Best. Corn Muffins. Ever.
It makes me queasy putting an entire stick of butter into anything, not to mention the bacon and cheese, but these corn muffins really are yummy and quite filling. They're good for breakfast, with soup for lunch, and with various dinner meals.


Bacon-Scallion Corn Muffins with Cheddar Cheese
[from Cook's Illustrated]

1. Heat oven to 400. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray.
2. Grate 8 oz. cheddar cheese (2 cups) & set aside. Fry 3 slices bacon cut into pieces in a small skillet until crisp and brown, about 5 minutes. Add 10 to 12 scallions, sliced thin, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper; cook to heat through, about 1 minute. Transfer mixture to a plate to cool.
3. Whisk 2 cups of flour, 1 cup cornmeal, 1.5 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda to combine.
4. In another bowl, whisk 2 eggs until well combined and light colored. Add 1/2 sugar, whisk until thick and homogenous. Add 1 stick of melted butter in 3 additions. Add 3/4 cup sour cream and 1/2 cup milk and whisk until combined. Add 1.5 cups of cheese and bacon/scallion mixture. Add to dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
5. Drop in mounds into muffin tin and sprinkle with rest of cheese. Bake until light golden brown and skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18 minutes.

Mutant Fruit!

I sliced open an orange yesterday, only to find another, smaller orange, peel and all, growing inside. Freaky! That's weirder than the uncut Cheez-Its or Oreos with the cookie facing the wrong way.

Beet It
Foodgoat doesn't like beets. That didn't stop me from buying some last weekend.

I can't really say that I like beets though. I've only had them once or twice, and they were canned. They didn't particularly impress me. Kinda wet and sloopy.

Still, I find them oddly fascinating. They're bright. They are a major source of sugar. They can turn your pee red (only if you happen to have that double recessive gene, phooey).

With the faint memory of canned beets, I decided to roast 'em whole, with a bit of olive oil and wrapped in foil. I like roasting things, even if it does take a really long time. I'm kicking myself for not remembering to microwave it first, as you can do for potatoes, but there's always a next time. An hour or so later, I pulled them out, and discovered hot beets are not as easy to peel as they make it out to be.

Sliced and sauteed in a little butter (which may have been an entirely extraneous step), I served them on a bed of sauteed kale (see yesterday). And they were pretty good, firm, not mushy. Now, Foodgoat say he likes beets. Ahh, the wonder of fresh vegetables.

I swear to you, I will not let the cream of spinach fall, nor our greens kale
I haven't much felt like blogging lately. Instead, I've been eating Oreos, doing downward-facing dogs, pointing and laughing when American Idolers forget the lyrics, and seeing if I recognize any of the registered sex offenders in my neighborhood. But fear not, we've been having food adventures too. For example ...

Kale sounds like the name of a out-of-wedlock love child of glassy-eyed, poseur celebrities, doesn't it?

And maybe, indeed, there is a little Kale somewhere out there, still with a clean record, and if he/she is lucky, the third time in detox will be the charm, and he/she will finish out life raising alpaca for high-end vests. But there's also kale, the leafy green vegetable that looks like a cross between cabbage and lettuce. I picked it up at the farmer's market, determined to expand our greens repertoire beyond romaine lettuce (which, let's face it, isn't all that exciting, though it's admittedly better than iceberg) and spinach (which is exciting and a Foodgoat favorite).

Apparently, kale was especially popular in Northern Europe, seeing as it grows happiest in colder climes and contains all kinds of happy vitamins. Seeing as how Foodgoat is of mostly Southern European ancestry, and there isn't any part of me that is happiest in colder climes, kale was new to both of us.

Kale is huge. Big. The leaves, flat and cabbage-like around the stem but ruffled and curly on the edges, barely fit inside the sink. I suspect it's sort of a primeval, prehistoric cabbage, something gigantic dragonflies nibbled on when they were on a diet or couldn't find gigantic ... uh ... whatever gigantic thing it is that gigantic dragonflies liked to eat. There is also a tough, thick center stem that you have to cut out, which is pretty easy since the leaves fold in rather nicely.

Supposedly you can use kale just like spinach, so Foodgoat used it to make cream of spinach, or rather, cream of kale. We had our doubts though. Kale looks and smells a lot more like cabbage. But you know, cooked-up, it was indeed quite close to spinach-tasting. You could sort of tell the difference, and Foodgoat still preferred spinach, but not too much. And like cream of spinach, cream of kale was excellent when topped with feta cheese. (To be fair, everything is excellent when topped with feta cheese). So kale got a thumbs up.

Two weeks later, I still had a big bag of kale left over. It was a little wilted, a little yellow around the edges, so I thought I'd chop it, saute it in olive oil, and no one would be the wiser. Well, no. After a couple of days, the delicate kale flavor becomes very strong. Darn. Wish I'd read that earlier. Because that sauteed kale was bitter and tough and most emphatically not good.

You Keep Your Nasty Chips
Of all the things I've introduced Foodgoat to, he likes shrimp chips the best. Who wouldn't? It's right up there with Cheez-Its as the salty snack of choice. Shrimp-flavored chips may not sound like the most appealing thing, but it's gooood & crunchy stuff.


And now they make a wasabi flavor! Here's what to expect: you put it in your mouth, then Whoa! Spicy! Spicy wasabi!!! But then, huh, it's not so bad. And then, hmm, that's pretty good. Followed by ... gimme another one. They are so addicting. Fortunately, bizarrely, you can now buy them on Amazon.