after Moose has gone to bed without interrupting any precious sleep).  So when I was trolling the Green Market Baking Book for some seasonal ideas for this week's menu and saw the recipe for Sweet Potato Bread, I thought I'd take a whack at adapting the recipe to make muffins (and with a few other tweaks to reflect my baking preferences - which sounds sort of haughty now that I've written it, but really boils down to a) I had mandarins, not oranges already in the house; b) I had pumpkin pie spice already in the house; and c) I don't like using vegetable oil but do not like the taste that olive oil imparts on sweeter baked goods).

The original recipe makes one 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf, so I expected to yield only 12 muffins (a few of the mixes I've tried from Trader Joe's lately make one 9 x 5 loaf or 12 muffins).  I was thrilled to discover that, instead, this recipe makes 24 muffins!  So not only do I have a muffin for the week, I also got to indulge my new freezer cooking obsession.

Sweet Potato Muffins
Adapted from the Green Market Baking Book

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 2 teaspoons diced mandarin orange peel
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)
• 2 cups sweet potato puree
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups maple syrup

1. Preheat oven to 400F.  Prepare muffin tins with liners or spray with non-stick spray (I like Pam baking spray).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together dry ingredients, including mandarin peel.
3. In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients.
4. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients.  Stir until just blended.
5. Fill 24 muffin tin wells with the batter.
6. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in a center muffin comes out clean.
7. Cool muffins in the tins for 5 minutes, then turn them out onto wire baking racks and continue cooling.

If you want to freeze some (or all), I recommend wrapping each individually in plastic wrap and sealing in a freezer bag.

I think they turned out delightfully well! Although, if I'm honest, they're a bit more sweet bread-y than truly muffin-y.  (Not that that's a bad thing!) I think next time to up the nutrition and cut down the guilt factor, I'll try replacing some of the butter with applesauce and cutting the maple syrup.