Winter Storm Muffins re-mix Chapter 2 · 20.12.10 by colin newell
I have been doing most of my own baking since I was 12 – and although I do not have a cookbooks worth of experience, I have come up with a few good things.
One recipe that I have been making for over a decade is my kitchen sink muffin recipe – and I do reference it quite a lot on my blog but it has evolved some – so here is the… ahem… re-mix
The Dry – mix in a suitable large bowl
2 Cups Whole Wheat flour
2 Cups All-purpose Flour
1 Cup Each; rolled oats, corn meal and (oat or wheat) bran
(A variation for me is using 3 cups of All-Bran for a classic Bran muffin)
1 Cup dark brown sugar (I use Level Ground Trading Peruvian cane sugar – very
spicy sugar…)
1 Tbsp Baking Soda
1 Tbsp Magic Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Kosher or Sea Salt
1/2 – 1 Tbsp Organic Saigon Cinnamon
1/2 whole fresh ground nutmeg (Much better fresh ground!)
Wet Mix
3/4 Cup unsweetened Apple Sauce
1/4 Cup Canola Oil
3 Eggs (Free range, organic or farm fresh are the best)
1 Tbsp Organic Vanilla
2 Cups Almond milk OR 2 Cups Goat’s milk
Almond milk (sugar free) is a healthy alternative to cow’s milk
and if you like an interesting flavor consider some organic Goat’s milk – great for the lactose intolerant among us.
Add Wet to Dry Mix – Do not over-mix.
I use a semi-commercial Kitchen-aid mixer.
Add from 2 to 4 cups of the fruit of your choice – I use finely chopped mango, or apple, or fresh Turkish figs, blueberries or anything in the way of frozen fruit medleys – the sky is the limit.
Another option is 1/2 cup of chopped nuts (any kind) in lieu of single cups of fruit.
A couple of times the mix seemed a little dry after the liquid was added. Solution: Add a shot glass (2 fluid ounces) of your favorite juice; Orange, Cranberry, Lemon – whatever you have.
Pam spray 2 Muffin tins (I use a 12 and a 6)
Use an Ice Cream scoop for loading up the muffin tins – paper definitely not needed!
Bake for 24 minutes in a 375 degree oven – check for degree of done with a toothpick. Poke the muffins. If the picks come out clean, you are good to go. Let cool in pans for about 10 minutes and then air dry on cooling grid. Makes about 20 freezer ready muffins. Ziploc freezer bags suggested for long term storage.
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Summer Food Fun and Drink Chapter 8 Chili Prawn Spaghettini · 5.07.10 by colin newell
Boil enough spaghettini for 2 – 5 to 7 minutes.
Meanwhile – heat a saute pan to medium with olive oil – 2 tablespoons
Pan fry the Prawns 2 minutes a side – remove from heat – set aside on paper towel.
Grate 1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Once heated, add a heaping tablespoon of minced garlic + 1 teaspoon of chili flakes (adjust to personal taste!).
Photo right – the result… Canon EOS-30D with 55MM Macro lens – F2.5 window light
Saute garlic and chili flakes.
Turn heat down to LOW.
When the pasta is done, drain – reserving 1/2 cup of pasta water.
Add pasta to the garlic and chili mixture – combined with the 1/2 cup of pasta water.
Toss and add 1/4 cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Return prawns to pan.
Toss.
Divide into 2 serving plates – covering with extra Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Serve with robust Italian Red Wine!
Winter all fun, food and frolic - collapse of the bee colony · 14.03.10 by colin newell
Colony collapse disorder – while the average person is probably completely unaware of what it is or what it means, I assure you… you may feel the effects of it before long.
Particularly if you eat.
We visited Fredrich’s Honey in Cedar, B.C. south of Nanaimo, British Columbia – ostensibly to drop off some supplies from Wisdom’s Essential Elements – a local soap maker and to pick up some bee pollen and honey for personal use.
Sounds kind of illicit doesn’t it?
Anyway – Fredrich, a wonderful 60-something bee keeper is experiencing this phenomenon known as Colony collapse disorder
It’s not really like having a house full of teenagers leaving home at the exact moment they become of majority because that could be a good thing.
Having a colony of bees, thousands of them in dozens of hives, up, pack and leave home is truly odd behavior and not entirely understood… and worthy of an X-File episode of two… heck even a feature length movie.
What is kind of creepy about all of this is that an entire community of bees hit the high road at the same time – and it could be about disease, about electromagnetic radiation, about competing pests, or the lack of cable TV and color television at the hives. Thing is, we do not know.
What we do know is that bees are important work horses in the pollination of many of the fruits and vegetables that we enjoy and often take for granted.
And being without them? Well, we just don’t know. We don’t know why and we are not clear on the long term consequences.
And if you are a big fan of food, it might benefit us all to put our minds towards figuring out what the heck is going on.
If you are a Vancouver Island resident and have the inclination, get out there and visit a working farm or bee keeper. Sweet times guaranteed… for the time being.
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Winter all food, fun and drink marathon begins - muffins updated · 8.02.10 by colin newell
I make my own muffins. Partially because I like to know what I am eating – and I have a hard time paying $2 for a muffin that contains stuff that I am not interested in… or may be allergic to. Lately I have been using Goat’s milk or Almond milk or a blend of the two.
Here is my recipe for Colin`s Kitchen Sink Muffins – they are healthy, rich in nutrients, low in fat, not quite vegan and if you are looking for daily regularity, they are as predictable as sunrise and reliable as gravity. Enjoy.
2 Cups Whole Wheat flour – 2 Cups All-purpose Flour
1 cup Each; rolled oats, corn meal and (oat or wheat) bran
1.5 Cups dark brown sugar (can be reduced to taste)
1 Tbsp Baking Soda and 1 Tbsp Magic Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Kosher or Sea Salt
2 Tsp Organic Saigon Cinnamon
(Optional extra spices); 1.5 Tsp Allspice, 1.5 Tsp fresh ground nutmeg
3/4 Cup unsweetened Apple Sauce
1/4 Cup Canola Oil
3 Eggs
1 Tbsp Vanilla
2 Cups Buttermilk OR 2 Cups Lactose-reduced 2% Milk OR 2 Cups Soy milk OR 2 Cups Almond milk OR 2 Cups Goat’s milk
Add Wet to Dry Mix – Do not over-mix.
Add from 2 to 4 cups of the fruit of your choice – I use finely chopped mango, or apple, or fresh figs, or anything in the way of frozen fruit medleys – the sky is the limit.
Put equal amounts in pre-greased or pre-Pammed pans – I use a pro-Ice Cream scoop for quantity management.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in a 375 degree oven – check for degree of done with a toothpick. Poke the muffins. If the picks come out clean, you are good to go. Let cool in pans for about 10 minutes and then air dry on cooling grid. Makes about 20 freezer ready muffins.
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Tropical Colors Warm Winds Tour Chapter 2 · 21.11.09 by colin newell
Pushing around a rake over coffee parchment to find my soul.
I reorganize and re-balance.
In coffee we are looking for the right amount of moisture in the bean.
In life we are looking for the right balance of love and fear.
Enough love to say Hey and enough fear to say Fool…
Yes. You do get it both ways.
The ying and yang of our existence is just about balance.
A balance that we never actually achieve but spend a lifetime walking the fine line
for.
Summer Fun Food and Drink 2009 - Chapter One - For women only · 14.06.09 by colin newell
In over 15 years of serious coffee tasting, I have always followed my own motto: Push the specialty coffee experience to the very edge of the experiential frontier – and then push it a little further.
And in one and a half decades of boutique coffee browsing I have sipped coffee from the most exotic climes; Like beans from far flung places like St. Helena Island – Napoleon Bonaparte, no less, wiled away his final days there. Coffee beans pooped out the tail end of marsupial civets… from three different sources no less! Thai civet coffee, Indonesian Kopi Luwak and Vietnamese farmed civet coffee. I have had Jamaica Blue Mountain coffees from all the major estates on the little Island that gave us some of the most remarkable rums and reggae music. I once held in my hands a 10 pound bag of Panama La Hacienda Esmerelda coffee… worth over $1600. And yea, I got me some!
Some of my favorites java jolts have come from Ethiopia, Yemen, Uganda, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Papua New Guinea and, of all places, Australia and Thailand.
And despite all these varied experiences, nothing could have prepared me recently for my greatest caffeinated challenge to date… Girlie Coffee
Deliciously Girlie comes from Kealakekua on the Big Island of Hawaii – it’s a tranquil little town nestled along a very narrow region of land scarcely a mile wide and 7 to 10 miles long – and 1200 to 1750 feet above Sea level – it shares the strip of weather beaten State highway 11 and a luxurious landscape with town names like Captain Cook.
Deliciously Girlie coffee is 100% Pure Kona coffee that is very lightly roasted – probably as light as you can go – and only produced within the natural environment of the ideal coffee production facility… the farm. And the roaster. That is it. No intermediate steps. No corporate influence. No processing.
What I was fundamentally unprepared for were the consequences of brewing up several pots and presses of coffee actually intended for the exclusive consumption of the fairer sex… that is, the ladies.
In my lab at the University of Victoria, I work with a wide range of folks of both sexes and all ages. And as word went around that there was some newfangled brews to peruse, the buzz for this joe became palpable.
Cups of the Deliciously Girlie coffee were passed around to the crew and much to our surprise, the coffee was… mild and quite Kona like… with light body and very focused lemony notes. Ah. So far so good. Within about 15 minutes however, the guys in our coffee circle became quite blethering… verbose… chatty. Fact was, this lightly roasted coffee packs an immense caffeine wallop – somewhat higher than your typical burnt out Starbucks roast – Deliciously Girlie is at the other end of the roast spectrum and as you might not know: the lighter the roast, the higher the caffeine content.
And one of the reasons why they call this Girlie coffee (and there are lots of reasons on their informative webpage…) is that women are better equipped to deal with the different chemistry of this coffee – like more caffeine, and more complex antioxidants – those delightful little cancer fighters that many natural foods (like coffee) contain.
What of the ladies in the lab and offices around ours that sampled the women only java? They carried on about their day as if this was a normal, but tasty, cup of coffee to enjoy.
The guys? Well, we chatted and chatted and ran over into an elongated coffee break… and chatted some more. Then hugged. And went back to work.
But don’t take my word for it! Deliciously Girlie coffee comes in a remarkable packaging that looks unmistakably Jean Paul Gaultier (the designer!) – and not surprising, the creators of Deliciously Girlie used to work for companies like Prada in New York City.
This blog on Deliciously Girlie Coffee begins yet another season of our beloved series, Summer Fun Food and Drink! I hope you all enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoy writing them! Can we talk?
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