Quinoa… seems to be all the rage lately next to cauliflower pizza crust.  Quinoa is very easy to cook too. All you do is bring 2 cups of water to a boil and once the water is at a hard boil add in 1 cup of a un-cooked quinoa. Turn the burner down to a low simmer and let that cook for 15 minutes. Take the quinoa off the burner and cover with a pan and let that steam for a bit.

One time I kept the burner on high and left the room for a bit, and ended up with burnt quinoa. It wasn’t good eats. Now I always make sure to bring it to a low boil. Always safer that way. Don’t ever do what I did, or you’ll end up with a pan to clean that isn’t fun.

Now you can do the fun part which is adding whatever you want to the quinoa. For this I added 1/2 cup of cooked quinoa, 1/4 cup of milk, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, and some sliced almonds and cherries on top. Very good and it was filling too!

I can’t believe in 3 weeks it will be Thanksgiving already! I’m really looking forward to my 4 day vacation too. This year, I am interested in smoking a turkey. We usually brine our turkey and then roast it in the oven. Not this year! I might even wrap the whole turkey in bacon, because I’m that crazy.

If you have a bunch of guests coming over for Thanksgiving and you need something to serve for breakfast try this french toast. Everybody has bread around that time for stuffing so why not? I added some cooked apples that I sauteed in a pan with some brown sugar and cinnamon. It was really good served with some slices of bacon on the side.

Ingredients:

4 to 5 cups of diced bread. Any kind you want
4 eggs
1 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 or 3 tablespoons of brown sugar
2 Honey Crisp Apples, diced
1 tablespoon of butter
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Directions:

Cut up bread in chunks. Pour all the wet ingredients including brown sugar into a bowl with the bread in it and let it soak while the apples are cooking.

In a cast iron skillet, sautee the apples with the sugar, butter, and cinnamon until the apples are cooked through.

In an 8X8 pan dump the soaked bread mixture into the pan and then cover it with the apples. Bake at 375 for 45. Serve with bacon, sausage, eggs or whatever you like.

I was supposed to start work this week, but on Tuesday last week they called me and asked if I could start the 15th instead. Bummer, I was looking forward to getting back to civilization today. It has been a nice summer so far, I’ve had pretty much half of it off. Went to the lake for the 4th of July. Didn’t really see much fireworks. The view was pretty though.

I’ve been trying to learn what the difference is between a muffin and a cupcake. I heard that if you lick the frosting off a cupcake it because a muffin, and muffins are healthier. Don’t really know how true that is. I know cupcakes have more butter in them and muffins have oil, do you think that could be the difference? I should go to pastry school and find out.

The grocery store has been having really fresh blueberries on sale this summer. I got a container of them this weekend and they were pretty tasty. I could have eaten the whole entire thing. Instead I decide to throw them in some muffins. I can’t believe how HUGE these mufffins are.

Blueberry Muffin Recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs, room temperature preferred
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk (skim, 1%, almond, rice, soy are all ok – room temperature preferred)
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 1/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
course sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425F degrees. Spray your muffin tin of choice with non-stick spray or line with muffin liners. Set aside.
In a large bowl, gently toss together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Mix until all dry ingredients are combined – a 20 second toss to disburse everything together. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and sugar until combined. Mix in milk, oil, and vanilla. Mixture will be pale and yellow. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix everything together by hand. Avoid overmixing. Gently mix until all the flour is off the bottom of the bowl and no big pockets of flour remain. The batter will be VERY thick and somewhat lumpy. Fold in the blueberries.
Pour batter into prepared muffin tins, filling all the way to the top. Top with a sprinkle course sugar, if preferred. Bake at 425F degrees for 5 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375 and continue to bake for 25-26 minutes until tops are lightly golden and centers appear set. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in pan before enjoying.
Muffins taste best fresh the same day. Store muffins at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 5 days. Muffins freeze well for up to 3 months.