Sweetpea’s Garden

One of my favorite things about summer is that fresh fruit — really fresh, not flown-in-from-Chile fresh — is readily available. I love berries in particular, so I was excited to see local (Maryland) strawberries for the the first time at Eastern Market on Saturday. I ate some for dessert last night, and decided to save the rest for breakfast.

This morning, I decided to turn the remaining strawberries into muffins. A quick search online produces this recipe, which I had to alter only slightly to accommodate fresh fruit. Obviously, I replaced the frozen fruit with fresh, but I also tweaked the preparation by combining half the sugar with the sliced strawberries to make them juice a bit, so that I’d achieve that “undrained” quality called for in the recipe. I also used olive oil rather than vegetable oil, just because it seems a bit healthier.

They came out really well and are very tasty — especially with the strawberry butter suggested in the recipe. I guess my muffin cups are a bit smaller than average, though, because I ended up with 18 and not 14 as the recipe indicated. So, I think my freezer will have a supply of muffins for a while. Yum!

And also for Christmas and Chocolate Crinkles! Coincidence? I think not.

I’ve gotten permission from my cousin Kate to share her mom’s recipe for our family’s favorite Christmas cookie. I think this is a pretty standard holiday cookie, and I don’t know how Aunt Anne’s recipe differs from others — all I know is, these are the tastiest version of these cookies that I have ever eaten.

Chocolate Crinkles

yields approx. six dozen

4 one-ounce squares unsweetened baking chocolate

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 cups granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

Preheat oven to 350°.

Melt chocolate,* combine with oil, vanilla, and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and blend well after each addition. Mix in the flour, salt, and baking powder.

Chill overnight.

The next day, form into one-inch balls and roll thoroughly in the confectioner’s sugar.

Bake for ten minutes. Do not overbake.

I repeat, do not overbake. These cookies must be soft and chewy to offer maximum deliciousness. Overbaking can result in tragically diminished sugar-coated hockey pucks.

* I’m not a devotee of the old-school manner of melting chocolate on the stove in a double-boiler. I microwave it for about two minutes and it comes out perfectly melty and not burnt at all.

For the past few weeks, my kitchen has been full of apples. Just before Halloween, I borrowed a car and drove out to Fairfax to Wegman’s, just so I could by Cortlands — a variety from New York State that is my very favorite baking apple. A few days later, my sister-in-law and nephews came to visit and dropped off a big sack they had hand-picked while visiting my mom in Binghamton. And shortly after that, I came in to work to find a huge bag of apples on my chair, left by my former officemate (and fellow apple lover) who had hit the motherlode at her local farmers’ market. I’ve been working diligently ever since to turn them into as many tasty things as I could manage.

After the jump is a long, recipe-laden post. It might make you hungry. Enter at your own risk.

Continue reading ‘How Do You Like Them Apples?’