Lazy day with Blueberry Muffins

My babysitter took off for an early weekend so the twinadoes and I decided to sleep in (8:00 am) and make blueberry muffins for breakfast. Have I ever mentioned how much they love blueberry muffins? I use a recipe from Cook's Illustrated.

They really really love blueberry muffins.

Here's what I used: flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, salt, buttermilk, vanilla, vegetable oil, blueberries, and butter.


First, melt the butter and set it aside to cool. In a small pan, put one cup of blueberries (drained) and one teaspoon of sugar over medium heat. Mash the blueberries and allow it to boil until a thick slurry forms. Set it aside and let it cool.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together until well-mixed. In a smaller bowl, whisk together sugar and two eggs. Let your 4 year old help. He'll stop asking if the muffins are ready for the 30 seconds you let him mix. It will be worth the break.

Add the vanilla and buttermilk to the sugar/egg mixture and whisk until well combined. Slowly, add it to the flour mixture. Stir until JUST combined. Don't overmix! Then, fold in the rest of the blueberries. Your batter will be lumpy with some undermixed flour. This is okay. Don't panic. Allow the baking magic to work.

Fill your muffin cups until the batter is heaping over the top. Happy things are coming.

Spoon a small amount of the blueberry slurry on top of each muffin. Mix it in with a toothpick or spoon.

Pop it in the oven and let it bake until your kids are crying and telling you that they'd be ready by now if you hadn't taken pictures the whole way through. Which is totally correct. So, let them eat the muffins to their little heart's content.

It's a tough day, this hanging out with Mommy stuff.

Simple Good and Tasty Pig Roast

Last Sunday, after a weekend spent camping, our family went to a pig roast held by fellow (and more frequent) blogger Lee from Simple Good and Tasty. The pig roast and potluck was enjoyed by around 150 guests who all share the same thought that food is best when it's local. The roasted pig, while amazing, in my opinion was outshone by the insane spread of side dishes featuring ingredients from back yards all around the twin cities. Mike may disagree and say the pig was better. Certainly, our children seemed to enjoy crunching down on crispy pigskin more than trying all the sides which ranged from pasta salads, tabbouleh, tomato dishes, and potato salads. My own salad of roasted sweet corn, heirloom tomatoes, edamame, and green and yellow snap beans with a garlic vinaigrette seemed to go fast. The meal also featured sausages from Kramarczuks and pulled chicken from Brasa. It was all so good. I can't wait until next year!

OK, We suck. It's been a while.

OK, so in no particular order, here is what we have done with our time...


We stand in awe of the park, dubbed "Chutes and Ladders", in Bloomington.



We visit Como Town, where we discover that we are allowed to fly solo on the rides.

So we practiced driving.... (and did better than most adult drivers)




...and rode on the swings. (Which is odd as they don't like regular swings)



Got some more CSA goodness from Harmony Valley Farms.




Visited our local zoos, where we saw LIONS...




AND TIGERS...


AND BEARS...



OH MY!

(I cannot confirm that a Bear sh*ts in the woods, but have photographic evidence that Tigers sh*t in grassy areas.)



We also discovered that the MN Zoo sells beer.

We now have a membership to the zoo.



We also visited Buffalo, NY, where we swam in Great Grandma's pool...


...entered into a MMA cage match with a chinchilla...




...and tapped out the the reigning champion....



...and rode a carousel at Ella's Deli in Madison, WI on the way home from Buffalo.


We also said Good Bye to a friend by baking a cake that took 5 hours to make (OK, I had little to do with the cake, that's all my dear wife's doing), and intentionally Cake Wrecked it.








OK folks, that about sums it up...

First raspberries of the season and the last of the peas

This week brought 90 degree days which effectively stopped the growth of our peas. I noticed a few days ago that the remaining flower buds were starting to whither. Today I pulled down most of the pea vines to make way for the green beans which are starting to climb.

The big surprise of the day was the abundance of raspberries ready to pick on our bushes. I'd like to show you how many we pulled. I would. But, my kids got to them first. And, apparently they like them a whole lot more this year than they did last year because there's only a handful left. This is the second year we've been in the house and the raspberries have lived here much longer. I need to research the growing habits of raspberries because this year the berries are HUGE and so much better than last year. I pulled out the stems that had died last fall and this year the bushes are so much fuller. We even ate some of the golden raspberries and last year they weren't ready until closer to August. I see raspberry pie in the very near future!!

CSA Report

This weeks CSA featured our first squash of the year...

Red Leaf Lettuce
Spinach
Strawberries
Scallions
Garlic Scapes
Sugar Snap Peas
Arugula
Napa Cabbage
Amaranth
Summer Squash
Chard

Harmony Valley Farms Strawberry Day

OK...

...so we had every intention of attending, but the weather was iffy, the kids were less than well behaved and the thought of traveling 3+ hours with them kvetching in the backseat was less than appealing.

Looks like we missed a really good time.

You can see what we missed here- Simple Good and Tasty

New CSA Box

So we picked up our new CSA box from Harmony Valley Farms, and much to our delight, we got the first Strawberries of the season... We love them with a touch of sugar and Balsamic Vinegar, but I want to try this recipe.


Here is the rest of the contents...
Red leaf lettuce
Kohlrabi
Spinach
Red radish
Scallions
Garlic scapes
Broccoli
Salad mix
Napa cabbage
Red Komatsuna



Dear wife made this fantastic Potato Au Gratin with some potatoes we had laying around, and added the garlic scapes, the scallions and used the rest of the Cheddar we got in the Cheese CSA last week.






In other news, our garden is starting to show some life!

A few tomatoes starting to grow...

And a couple of the peas that are starting to form...