Rosie Makes The "BEST" Blueberry Muffins.

Do you want to make The BEST Blueberry Muffins?

Yes?

Then keep reading.

These overstuffed muffins have a delightful, cake-like texture

 bursting with plump blueberries

and a sugary, crunchy, crumble topping.

Youngest Hawthorne said they were the "BEST."

So they must be.

He doesn't give out superlatives easily.

Blueberry Muffins
 2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk

1 pint fresh blueberries, stemmed, rinsed, and dried

Crumb Topping

4 TB unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup flour
2 tsp cinnamon

zest of one lemon

With a fork or pastry blender,

combine all ingredients until crumbly.

I  used lemon zest since lemons and blueberries

seem to be made for each other,

but you could use orange zest

or a combination thereof.

Either one.

I like the citrus spark.

For the muffins:

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

Add vanilla.

Add flour mixture alternatively with buttermilk,

starting and ending with dry ingredients

beating until well-combined.

Fold in blueberries.

Line a 12-cup muffin tin with liners

and fill each evenly with batter.

Top with crumb mixture.

Bake in a 375° oven for about 30 minutes,

or until tester comes out clean.

Remove from pan and let cool about 30 minutes.

Here's the crumby mixture for the topping.

Fork it up until you have ... crumbles.

I saved just a bit of the flour mixture

to sprinkle over the berries.

Toss the berries with the flour.

Supposedly this helps keep the berries

from sinking to the bottom.

Supposedly...

Yup.
It works.

Fold in the berries at the end.

Pour batter evenly into cups.

Sprinkle topping mixture over each muffin.

Bake.

Remove from tin 

and let cool a bit on wire rack.

Now that's a muffin!

Dig in!

Enjoy!

Rosie Makes Blackened Mahi Mahi Tacos. With Coleslaw. And Rice. And Pineapple.

 

 Care to guess what this is?
Besides a mouthful of delicioso?


Here's a hint:

Step back and take in the whole picture.

That would be a seasoned tortilla, somewhere between crisp and semi-flexible.
Some confetti jasmine rice -  chopped red peppers and minced green jalapeños and lime zest.
My special coleslaw - with buttermilk dressing.
Blackened fresh pineapple spears.
And seasoned and blackened mahi mahi chunks.

Now for the story that goes along with the meal:
I have three Hawthornelets.  One's a vegan.  Another's a vegan wannabe, but still a vegetarian.  (I know!  I know!  You're thinking, "Where did Rosie go wrong?!!?"  Believe me, I've asked myself the same question.)  And the third has vegan/vegetarian leanings, but at least will eat fish.  So a pescatarian.  There's still hope for that one.  He will eat eggs, but doesn't want dairy products, though I will throw in butter in his grits, and he will eat pizzas with cheese, although he complains about that, and the fridge has several cartons of almond "milk," which I substitute for the real thing in lots of recipes lots of times with no ill effects.

So back to my pescatarian.  He came home the other day with a restaurant takeout - a blackened fish taco.  Mahi mahi.  He wanted me to try it.   And could I reproduce it for him?   Answer:  Yes,  I could...  But, NO, I won't.  However, I will make something much better.

No.  I'm not announcing the name of the restaurant.  Not really fair for me to do that.  I only had a bite of one thing that they make and I'm not judging anybody on that.  I just know I can do better.
It didn't help that the one chunk of mahi mahi I picked apparently had the bloodline running through it.  I immediately spit it out and couldn't eat anymore.  Didn't want to eat anymore.  It's like getting a bad oyster.  You won't want oysters for a while.  Trust me on that and hope it never happens to you.

Sooooo....  I bemoaned the fact that $12-$13 was shelled out for something I couldn't even eat, then I moved on.  I moved on to Billy's Seafood and bought mahi mahi for $13.95/pound and came home and made my own blackened fish tacos.  Except it was more of a seasoned, molded tortilla, than a taco.

Follow along with Rosie for a delicious meal.
One step at a time.

 First, I made the coleslaw.
Because all the flavors need to have time to get to know everybody.  It's a meet and greet.














I'm just making enough for 2-3 servings.  Don't want any leftovers.

Rosie's Coleslaw
1 cup chopped/shredded green cabbage
1 TB shredded carrot
1 TB chopped red pepper
1 tsp minced jalapeño
1 TB chopped red onion
1/2 tsp lime zest
Mix all ingredients.

Dressing:
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp cider vinegar
2 tsp buttermilk
pinch kosher salt, to taste
freshly ground pepper
Whisk all together.
Pour over coleslaw ingredients and toss to coat.
Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour for all the flavors to get happy.

 

And we have coleslaw.

I also made some Confetti Rice to go along with my dish. No pics though.
Simply cook jasmine rice according to package directions.
At the end, drop in some chopped red pepper, some minced jalapeño, and lime zest.  All to taste.
Make it pretty!

Now, for the "tacos."

For the tacos, I had flour tortillas.
I brushed the tortillas with melted butter and lightly sprinkled some togarashi seasoning over them along with some cumin.  Togarashi is a Japanese condiment comprised of a spicy powdered assortment of chili peppers, black and white sesame seeds, nori (seaweed), and orange and lemon zest.  Lacking togarashi, you could simply use a sprinkling of cumin, cayenne, and freshly ground pepper.  Next, I folded the tortillas into taco shapes, propping them up and separating them with Reynold's wrap.  Bake in a slow (300°) oven until they can hold their own shape (20-30 minutes), but not so long that they get so crisp that they crumble when you bite them.  (Youngest Hawthorne was very specific about this.  He likes a soft tortilla, not a crumbly taco that disintegrates when you bite into it.  You can see that Rosie walks a tightrope with that one.)

   I had a lovely fresh pineapple, which I cut into spears.

I sprinkled a bit of sugar all over the spears, heated my iron skillet (high heat) with a sheen of peanut oil to about 400°, threw in a pat of unsalted butter, and placed the spears in the hot oil.  Brown on all sides.  Just takes a minute or two. The sugar helps to caramelize. 

Pineapple spears ready.

Next, the blackening seasoning.

Rosie's Blackening Seasoning for Mahi Mahi

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp brown sugar

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp granulated garlic

1/2 tsp chili powder

pinch kosher salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

Mix all ingredients until well combined.

I cut the mahi mahi fillet into approximately 1-inch cubes.

Toss the cubes in the seasoning, coating evenly.

In an iron skillet, heat a film of peanut oil to 425°-450° over high heat.

Working in batches, place a few mahi mahi cubes in at a time, so as not to lower the temperature of the oil.  Sear/blacken for about 2 minutes, turning cubes to get all sides.

Drain on paper towels.

And plate!

Tuck some confetti rice inside the tacos.  Place some blackened mahi mahi in there.  Add some coleslaw to brighten it all up.  Throw in a pineapple spear and squeeze on a wedge of lime.

Now, THAT's a fish taco!

Gotta give it some lime lovin'!

Those fish bites were perfect - blackened and spicy on the outside, sweet and succulent and flaky on the inside.

Enjoy!

Life Is A Bowl Of Cherries - Cherry Clafoutis, That Is.

After finding some lovely cherries at Tarheel Produce,

I donned my thinking toque

and decided to make a cherry clafoutis.

 

 "Rosie, what is a clafoutis," you ask?  Well, I'll tell you.  A clafoutis is a classic French, rustic dessert, hailing from the south/central Limousin region of France and dating back to the 1800s.

Cherries are the traditional fruit used, but you could substitute other fruits - plums, blackberries, pears, apricot, whatever, but then, technically, you'd have a flognarde, not a clafoutis.

I always like to know, if possible, the history of whatever I'm eating - its provenance, so to speak, and the Limousin has an interesting story in that one can prepare an entire meal from Limousin and its capital, Limoges.  Limousin has some of the best beef farming in the world - Limousin cattle - so you could have a nice steak from highly prized Limousin cows, served on exquisite Limoges porcelain.  Your dessert, of course, would be clafoutis aux cerises.  Your meal would not be complete without a nice cognac, aged in oak barrels fabricated from the highly distinctive oaks from the forests of Limousin.  The house of Remy Martin has exclusive rights to the prized Limousin oaks, the most expensive in the world, for its barrels in which to age cognac.  And your scintillating dinner conversation could revolve around the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) and one of the great military atrocities of the medieval period, specifically the Limoges massacre, orchestrated by Edward, the "Black Prince" of Wales, in which 3000 defenseless Limoges citizens, men, women, and children, were slain.


Now, back to the clafoutis.

 Basically, a clafoutis is a dessert, hovering between a cake and a custard,  with a batter poured over cherries in a buttered baking dish.  Traditionally, the cherries are unpitted.  And there's a reason for this. The pits contain a substance called amygdalin, a naturally occurring chemical compound which imparts an almond taste, enhancing the dish's flavor. The flavoring is released into the custard of the clafoutis when baked.   In addition, I'm basically lazy, so the no-pitting thing works very well in the interest of the authenticity of the dish.  That said, here's my Clafoutis Aux Cerises.

 

 Clafoutis Aux Cerises or Cherry Clafoutis

3 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

6 TB unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

(plus more to butter the pan)

1 cup flour 

pinch kosher salt

7 oz. skim milk

1 oz. heavy cream

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 TB Kirsch, or cherry liqueur

2 cups cherries, stemmed but not pitted

Rosie Note:  

 You could use 1 cup whole milk in place of the skim and cream.

I never have whole milk on hand, 

so I always use a combination of skim and cream to approximate.

Heat oven to 400°.

Whisk eggs together with sugar until light in color. 

Gradually whisk in butter.

Add in flour and salt and continue mixing

until flour is incorporated.

Slowly pour in milk and cream mixture,

a little at a time,

then the extract and liqueur,

mixing well, until batter is smooth.

Place cherries in a buttered 9-inch cake pan.

Pour batter over the cherries 

and bake 25 or so minutes until lightly browned 

and almost set in the middle.

Let sit for 10-15 minutes before slicing into wedges.

 Cover bottom of buttered pan with unpitted, stemmed cherries.

 Mix batter until smooth and pour over top.

 Bake until golden.

 

     

 Watch out for pits.

Now, if you'd like a bit of cherry sauce

to spoon over your clafoutis

or even over a scoop of vanilla ice cream,

I've got you covered there too.

Sauce Aux Cerises or Cherry Sauce

 1 cup cherries, pitted and chopped

1 TB butter

1 TB sugar

2 tsp orange zest

2 tsp Kirsch (cherry liqueur)

 2 tsp cornstarch

1/4 cup water

Melt butter in small sauce pan over low heat.

 Add sugar and stir until dissolved.

Add cherries, zest, and liqueur.

Combine cornstarch and water to make a slurry

and pour in, stirring, until mixture thickens.

Spoon hot sauce over clafoutis and/or ice cream.

Enjoy!